twiddla in the classroom

By: John Frezza, Ben Hassenger, Wouter Laleman, & Allison Scovone

Background music (will duck when narration is being done): "Sleepless" by Marconi Union

Tone of Voice: Excited and Up-Beat to grab the listener’s attention

Narration (spoken by ______): Finding ways to get students engaged and participating in lessons can be challenging. A tool that allows students to collaborate while being held responsible for their own learning is Twiddla.

Transition to next slide: "Gallery" setting from Google Presenter will be used for all slides.

Written by: Allison

Will be produced by: Allison using iMovie after a screen capture is done via Camtasia

Background music continues

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla is probably a tool you have not heard of before. But it has many features that may look familiar to you such as a "whiteboard" and EtherPad.

Tone of Voice: Matter-of-fact

Written by: Allison

Narration (spoken by ______): In essence, Twiddla is an easy way to collaborate with people all around the world. Getting started takes seconds. You simply go to the website and click "Start a New Meeting" and you are taken to your own "sandbox". You can then invite people to join by using their built in email system or sharing the link with your friends. You don't even have to sign up. Anyone who does not have an account will be given a guest id. However, you can customize that ID with your name making it easier to differentiate among participants.

Reading notes: when describing how to invite people and changing the ID, say it while it is being performed in the video.

Tone of Voice: Clear and easy to understand. Evenly paced since these are instructions.

Image: Screen recording showing the steps being described in the narration.

Written by: Allison

Narration (spoken by ______): Once participants are all present, you are ready to interact. You have the option of communicating on the canvas, a chat room, or audio chat. [pause until after the noise is made that signals audio chat is working] In audio chat, you can signal when you want to talk, when you agree, when you want to thank someone, or if you find something funny. You can join the chat directly through Twiddla, via Skype, or they can call in from a phone.

Tone of Voice: instructional

Image: Screen recording showing the features being described in the narration.

Written by: Allison

Features of TwiddlaNarration (spoken by ______): You may be asking yourself, what can I do once I have a room set-up. The answer is several things.

Tone of Voice: questioning, then matter of fact

Written by: Allison

Draw Tool

Narration (spoken by ______): you have five main tools at your disposal that you can use to add or change content on the "sandbox". These tools are browse, select, draw, erase, shapes, and text. The draw tool allows you to draw various lines. You can choose the line color as well as the thickness.


Image: Screen recording showing the use of the draw function in Twiddla.

Written by: Allison

Text and Select Tools

Narration (spoken by ______): The text feature allows you to add callout boxes, sticky notes, clear textboxes, and rounded ones. You are able to adjust the font, size, and font attributes. If you want to move one of the items on the page, you use the select tool. This tool also allows you to resize objects.


Image: Screen recording showing the use of the text and select functions in Twiddla.

Written by: Allison

Shapes and Erase Tools

Narration (spoken by ______): You can add circles, squares, rectangles, straight lines, and rounded rectangles. You can choose the outline color and line weight. If you want to adjust what objects are in the front, you can go to the select toolbar. Erasing is really just adding a white paint brush stroke over a portion of your canvas. You can delete the entire stroke or an entire object by selecting it and dragging it to the trash bin at the top of the page.


Image: Screen recording showing the use of the shapes, erase, and trash can functions in Twiddla.

Written by: Allison

Five Main Interfaces:

Narration (by ______): Twiddla has five main interfaces to work off of. These interfaces serve as a medium for users to interact with. The five tools are a whiteboard, any non-Flash web page, EtherPad, an uploaded document, or an uploaded image.


Written by: Allison

Whiteboard

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla's whiteboard allows you to manipulate a blank canvas using the tools discussed above. You can also add background shapes to the canvas.


Image: Screen recording showing the various background shapes that can be used.

Written by: Allison

Webpage

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla's Webpage feature allows you to display a webpage, navigate through it, and highlight or erase certain selections. You are also able to chat or talk about it while doing so. Here's an example of how I would use it in my English as a Second Language class by showing the students how to navigate through and use my teaching links webpage. Note that the browsing tool is utilized. When you rollover an image, you have the open to "Swipe" it, which means make a copy of it. If you click a link with the browsing tool, it connects you to that page.

