Techsmith announced today the release of SnagIt version 11.1, free to owners of version 11, meaning everyone who has the Palomar College licensed version of SnagIt.  Chief among the new features is the ability to capture system sound when capturing video.  Unbelievably they released version 11 without this ability built-in, and I suspect it was the most commented on oversight ever with a TechSmith product, unless it be the unaccountable dissimilarities between the Mac and PC versions of Camtasia.  Especially in view of the fact the Jing, TechSmith’s free video capture tool, is being deprecated...

Our longtime followers know that we really like Jing, the free screen image/video capture utility from TechSmith.com.  We love SnagIt and Camtasia, TechSmith’s full-featured image capture and video capture/create/edit programs, but they cost money.  Jing is free, and has a thousand uses in academics, from grabbing a screen to illustrate a point in a lecture, to narrating/recording a brief PowerPoint presentation (Jing is limited to 5 minutes of screen video capture), to commenting on student papers in a screen video that can then be sent to the student, and so on.  If you are new to Jing, get...

We will be conducting our annual summer tech camp August 3-6.  Don’t bother signing up because it is fully subscribed.  (Sorry).  It is still over 5 weeks away, but I thought I would review the tentative agenda we have pretty much agreed on so that attendees, and perhaps those planning similar events at other schools, will have some insight into what we are doing. Our inspiration for tech camp this year is the TED talks concept.  If you are not familiar with ted.com, rush to that web site without delay to be exposed to the best and brightest people in the world in the fields of technology,...

This is a continuation of my interview with the Academic Technology Systems Administrators about technology planning at Palomar College.  In this part we focus on some rubber meets the road issues like paperless environments, AV technologies, telephony, and lots of other issues.  The written response of the technicians is provided in the post below, and the audio of an interview with them follows the post. Additional Questions for ATRC Staff 1.  Would you support a goal of creating a paperless environment at Palomar College, if it meant that you would not have access to printers and would have to...

I posted on Jing yesterday. Today I have created a short screen video that demonstrates how to provide audio-video feedback on student papers using Jing. You can mark up student papers using Word or Acrobat or some other tool, and while doing so make comments and let the student see just what you are doing while you narrate the suggestions for improving the paper. The advantage, beyond having more impact, is that your audible comments can be much more extensive than the sometimes terse comments you have space to write.  Jing is a free download, and when you download it you will get 2GB of storage...