Tuesday Tech Tip: Reading (and Annotating) Web Pages in Your Browser

Our last Tuesday tech tip was about reading & annotating library books in your browser, and this week's tip is about reading & annotating web pages in your browser.  Since we're using Chromebooks, we'll be focusing on the Chrome extension for Scrible (a free tool currently in beta).  However, you can use Scrible on other browsers (and you can also use its bookmarklet on Safari on iOS).

Once you have the Scrible toolbar extension added to Chrome (and in CCSD, we can push that out to all students in a grade level or school if we wish), a toolbar like the one below will appear at the bottom of web pages (you can drag it around the page after it appears).

This tool bar lets you annotate a web page in 32 different colors, add sticky notes in 32 different colors, change font colors, or change formatting.  You can also create a "legend" for the different annotations on the web page (useful if you would like students to label their color schemes).  If you don't want to annotate or highlight a page, you can click the "x" to close the tool bar (you can also change the options for the extension to not automatically load on every web page).

Once you've highlighted something on a page, you can hover over it to get more options (Delete, Change Color, Attach Note, or Share).  

Students don't need accounts to do highlighting or annotation, but if they need to save it for later access (and for sharing with teachers or peers), students can log in using their CCSD Google accounts.  A student account gives you access to a citation generating tool (which exports to EasyBib), free storage, and the ability to email annotated pages, and share your entire bookmark library.   More information about the student version features can be found on their blog.  Teachers can create a free account and then request an upgrade to the educator version.

Currently, they are working on adding a web-based PDF annotation feature, but this free tool has a lot of potential for our students as they do more and more online reading.  It's definitely worth a look!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Creating and Managing Bookmarks in Chrome

With the plethora of information available to educators on the internet, it's difficult to remember where you found that great article/lesson plan/education blog etc. By using the bookmark tool in Google Chrome when you are signed in (see "Signing into Chrome" from last week's Tuesday Tech Tip), you can easily access all of your favorite bookmarked sites without having to worry which computer you have them saved to, or where you wrote down the url. Google Chrome will automatically sync and update your bookmarks for you making them available to you wherever you are signed in to Chrome.

Creating a bookmark in Google Chrome

When you are signed in, you can either bookmark the page you are on or simply enter the web address for the site you would like to bookmark. Then, click the star icon located in the address bar on the far right side.  Once you've clicked the star, you'll notice it has turned yellow, and the menu of options for where to save the bookmarked page appears. From the drop down Folder menu, you can choose to save your bookmarks either to your bookmarks bar across the top of your browser window below the address bar, into the "Other Bookmarks" folder, the "Mobile Bookmarks" folder, or you can create a new folder to hold specific types of bookmarks (by content, grade level, resource type, etc.) Tip: To add a new folder at any time you can right-click the bookmarks bar and select Add folder.

Other ways to add bookmarks in Google Chrome

• You can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D on a PC, or ⌘-D on a Mac
• Import bookmarks from other browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, FireFox, etc.) using the Chrome menu .
• Manually add a bookmark by right clicking in the bookmarks bar and selecting "Add Page" 
• Drag a link from the page you are viewing to the bookmarks bar or a bookmark folder. Also, you can drag the globe or lock icon in the address bar (to the left of the url) to create a bookmark for your current page. 

How to find your bookmarks

You can view all of your bookmarks in 3 places:

• Bookmarks bar: Located directly below the address bar. You can toggle the bar to be visible or to not appear below the address bar. This can also be accomplished with the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut on a PC, or ⌘-Shift-B on a Mac.

• Bookmarks menu: Click the chrome menu (see left) on the browser toolbar and select Bookmarks.
• Bookmark Manager: This makes it easy for you to organize your bookmarks. 

Edit or delete bookmarks

To organize your bookmarks, you can drag and drop bookmarks to move them around on the bookmarks bar. If you do not want to see a bookmark on the bookmark bar you can store it in the "Other bookmarks" folder. This folder cannot be deleted, but it won't show on the toolbar if it is empty. When it's hidden, you can still add bookmarks to the folder using the bookmark manager. 

To edit the details about a bookmark, find the bookmark either on the bookmarks bar or in the bookmark manager and right-click on it, select Edit from the menu. Then, you can update the bookmark's name, url, and folder. 

To delete a bookmark, find the bookmark either on the bookmarks bar or in the bookmark manager and right-click, select Delete from the menu. Note: If you delete a bookmark folder, you also delete all of the bookmarks inside the folder as well.