Twiddla (online resource)

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April 15, 2008 by Paul Hamilton

Loyal subscribers will notice that it’s been a while since my last post. I’m probably more sorry about that than you are. That’s because there is just so much that I’d like to write about! Sometimes, there are neither enough minutes in an hour, nor enough hours in a day. I’m back with one of those resources that has really grabbed my attention because of the potential it offers to all learners. Thanks once again to Molly, everyone’s favourite Demo Girl, for sharing it and for demonstrating what it can do.

Twiddla bills itself as a free “web-based playground” that requires no set up. Twiddla is indeed an online tool that offers a real time collaborative white board where people can work together to accomplish a variety of tasks with all manner of digital media. I think there’s also potential to use Twiddla as a presentation tool, as a study aid, and for creative expression.

For collaboration, Twiddla offers a whiteboard that can be shared by multiple users, as well as built-in audio and/or text chat that allows people to communicate conveniently while working together. In addition to putting whatever you want on the virtual whiteboard to brainstorm, or to create an effective presentation, you have the opportunity to bring web pages into Twiddla and to mark them up. It seems to me that marking up web pages is a terrific study aid for the learner or teacher who is doing or sharing online research.

Twiddla’s user interface is straightforward and extremely easy to use. Molly’s screencast at DemoGirl.com shares some additional features and does an excellent job of showing how it all works. I’ve embedded that here for your convenience. If you want to see a larger version of the screencast, you can do just that by going directly to DemoGirl.com.

Posted in Art, Digital Story-Telling, Free Resources, Image Manipulation, Media & IT, Online Resources, Presentation Tool, Productivity, Study Skills, UDL, Web 2.0 | Tagged collaboration, collaboration tool, collaborative whiteboard, demogirl.com, Twiddla, webpage markup | 5 Comments

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5 Responses to “Twiddla (online resource)”

on 16 Apr 2008 at 12:09 am1 Marie

Couldn’t see if could type directly to whiteboard. Great tool for online learning environment.
on 16 Apr 2008 at 10:17 am2 Paul Hamilton

I agree, Marie, this is a great learning tool. There are 3 options for typing text on the whiteboard–directly, into a speech bubble, or on a sticky note. –Paul
on 17 Apr 2008 at 10:30 pm3 Pat Wagner

Thanks, Paul. I could see this as having more of a novel application than it being the best tool for collaboration, but I think something a little different is important for this kind of interaction every now and then. It’s also faster than desktop sharing. I wonder what sort of delay time there would be in between audio and the receiver seeing changes though.
Thanks for the lead on this though.
on 19 Apr 2008 at 5:24 pm4 Patricia Donaghy

Nice find Paul. I think this one could be a really useful tool!
Patricia
on 10 May 2008 at 4:46 pm5 murcha

Thanks Paul, for directing me to this post, via twitter. I am interested in the various online collaborative tools and will be keen to see how this compares with elluminate and flash meeting. Have you tried either of those?