Tech Tidbit video: Scrawlar.com

The latest "Tech Tidbits" tutorial video focuses on Scrawlar, which is a free website that allows teachers to sign up for a free classroom account and add students to a class roster. During the sign-up process, the teacher will create a unique access code (consisting of lower-case letters and/or at least 1 number) which will allow students to access the class account when they log in as students. When a student is added to the class roster, the site creates a log-in number that each student will use to sign in.

Scrawlar serves as an online word processor/whiteboard sharing site that allows teachers to save and share documents and/or whiteboard screens with students.  When sharing documents with students, teachers can choose to let students view or edit documents.  In turn, students can create and share documents and/or whiteboard screens with the teacher as well as other students in the class.  Teachers can utilize this site to help share information with students for collaborative projects or to check for classroom activities such as morning work or as formative assessments.  Students can also use the word processor or whiteboard functions to submit informative reports or displays without the use of e-mail.  

Tech Tidbit Video: Appear.in

This week's Tech Tidbit video focuses on Appear.in, a website that allows you to set up a unique temporary video chat/conferencing room online for you to invite others to join you in a video conversation.  After you create a unique video chatroom name, send out the link to up to 8 other people for them to join the conversation!  You can also mute the microphone, disable the webcam, and share materials on your screen to the other participants in the chat.

The advantage of using Appear.in over using Skype or Google Hangouts is that it doesn't depend on anyone signing up for a Skype or G-Mail account...there is no registration or sign-in required...just create the unique URL address and share it out.  If you are using an iPhone instead of a laptop, you will need to download the Appear.in app from the iTunes store first.  (Unfortunately, the app doesn't appear to be in the Google Play store yet, but that may change in the future.)  You also cannot archive the video chat as yet.  However, this site seems to be a hassle-free alternative to more involved video conferencing tools.  Give it a try!

(Oh yeah, the screencast didn't pick up the audio from my friend when she conferenced in!  I could hear her just fine, but the mic didn't pick up the sound.  Otherwise, I would have included more of our conversation!)

Tech Tidbit Video: HemingwayApp.com

My latest Tech Tidbit video focuses on HemingwayApp.com, a free website application that allows you to copy and paste bodies of written text into the page.  The site will then analyze the content of the writing and identify the text's level of readability,as well as the number of paragraphs, sentences, words, and characters in the text.

The site also identifies how many sentences in the text are considered "hard to read", and "very hard to read", and offers suggestions for how to improve and clarify the writing.  There is a pay version of this site that offers more features, but this site provides a chance for the user to check their writing for errors, as well as suggestions for clarifying their phrasing.