Multimedia Critique Paper #1

Clayton S. Cook

EDIT 720

Jing by TechSmith

Jing, by TechSmith, is a free screen capture tool that is offered among the other

TechSmith options. Jing allows you to capture all, or a portion of, the computer screen at which

you are working by using crosshairs that you drag over what you want to capture. However, you

are not limited to just copying a portion of the screen. Jing has an intuitive feature that allows

you to capture the entire screen at one click of the mouse by hovering the cursor over the edge of

the screen size that you want. You can choose the entire screen, or any full window size

contained within. For example, you can capture an entire internet screen-sized page, or you can

just capture the active window, minus the tabs and address bar (see below).

Figure 2: Full Screen without tabs and address bar

Figure 1: Full Screen Capture with Tabs and Address Bar

When Jing is activated, the screen is grayed and the crosshairs appear. To help make

your capture easier Jing “freezes” the screen so you do not have to rush to capture the perfect

image. The screen will stay grayed as long as the crosshairs are activated. This is extremely

helpful if you want to capture a portion of something that is moving or animated, like a video.

For example, if you want to capture a particular item in a YouTube video when you activate the

Jing sun and the crosshairs open, the screen grays and the image on the screen freezes. This

allows you to capture that perfect image even while a video continues to play.

Along with offering screen capture capabilities, Jing also offers another very unique

feature, the ability to make customized videos up to minutes in length. These videos are made in

the same way as the still pictures, by activating the Jing sun and dragging the crosshairs over the

portion of the screen you want to capture. When the video option is chosen, a 3 second

countdown will begin. When recording starts, your microphone is also activated. This allows

you to add narration to your screen capture.

Figure 3: Two Colors

Once you have made your screen capture, Jing will open a window showing an image of

what you captured. From this window you can do several things. Jing offers you the ability to

add arrow call-outs, box call-outs, text boxes, and highlight certain items. You can even change

the color of the tools you use as to differentiate between items in the capture itself (Fig. 3). This

helps people separate content visually in a much easier manner. The most commonly used of the

call-outs is the arrow tool. The arrow tool allows you to quickly and easily drag an arrow to

point to anything in your capture. The length and direction of the callout arrow is dependent

implicitly on how far the user drags the mouse. As long as the mouse button is pushed, the user

can manipulate the arrows. However, when the button is let go, the arrow is placed. It can still

be moved and resized in much the same was as an image is done. The same rules apply to

placing a callout box and the text box. What makes the text box unique among the sizing of the

tools, is that it can be placed by either clicking where you want the box placed or you can drag it

to the size that you want it to be, much in the same way a text box can be drawn into a document.

Ways to Use Jing

There are several ways in which you can use Jing in the classroom setting. One use for

this multimedia tool is to create tutorial packets for students, and even adult learners, to reference

when using new software and tools. These tutorial packets can be to direct learners how to use

the tool or even as a way to provide screenshots to learners who are experiencing difficulties

following technical directions (Schnotz, 2015).

Another way in which the Jing tool can be used is by using the free video recorder to

record the screen as you walk through very specific steps which a learner may need to see the

movement of the mouse instead of just following a set of static images. By having the ability to

add narration to the video, the learner can not only visually follow the actions on the screen,

h/she can also follow along with the spoken word simultaneously, as stated in Mayer’s Cognitive

Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2014). A teacher could also use the video tool to make

short video segments on ways to work out math problems or to even tell a short digital story.

(Malamed, 2014)

A third way in which Jing can be used is to use the tool to make screen captures of

various events from a video or digital story and have students arrange the images in the correct

sequential order. An offshoot of this could be for students to use Jing to make screen captures of

a particular step of a butterfly’s life cycle, such as the chrysalis, and then insert that screen

capture into a premade document in the correct place. This would require the student to be able

to not only identify a chrysalis and how to search for one, but also how to insert it into a

document then manipulate the placement. These are just a few examples of the ways in which

Jing can be used in an educational setting.

Overall Review of Jing

Overall, I find Jing to be a very powerful tool, especially considering that it is offered for

free through TechSmith, the company who also boasts Camtasia and Snagit. The tools offered

by Jing allow teachers, or anyone, to customize screen captures to enhance learning and guide

audience attention to important elements of the capture using the callouts. Not only is Jing very

intuitive and easy-to-use, it also boasts a very clean platform with very minimal extraneous

materials with which to get bogged down (Driscoll, 2005). All of the tools are housed in the Jing

“sun” that is positioned very nicely on the very edge of the computer screen. The position of the

“sun” can be changed by simply clicking and dragging it around, however, when the mouse

button is released, it snaps back to the nearest edge. The “sun” is activated by simply hovering

the mouse of it. The options will shoot out of the sun and you simply click the one you want to

use. Another wonderful addition to Jing is that when you make a screen capture or video, it is

automatically assigned a URL and is stored forever in the Jing memory so easy access.

Jing allows the user to capture the screen the completely customize it to fit his/her needs.

With options to add arrows, texts, squares, and highlights, Jing can turn a simple screen capture

into an information filled image. Since the tools are in the hands of the user, the extraneous

material is kept to a minimum with the important information being enhanced.

Jing can be downloaded for free at https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html. There you can

also find step-by-step tutorials to help you get started.

References

Baddeley, Alan. Working Memory. Science, Vol. 255, No. 5044. Jan, 1992. Pp. 556-559.

Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Malamed, C. (2015). Visual design solutions: Principles and creative inspiration for learning professionals. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

Mayer, R. E. (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd). New York: Cambridge.

Mayer, R. E. & Anderson, B. (1991). Animations Need Narratives: An Experimental Test of

a Dual-coding Hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 3, 484-490.

Schnotz, W. (2014). Integrated model of text and picture comprehension. In R. E. Mayer (Ed),

The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. (pp. 72-103). New York:

Cambridge.

Sims, R. (2015). Beyond instructional design: Making learning design a reality. Journal Of Learning Design, 8(3), 33-41.