FINALLY! Chrome Screencastify!

As a work around for not having screencasting capabilities on my Chromebook, I would do a Google Hangout by myself, capture to YouTube, and screenshare to record the screencast. Then I'd have to go back and edit out my initial clicking around to screenshare. While this worked, it was cumbersome and inefficient. I've been patiently waiting a Chrome screencasting app that doesn't use Java, and have instead been using Screencast-o-matic on my school and home computers. So imagine my excitement when Richard Byrne's post sharing Screencastify came across my newsfeed! After installing the extension in my Chrome browser, I immediately tried it out.


To record a tab, click on the icon in your browser and a window appears to access settings and start/pause/stop recording. To learn more about how to use Screencatstify, check out their YouTube video.


I had some issues with it dropping audio and frames and had to change the setting to 1FPS to record the following screencast and it wouldn't let me direct upload to YouTube.  Now I was using this on my home WiFi network which is limited in bandwidth, so I wonder if I would encounter the same issues at school on a better network, and I have 2 different Google log ins (one for school & one for home), so I wonder if the multiple log ins contributed to not being able to upload to YouTube. I was able to save the file to my Chromebook and then upload it manually to YouTube without issue.

Overall, I can't complain, and since Screencastify is still in Beta, I anticipate that any issues I have will be resolved with time as the developers receive feedback. I've waited this long, so I can be patient for just a bit longer.

Tab Scissors & Glue: Extensions for Chrome Use

Tab Scissors and Tab Glue are two extensions to use for quickly splitting your tabbed browser windows into groups and "gluing" browser windows back together. As a teacher who has to transfer grades from my Edmodo gradebook to my district gradebook, both extensions save me time minimizing and sizing windows. Anything that I need to do using split screens can be done more efficiently with Tab Scissors and Tab Glue.

Check them out:

Enough Time for Two

So it is summer time and I'm supposed to have lots of time to do lots of things: blog, write content, create presentations, read, catch up on laundry, organize closets, clean those not regularly cleaned areas, watch movies, go on vacation...   As I'm sure for many of us, there is struggle between devoting enough time to work, home, and self.  So rather than wallowing in not enough time (here's a conundrum: how can I wallow when there is no time to wallow?), here are two tools to help organize our time while on the computer--whether it be at home or work.

Task Timer

This nifty tool can be found in the Chrome Web Store and allows users to create a list of tasks with time goals in hours.  Create your list and set your time, then hit the icon to start recording the time spent completing the task.  For those of us who multi-task, multiple tasks can be timed at the same time (say that 10 times fast). Current features include task descriptions, progress bars, desktop notifications, pie charts, and CSV exporting. This tool could be used by teachers for in-class monitoring of time spent on aspects of a lesson as well as keeping track of how much time spent on housework at home. Just type in the task, click start, do what you have to do, then hit stop when done. By taking inventory of how long tasks take, we may find that certain tasks can be truncated to free up time for others.

Web Timer

Web Timer is aptly named for this Chrome extension keeps track of the time spent on the tab you are actively using. Features include a pie chart for visualizing data, stops counting if idle for more than 30 seconds, easily share stats with others. For time management, students and teachers could use this in class for keeping track of time spent on a particular website, and for those of you who are Pinners, this extension can track your time spent on Pinterest--although ignorance may be bliss in this case. Wanting to keep to a schedule while working online, this extension is very useful.

Out of Time 

While I would have liked to find and post more tools, I'm out of time! I only had 30 minutes to get a post out and both of these tools kept me to my schedule by allowing me to see how much time I wanted to spend and actually spent. Time to log off and get outside! 

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.

Roger Babson

What are your favorite time management tips, apps, and extensions?