What I believe would be the best service would be a service that develops an easy way to capture any part of a web page (header, video, image, description, etc.) that you want to be bookmarked in a clipboard area that looks like the "Cover Flow" view in iTunes, or the "New Tab" view in Chrome. None of these applications come close to that vision however.
Pinterest: I was really excited when I learned about Pinterest. The first thing I did was request an account. The second thing I did was create a "Web 2.0" board. It was so easy! Just click the red button labeled "Create Board", name the board, and voila! I was even more excited. Then I tried to "pin" one of my favorite web 2.0 apps, Prezi, at www.prezi.com. This is what I got:
Awesome! And Worthless!
I tried a few other web 2.0 apps that I liked. I either got the same message, or an image that I detested. And then I forgot about Pinterest until this started being publicized this summer:
EduClipper: EduClipper is a lot like Pinterest. In fact, it might be the exact same product rebranded under a different name. Wait, there's an introductory video to set the record straight and to clarify the differences:
So I just want to analyze the raison d'être of Educlipper from this video for a moment by asking some rhetorical questions:
1) "Social Networks are great, but not everyone we need to share with is connected." Really? And eduClipper bridges that gap?
2) "It's school friendly, and student safe" What on earth does this mean? And on the flip side, if eduClipper is not simply rebranding Pinterest, then does that mean that Pinterest is school unfriendly and dangerous to students?
3) "You can 'clip' anything you want... absolutely anything!"
Great! Let's try the same thing I tried with Pinterest!
1) First I created a 'clipboard' called "web 2.0".
2) Next I installed the 'eduClip IT' button in my bookmarks bar on my Chrome browser.
3) I then went to www.prezi.com, and clicked the eduClip IT button, to choose my capture options. Here is what eduClipper gave me as bookmark options:
Just to be clear, the only option that is available is the eduClipper logo.
Edit: The founder of EduClipper was kind enough to send me a very nice message (which is posted below), pointing out that:
a) At least one other person besides myself read this post, and
b) I was perhaps being too harsh for this new product. I agree. So let me just end this short review of EduClipper saying that it's not a good enough app for me to use consistently right now, but I look forward to trying out future iterations of the tool.
I like Clipboard. It can bookmark the prezi homepage, which is plus, or any prezi project I created. It's kind of a slick interface too. After you install the Clipboard Clipper-Thingy on your browser, when you find a page or part of a page you want to save, just click the button. Then, "Hover over the part of the page you want to clip, and click to save it to your home page on clipboard.com." As you move the mouse, different parts of the page will turn glassy blue, signifying which area you can make a bookmark. But it's not perfect.
The hovering thing gets kind of annoying when I can't get the blue glassy rectangle to cover exactly what I want it to cover. I would much prefer to actually have a clipping tool where I could define the clip area myself (like in any photo editing software) instead of the clipper just trying to guess what I want.
I wrote a lot about Symbaloo here. The more I play around with other bookmarking tools, the less I like it. It takes too much time to create buttons, and they're not that visually appealing.
During the summer, it occurred to me that I like Pearltrees the best. The pearls are about the same size as Symbaloo buttons and you really can't tell a whole lot from looking at them, but it is by far the easiest process of the five to bookmark a page. Once the pearltree button is installed in your browser header, anytime you want to bookmark a page simply click on the button. If you have several pearltrees already built, a drop down menu will appear, and you just select the pearltree you want the page to be bookmarked in. Very simple, and no typing.
Here's a Pearltree I'm building as a resource to teach digital citizenship in the classroom:
Thanks for checking out the early alpha of eduClipper. I appreciate your comments and criticisms. As a product dedicated to making the best curation and portfolio tool for education we are very in tune with what teachers and students want / need in the classroom. What you see now is literally the tip of the iceberg and we have a great number of major revisions, new features, and other changes up our proverbial sleeves.
I won't debate your opinion because you are certainly welcomed to it. What I will do is offer to talk via Skype or Google + to share some of the roadmap that we have planned and get your feelings towards our current and future plans.
As I said, I appreciate your remarks and would hope that in addition to ripping an early tool apart you will jump at the chance to help a dedicated educator build to the vision of what you had hoped the tool was instead.
Hello Ryan, Your blog is very educational. I'm a library information specialist (elementary school librarian). When talking about bookmarking, where do place scoop.it as a curation app? Is Scoop.it a bookmarking tool?
Hey Ryan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking out the early alpha of eduClipper. I appreciate your comments and criticisms. As a product dedicated to making the best curation and portfolio tool for education we are very in tune with what teachers and students want / need in the classroom. What you see now is literally the tip of the iceberg and we have a great number of major revisions, new features, and other changes up our proverbial sleeves.
I won't debate your opinion because you are certainly welcomed to it. What I will do is offer to talk via Skype or Google + to share some of the roadmap that we have planned and get your feelings towards our current and future plans.
As I said, I appreciate your remarks and would hope that in addition to ripping an early tool apart you will jump at the chance to help a dedicated educator build to the vision of what you had hoped the tool was instead.
Best,
Adam
ReplyDeleteHello Ryan,
Your blog is very educational. I'm a library information specialist (elementary school librarian). When talking about bookmarking, where do place scoop.it as a curation app? Is Scoop.it a bookmarking tool?