Screen Capture

If you recall my last post was about screencasting, or recording the actions on your screen. This is a useful tool for creating videos for a flipped classroom, or just providing instructions for your students. For this post, I wanted to mention a related tool: screen capture. Screen capture tools allow you to select a portion of what is visible on your computer and either save it or paste it into a document, website, etc. For example, you can select a photo along with its caption, a specific portion of an article, or part of a map. These images can then be used for discussions, assignments, writing prompts, etc.

The tool that I use is Jing from TechSmith. It's called Snag It in Google Play and iTunes. It’s free. Jing does require a download. Below is an example of a screen capture of a bird’s eye view of the high school. With Jing, you can add text, arrows, frames and highlighting. I've highlighted the library in this photo. I should add that you can use this tool to create screencasts, but I find Screencastomatic works better for videos.

Another option is to use the free “snipping tool” that comes with Windows 7. With this tool, you can add writing and highlighting. An example is show below. To access this tool, go to:

Start Button > All Programs > Accessories > Snipping Tool

Right click on this icon to send a shortcut to your desktop for easy access. 

There are many more screen capture tools. So feel free to add any tools you like into the comment section of this post.

Next up: Web 2.0 resources where these tools can be helpful.