iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

In the very impressive Chinese Olympic opening ceremonies China’s four five major inventions were featured:

1. Gunpowder
2. Paper
3. Moveable Type/Printing
4. The Compass
5. Masses of Cheap Labour

My job at Brock as an “Educational Technologies Support Specialist” not surprisingly involves a lot of support, primarily of faculty using the web as an educational tool. I do a lot of meetings and workshops, but here is a list of the tools that I’ve found invaluable in helping people use technology remotely or asynchronously:

1. The Wiki: A few year ago I created the WebCT Wiki to help document WebCT at Brock and some its idiosyncrasies. It proved to be a great resource to build an FAQ in and write up a few instructions for how to do a few things. The wiki format ensured it could be updated from anywhere by anyone.

   Though it was mainly me and my colleague who contributed to it the ability to post something to address an issue immediately and later refine it was very helpful. I’ve taken the approach that if I think I’ll have to explain something again it’s worth adding to the Wiki where I can either direct others to or simply copy and paste an answer from (the latter being my preference).

   Recently a I spearheaded a project to bring an academic wiki server to Brock that is just getting started: kumu.brocku.ca

   Google recently added their old Jot Spot acquisition to their Google Sites.

   OS: Web based, Cost: Free (open source) + web server
2. Jing: Jing is the best option for quickly recording a “screen cast” or taking screen shots. It’s a stripped-down tool that fills a niche below Tech Smith’s other product Camtasia.

   Screen casts (videos) of how to do something can quickly be recorded of the whole screen or just a section of it and posted to the web as a flash screen.

   Screen captures (images) can quickly be taken and annotated with text, arrows and shapes.
   
   Read more... (488 words, 4 images, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

   OS: Mac & PC, Cost: Free + web server