23 Mar, 2007
Firedoodle – Ink Webpages and Save for Later!!
Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: General
Today I came across Firedoodle, a Firefox extension that allows you mark up ANY webpage with an ink like interface and save multiple placemarks on the webpage. This article reviews the extension and it’s educational potential.
What it Does
Here is a great video created by the author that shows some of the capabilities:
There are two basic features at this point (remember this is the first beta release… I’m sure more features are coming):
- Highlighting (including different colors, size, and opacity)
- Placemarking – for long documents.
Student/Teacher Uses: The applications in Education are immediate and apparent. More and more content is available online and presenting that content to a class in a way that is useful is crucial. Teachers could:
- Mark up a document in advance for class discussion
- Mark up a document during class to emphasize certain points.
- Have students mark up documents for assignments
- Save placeholders in long documents before class for easy navigation during class discussion.
- Save placeholders in documents for research.
Limitations and Hopeful Future Developments:
Right now there is no way to erase a single marking. You can erase the entire screen, but not a single marking. It would also be nice to have a pencil/pen tool for writing notes on pages for those with tablet PC’s.
The biggest development that I think is needed is a social aspect. Some way to share information with others. If there were a way to combine the inking capabilities of this program with the social capabilities of Trailfire… that would be perfect. Then students/teachers could harness the power of the net and share with everyone!
What other possible uses can you see in education?
