February-What is Jing and is it Contagious?

        First, let me say that I feel so blessed to be surrounded by teammates that are continuously looking for ways to improve their instruction and stay on top of the newest tools.  At our February 1st Inspired Writing meeting, they not only told me about about this thing called Jing, but they were incredibly patient with me while I downloaded it on my computer and played around with it a bit.  They also shared some of the ways that they are using this tool in their classrooms.  As a person who sometimes needs a little push to add anything else to my plate, let me just say--Jing is worth it!
      With Jing, you can make a 5 minute video that does not need to be stored on your computer and give the link to anyone you choose.  My mind is still processing the possibilities of it!  With help, I made some video conferences for my students.  Essentially, I take a Google doc that one of my students has written and talk about their next steps as I highlight things on their actual document.  For example, one student got a video conference on using transitions in a more natural way, while another got one on using complex sentence structures to help fix those run-on sentences.  It generates so much enthusiasm for writing on the days that my students know that they are going to get a video conference from me. They truly appreciate the one-on-one instruction that they get.  It can be time consuming to make them, and I don't have it all figured out, but when I saw the impact, I knew that it would become an important instructional tool for me.