This is probably something that those of you reading this have heard many times … technology should be used as a tool with a real purpose, not just because you have it, or think it looks good, or because you like it … and that is what being a learning technologist is all about isn’t it … taking a technology (hardware, software, website, the latest gadget …) and figuring out if and how it can be best used as a tool to support learning? I guess I really am stating the obvious here but bear with me … this is my first post to a blog and I’m feeling a little nervous!

I am in the process of examing a number of these ‘tools’ at the moment (see the Box of Tricks 2.0 area in the RSC Wales information and resources site) and had a eureka moment with one of them which I had seen and dismissed a few months ago … Jing … the simple to use online screencast tool. Initially I thought that the likes of Wink and Captivate were much more useful because they had far greater functionality … and then I needed to put together a very quick demo of how to do something in Moodle for someone and realised its worth. As well as me being able to ‘teach’ someone how to do something very quickly I can see how it could quite easily be used as a means of capturing evidence as to a learners ability to complete a short online task … searching the web effectively, adding a formulae to a spreadsheet …

If you haven’t seen it before have a look at the Jing I created in seconds about our RSC Wales Information and Resources area (the lack of editing and fancy twiddly bits are deliberate … less is more and all that jazz) – any comments welcome.

Phew … first post out of the way, hopefully things can only improve from here