The impossible possible

So a teacher teaches a class of 4th years across the oceans... cool.

Amazing how the World has changed in the last 20 or so years. Computers, Internet, Broadband... 3 things that didn't exist (for the rest of us) 20 years ago, 3 things that are indespensible now, three things that have forever changed the way we work, play and live.

And the treasure of free software!!! Practically everything you need to fire up your computer into a super Working/Entertainment/Communication/(Take your pick...) Machine is yours for free. You don't have to choose between offerings - you go where your friends recommend, try out everything and stick with one, more or all of the above... And with Web 2.0's new found interactivity in the browser, it has come to a point that a free download looks like too much work (talk about spoilt).

So now it is possible to have two teachers, without a budget, coordinating a class between the UK and New Zealand, the teacher in NZ teaching a ICT graphics class, a classroom of 4th years learning avidly on their computers(under the hawk eye of the second teacher of course) in the UK, following along as their teacher talks on skype and demos on skrbl (did I mention - no budget?).

The most amazing part of the whole tale? That it doesn't astound, that we take all this in our stride.
Kid in a candy store? Bah! he's got nothing on us.

Son of video

First there was the skrbl video on YouTube. Released January 22nd 2007 (ah the good old days... sigh!) with commentary in German.
And now many moons later here is (trumpets & drums) another.


This video is by a teacher & shows the skrbl whiteboard in action as a classfull of students discuss Arthur Miller online. The quality is a bit fuzzy but it really shows off skrbl in action. With all those students skrbling simultaneously, the whiteboard is like a live thing. I can imagine how good it must feel to a teacher just watching the online interaction freeflowing action, reaction, collaboration... 'group think' is a good description.

I've blogged about skrbl in the classroom before and I think this is the same teacher.
Thank you sir.

Veni, vidi, ship

This is a very exciting time for us - We just launched the skrbl team edition and this is a big deal because it is our first paid service. Go on try it out, we think you will find its cool new features very useful.

Skrbl is doing fine, and we thank our users for making these numbers possible, essentially since Dion Almaer's little mention in December 2006.

But I would be remiss if I did not add the proper disclaimer - We counted all the users who ever used skrbl. That is people who joined a whiteboard and logged some activity on it. This means some users will have been counted multiple times - especially anonymous guests (for obvious reason) and users with multiple accounts. The whiteboard count represents all whiteboards created, not necessarily whiteboards that are active today.

Those were the numbers in late August, we'll update them again in October. Once again thank you folks for using skrbl, we hope you also try out the team edition and make it a success.

Scribbling...

Ever needed to copy text from one computer to another? Got frustrated trying to reference complicated bits of text (GUIDs, registry keys, file paths…)? This is where the original idea for skrbl came from.

I work from multiple computers (2 laptops and a few servers), also I use remote access tools to get to offsite servers. Sometimes there is a need to copy text from one box to another – for instance an error code or debug message from test machines that I have to refer to on the dev machine. Sounds so very simple, but anyone who works from multiple computers can vouch for my frustration.

Sure there are workarounds
- Log into email from both computers and email yourself
- IM yourself using 2 different IDs
- Save your text in a file and share the drive
There probably are many other hoops you can jump through to make it happen, but we figured there had to be a better way. Getting a scrap of text from one computer to another should be as simple as 'copy AND paste', hence the core idea of skrbl- a web based clipboard. A place to park notes on the Web so you can get to them from any computer. From this original concept of sharing notes with yourself, it was natural progression to go on to 'share notes with others', and skrbl grew from a personal tool to also becoming a whiteboard for team collaboration.

Keeping in mind the simplicity of 'copy AND paste' we have tried to get that degree of simplicity and ease of use into the core skrbl functionality. It is the simplest thing on the web to start skrbl, just one click, you don’t even have to login or register! It’s equally easy for others to get to your whiteboard – just give them your URL.

This is just the beginning for skrbl, while it is useful as is, we are working on adding new features. Saving and sharing notes on the web is the first step, so many scenarios suggest themselves that it is difficult to pick one. Our users are a big help, we rely on you to tell us how you want to use skrbl, and we prioritize what you ask for. The end goal is to grow skrbl into an online ‘desktop’, with features for personal use and for team collaboration, to merge the convenience of your desktop with the access of the Web.

Hopefully we’ll get there… one feature at a time.