Jing, Camtasia, and Course Overviews

Consider putting a course overview in your Blackboard classes.  An overview can explain to your students what content has been placed inside your courseshell and recommend how best to interact with that content.

An excellent way to provide an overview is through a video that captures screen content in real time and provides your voice explaining that content.  Two software programs, which are both easy to use, can do that: Jing and Camtasia.  

Jing has the advantage of offering a free version.  Yes, it limits videos to 5 minutes or less, but for many occassions, 5 minutes is sufficient.  In fact, many online instuction guidelines recommend organizing  captured lectures in segments of no more than 15 minutes.

Camtasia is a powerful commercial software program that also supports screen captures with voice over.  Camtasia is available to faculty in the Leestown A-136 Distance Learning Office (contact: Karen Dearborn) and ITS's Cooper MB 130B training center (contact: Connie Rine).