Tone of Voice: instructional, personable when discussing how its used in classroom, return to didactic when discussing the browsing tool

Image: Screen recording showing the navigation of a webpage and the different tools that can be used with it.

Written by: Ben

Images

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Narration (spoken by John): With Twiddla you can insert images such as photos, clip art, or videos. Once your image is chosen you can then maneuver through it and search for key areas.

Tone of Voice: Instructional


Written by: John

More Images

Narration (spoken by John): Now that you have your image you can use some of the features available to highlight different areas of your image to enhance presentation. You can also add text to describe image and focal points.

Tone of Voice: Instructional


Written by: John

Narration (spoken by ______): There is a lot that Twiddla can do. However, it's important that when teachers decide to use technology in their classroom that it is not for superficial reasons. There are many ways that it can be used authentically. We'll discuss some of them here.

Tone of Voice: matter-of-fact

Written by: Allison

Why Twiddla?

● No plug-ins and don't have to make an account- easy for students

● No limitations on the number of participants

● If you choose to make an account, educators can upgrade to a pro account for free. According to Twiddla, in order to get a free account, you need to:

"Sign up for a Free Trial, then send us an email from a .edu address (or whatever screwy extension they use in your land), and we'll hook you with a Pro account free of charge. We're at [email protected]. Be sure to include your username!"

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla has several features that make it ideal for the classroom. One of the main benefits is its accessibility. Workspaces can be created without the creation of an account or use of an email address. Furthermore, Twiddla is free. Educators can even upgrade to the pro version for free. This allows for simultaneous meetings, ability to store images or documents, unlimited storage, and presenter or moderator controls.

Tone of voice: matter-of-fact

Written by: Allison

Interactive Whiteboard

Before

After

Student identifying a geographical feature of a map by using Twiddla as an interactive whiteboard.

Narration (spoken by ______): : Many teachers lack interactive whiteboards. Twiddla could be used as a rudimentary interactive whiteboard. Teachers could upload images or documents and have students interact with the media by coming up to their computer or passing around a tablet. They may be asked to label features such as on a map or edit and revise a document.

Tone of voice: sad about lack of technology, then upbeat because a solution is available.

Written by: Allison

Parking Lot

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla could be used by students or staff during meetings and professional development as a parking lot for their questions. The moderator of the session could then go to those questions at the end and address them. The answers could be posted for all to see. It could also give participants the opportunity to have a discussion about those questions.

Tone of voice: matter of fact

Written by: Allison

Teach Research Skills

Narration (spoken by ______): teachers could use Twiddla to help teach research skills. For example, the teacher could pull up a webpage and model how to determine whether it is a good resource of information. The teacher could mark up spots where the author uses opinions rather than facts as well as places on a site that may be useful in determining its authority and currency.


Written by: Allison

Images to Support Research

Narration (spoken by John): This feature could be used as a tool to support topic with pictures and custom tags to inform reader.


Written by: John

Support Research

Images to Support Research

Narration (spoken by John): This feature could be used as a tool to navigate while pointing out items of interest and fun facts!


Written by: John

Collaborative Brainstorming Tool

Narration (spoken by ______): the shapes and drawing tools of Twiddla make it a great tool for student brainstorming for projects and papers. Once students have completed their brainstorming, they can save their image. If there is an account associated the image can be saved there. Otherwise, students could take a screenshot of their graphic organizer.

Tone of voice: upbeat then matter-of-fact

Written by: Allison

Collaborative Problem Solving

Narration (spoken by ______): One use of Twiddla is collaborative problem solving. Teachers could post a problem on the site and have students work together (at school or at home) to try to solve it. Twiddla tracks what each user does on the canvas. This is a benefit of Twiddla over pencil and paper group work, since teachers can see what each person contributed.


Written by: Allison

Twiddla can also do equations:

Collaborative Problem Solving

Narration (spoken by ______): This could work for more complex mathematics because Twiddla has an equation feature. However, this would be better suited for upper grades because it can be a bit unwieldy. It is quite similar to Equation Editor in Microsoft Word.


Written by: Allison

Go to www.twiddla.com and you'll be in your own workspace in seconds.

There is so much to do...

Narration (spoken by ______): Twiddla has many features to try out! The best way to understand it is to try it out yourself.

Tone of voice: excited

Transition: fade to black

Written by: Allison

twiddla in the classroom

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