Use Jing for a variety of things!

I've been playing with a product called Jing. It allows you to make videos that capture your desktop with audio. It's free, easy to use, and allows you to create 5 minute videos. You can then send students links to the videos, or embed them into your coursepages or webpages.

Typically, a professor would use this product for recording content. It's good for showing step-by-step processes. Here's some other ideas that you might not have thought about...

• Have students record a short presentations on the key insights of an article they are reading this week. They can easily share the links in their discussion boards and forums.
• If students don't understand how to work a problem in Excel, have them send you a video, showing them working through it, and you'll be able to see exactly what they are doing wrong. (or right!)
• Rather than having students send an excel file with their answers to a test, have them actually record a video solving a single problem on the test.
• Give students audio feedback on assignments, rather than typing in everything you want to say.

Here's a sample video, so you can see how it looks: http://www.screencast.com/t/6N8TzVsas4