Day 28 – The Snipping Tool, a Pen, and a Windows 8 Tablet walk into a classroom

A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning - Day 28

Tuesday, January 1, 2013  

Sometimes it is the simple things in teaching that can make a big difference with a student understanding a point or concept you are trying to get across. 

The Snipping tool is one of those tools that often goes underappreciated and overlooked by teachers. Many probably have never heard of the snipping tool but for teachers it is definitely worth knowing about.  A common task for teachers is to draw the attention of the learner to specific items on the computer screen. One way to do this is to isolate an area of the screen so that you can draw attention to a specific area.

The Snipping Tool is available in both Windows 7 and Windows 8 but it is with the combination of the snipping tool along with Pen input and a Window 8 Tablet that makes for a very powerful and easy to use illustration device for teachers. The Snipping Tool is only available on the Desktop side of Windows 8 but I often use this tool to take a screenshot of an area on the screen and then illustrate on top of the screenshot using digital ink. This is particularly effective in real-time when students can watch what I annotate on the screen.

I particularly like the Free-form Snip where I can use the S-Pen that comes with the Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500T Tablet to make a free-form snip. I use the S-Pen to draw an irregular shape around the objects on the screen I want to emphasize.

I now use the snipping tool so much that I have pinned it to the Task Bar on my Desktop in Windows 8. You can also make a Rectangular Snip, a Window Snip, and a Full-screen Snip. Once you have made the snip you can use digital ink to annotate and label it. You can also save the Snip to a file and post it to a webpage or email it to students if you would like to. I have provided a screen shot of the Snipping Tool below:

                                                                                                                                  

One of the best features of this Windows 8 Tablet is the digitizing Pen that it comes with. The S-Pen provides a precise and controlled method of input that is lacking with many other tablets. Using your fingers to draw and annotate is not the same and seems very primitive once you have used a digitizing Pen. If you do not know about the snipping tool I encourage you to give it a try.

Keep on Learning,
Dr. Grissom

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

http://eiu.edu/itc/