Screencast, Instagram, and Flipagram

For this blog post assignment, I will be reviewing Instagram, Flipagram, and Jing's usability as classroom tools.

Instagram

Like most social media applications nowadays, Instagram is incredibly versatile and can be used in a variety of ways. In the classroom, Instagram helps bring a world of pictures to the palms of every student with a smartphone or ipad.  If proper security and safety measures are taken such as web filters, this app can be a great addition to the classroom. For my example, I used a recent field trip I went to with senior students at Roma High School. Ideally, this account would be a "class account" view-able only to those with granted access to it, and the picture would be taken by students.

Student Legislative Session 2017

A post shared by Eleazar Resendez (@resendezeleazar) on Nov 16, 2017 at 11:08am PST

Flipagram

After looking over Flipagram, I found myself wondering how Instagram manages to still thrive. Flipagram does the same job than Instagram, yet it has more components. In all honesty I didn't look over both apps sufficiently to call Instagram completely obsolete, however I can say Flipagram has some nice add-ons that I didn't readily see on Instagram. And like Instagram, Flipagram can have an endless amount of uses in the classroom.  For this example, I created a short version of #ReadingSelfies

View on Flipagram

Jing

Jing was the last tool I used, and I found it to be the easiest of the three. Though none of them were particularly difficult to navigate, Jing's limited buttons and icons made its use, seamless. Based on how I used it, I do see how it might have its limits in the classroom. Still, this tool seems great for sending lessons home to homebound students. For my example, I do a simple keyword search for books in the Roma Middle School Library.