Jing+ScreenCast+-+Tribbit

**Instructional Media ScreenCast: Tribbit**
ScreenCasts are an amazing way to give an audiovisual tutorial to a student. By creating a flash video of anything you do on your computer screen while you narrate the steps you give the viewer an extraordinarily simple way to follow along. Screencast.com uses the free tool [|Jing] to allow recording up to 5 minutes of audio and video of anything you do on your computer screen. You can view my screencast describing the use of the website tribbit.com by clicking the banner image above, or via this link:[| Jing ScreenCast - Tribbit]

Tribbit.com is an online tool that allows the user to create multimedia time lines on any subject they wish. The website is not especially geared toward educational use, but the potential is there, which is why this screencast is important for use along with an assignment for my virtual class. I am asking the students in the distance learning course I am designing to create a time line of of the life and career of filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Since the tribbit.com website primarily contains social and "fun" projects, the screencast allows me to show the students how this tool can be used for an educational purpose. The ease of use of the Tribbit interface and the dynamic product makes it an ideal learning tool, even if that is not the use for which it was originally intended.

I am using Tribbit as a collaborative project for the students taking my virtual course to allow them a fun, interactive way to incorporate facts that they'll garner from readings and videos about D.W. Griffith. I have not used many group projects with my students in the past, an incorporating a web 2.0 tool as opposed to a more traditional means of learning is a new experience for me. Taking a tool that is meant for "fun" and instead finding a use for it as an educational tool is also somewhat of a new experience for me. Teaching a history-related class tends to imply traditional means of education, and when teaching film history in a face-to-face setting I often find myself relying on a lecture+reading+testing formula. These types of projects have opened up many new doorways for me in exploring alternative means of teaching. I imagine other educators could find some excellent uses for a tool like Tribbit in almost any grade level or educational setting, and I hope I am able to find other non-traditional tools like this in the future.


 * RESOURCES:**

Screencast.com (2010) Retrieved from []

Tribbit.com (2010) Retrieved from []

Lichterman, Russ. (2010). //Tribbit ScreenCast.// Retrieved from http://www.screencast.com/users/Russ812/folders/Jing/media/91748ad0-8f6a-41dd-a785-c0f8adddcdcd

Griffith, D.W. (Director). (1915). Trailer from //The Birth of a Nation.// Video retrieved from []

D.W. Griffith. (2002, December 22). In //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. Retrieved 21:03, February 14, 2010, from []

//The Birth of a Nation// (n.d.). Retrieved from IMDB: []