The first site I tried out was the URL shortener goo.gl. Seeing that Google will soon own us all technologically and that I use a Google Site as my primary website, I figured it was the best site with which to become acquainted. I did check out bit.ly and TinyUrl to compare, but did not find any discernible difference. I pasted my websites full address (http://sites.google.com/site/hurricanehocking) into the shortener text box, clicked shorten URL, and out came goo.gl/Jezk6l.
This is amazing and solves many problems that I oftentimes run into in class. Look at my regular URL. Students sometimes assume to type in www. or think that it is sites instead of site and vice versa. Of course, once students get to my site, I have them bookmark it so we don't have to go through the painful process again. Utilizing the URL shortener would mostly solve that problem. I'm sure all of us would like to have www.ournamehere.com, but domain hosting is quite costly. One caveat I noticed is that all letters are case sensitive. The J in the goo.gl URL must be capitalized. I tried it lower case and it did not work. It's not a huge deal, but you do need to be very specific. In contrast, typing in GOOGLE.com or GooglE.com will take you to the same place.
The second site I tried out was the Quick Response (QR) code generator delivr.com. The site is set up very similarly to the URL shortener sites. Simply paste a URL into the QR code generator and out comes a QR code. I figured I would paste my new goo.gl URL in to see if I could blow my laptop's mind with web 2.0 awesomeness, but all it did was simply make a QR code. Look to the right.
Believe it or not, I actually recently started to use QR codes. In my Video Productions class, one of the students does a student survey via Poll Everywhere on a weekly basis for our weekly announcement projects. He just distributes paper with the QR code, URL, and response options and students, during lunch, scan it with their phone and take the poll. I'll have to mention utilizing the URL shorteners for that so students without a QR reader can participate a little bit easier. I also envisioned utilizing the QR codes in class with the laptops. Turns out, most readers for the macs cost money, but I did find one at http://dansl.net/qrreader/ and tried it out. It didn't work. Maybe because I do not have a steady hand or even lighting. That is something I would need to research more before using in class.
The third and final site I tried out was the bookmarklet Quietube. I was not very familiar with bookmarklets until after learning about them and trying this one out. This was not as quick a process as the URL shortener or the QR code generator. I'm a bit ashamed, but I had to watch the tutorial video. After that, however, I did generate a Quietube URL (http://quietube6.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAYZBS40lcc) for a video I show my Guidance class. And of course, to simplify things, I created a short URL http://delivr.com/27red (this time with delivr, obviously). Now that I've tried delivr's generator, I think that the URLs generated are simpler than the other sites.
I do not think that I would use this site that much. I much prefer to just embed videos on my Google Site. I do understand the benefits of Quietube, especially if I were to send students a link, but I more like my way.
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