Scrawlar is one of the best things I have learned about as a Web 2.0 tool. It is completely free, requires little prior knowledge and can be accessed by one website: http://www.scrawlar.com. Once you get to the website all you do is click whiteboard demo. This can change the way students do their homework, notes and how they analyze information.
I have learned that this is a 2.0 tool that requires no plug
in (which has been a problem in our school and the different sites we use) In
the school I teach we have white boards and marker that we use daily for
different subjects. This tool lets the students customize their own background
so they can have their own “white board,” and be able to do the work on their
computers. Our school is a 1:1 school with MacBook airs. This can be a website
they bookmark and use to keep notes, write what I write on the SMARTboard and
be able to jot things down and save as a screen shot.
The ways to use this 2.0 tool is to go to the website. Then
you can customize the background, use text and change the color of that, use a
marker and write with your mouse, create shapes, create lines and save colors.
This can be used for notes, school work and can replace the white board markers
(that can run out of ink) and save time getting white boards and passing them
out. One way I can utilize this is in math class. We can do the work on their
laptops and they can do problems that I am doing in the front of the room and
save it to their math folder for notes.
Then the students can go back in their screenshots and see
how to do the problems and how to get the answers as a reference. This tool was
very cool to look into. I will be using this in my classroom. This 2.0 tool can
be used for all grades K-12. I was completely impressed on how easy it was to
access. Students in the younger grades could use this for sight words and
practicing spelling words. Older kids could use this for notes and schoolwork.
This could even go to the extreme of being homework and creating PowerPoint’s
of how they did their homework. Another way students could use this is to
“teach” a lesson on how to do a homework problem. Screen shots could help them
be the teachers. I believe that all students will learn better if they become
the “teacher” at some point in time of the lesson.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI can see why you want to start using this in the classroom. I was glad to see that it was appropriate for all ages since I teach First graders. In addition to it being easy to use and requiring no plug-ins, data is safely stored and no student emails are needed. It seems that there are an endless number of uses for this. It is a great tool for promoting the 21st century skills we want our students to have: collaboration, communication, problem solving, analytical thinking and creativity. Using this in the ways you suggest would really create a classroom community that would foster these skills. Everyone would learn from everyone else. I came across this blog that lists ways that scrawlar can be used in the classroom.
http://scrawlar.com/blog/?page_id=29
I'm sure this list is going to grow as more people discover this tool. Absolutely amazing!
This web 2.o tool is very similar to one that I posted about earlier which is simply called whiteboard. I was wondering with this tool, you said that students can take notes. Do their notes save to an account, or is it more that they have to save it via screenshot? That would be great if the notes were saved or archived somehow. Also, this is a really great tool, especially for any classroom teacher who doesn't have whiteboards, like me. I would suggest looking at the application whiteboard too to see which one you like better! Both are awesome tools for a brief informal assessment!
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