So with this experience in mind and the work we’re doing in our 791 class about the impact of visuals on learning, I tried to find tools that would help me be more impactful with presentations or collaborative work that I do with teachers or with students. The tools I chose are Snagit and Kaizena. I chose Snagit because I often need to share directions or steps with staff about a new tool or program so I thought this would be a great way for me to create mini tutorials. Rather than sending out long emails with a lot of text, I can “snag” shots of each step and add simple annotations to help give visual cues. I also have seen Jamie demonstrate this type of app for creating content and she described it as super useful.
Another tool that I chose was Kaizena. This is a Google Add-on that allows me to add voice comments to google docs or slides. I love this app! I’m sure for all of us it seems like our whole work lives are housed in our Google drive. Much of my work is collaborative with my leadership team as we make plans for professional learning, or with a grade level PLC as we plan curricular units, etc. Much of the time, my role is to try to probe people’s thinking and to ask why? I am often the facilitator while the teams are where I want the thinking to come from. Using voice comments, will be a huge help in giving feedback and suggestions without having to clutter up their work. I do this all the time in Seesaw with students, so now I have a tool to share a quick thought or response with our adult learning.
As I shared in a previous blog, I do use a lot of video in my presentations for professional learning so I’m anxious to explore how Edpuzzle can be used as a tool for adult learning as well as in the classroom.