Seven ways to share links in a classroom or during a presentation or workshop

Submitted by Fiona Beal
How do you share links with others during class or in a workshop? I have used several methods and thought I would document and share some of them in a blog post.

SHARING LINKS IN A CLASSROOM SETTING

1. Use Google Classroom
https://classroom.google.com/

 I use Google Classroom with all my classes. Truth is, I love the application. Whenever I have a class at school the first thing everyone does is log into their Google Classroom account where everything I want to share with the class is waiting. If I have collected a list of links on a topic for them to investigate, the  list is right there in Google Classroom. My school is a GSuite school, but if you are not you can still use Google Classroom with your class as long as your learners have Gmail accounts that you can link to it. 

2. Use the SharetoClassroom Chrome extension https://goo.gl/5b64di

If we are in the middle of a lesson and I want  to share a new link with my class that isn’t in their Google Classroom list of links, I use the SharetoClassroom  Chrome extension. I think this might  have been developed by Alice Keeler. If you install this extension  you can push a link to your students immediately in their Google Classroom. They don’t need to type out the URL. You have to be using the Chrome browser for this to work. SharetoClassroom  makes sharing announcements, assignments, and  any web page URL with learners very easy.

To see how this works click on the demonstration below made by Jenn Scheffer  of Burlington High School.

3. OneTab

https://goo.gl/SSidq

A quick way to share a list of web resources with your learner or with others is to use the
Chrome extension called OneTab. This is one of my most used and FAVOURITE extension. You, as the teacher, could conduct a search on a topic opening a new tab on the Internet for

each result. (If you hold down the Control key in Windows or Command on a Mac when clicking on a link it will open the destination URL in a new tab.) When you have found your list of resources which are now on multiple tabs, click on the OneTab extension to save these into a single list. OneTab basically closes all of the tabs with just one click to form the list. Each tab can be reopened just as easily. You can save the list or share it as a web page via a QR code that it generates.

Watch Alice Keeler demonstrating how OneTab works.

SHARING LINKS IN A WORKSHOP

4. URL shorteners with custom wording or QR codes

URL shorteners allow you to shorten your lengthy web address hyperlinks to something shorter and more manageable. If you use the Chrome browser  you can add these URL shorteners as extensions which makes the URL shortening eperience so much easier!  So, for example, you may be visiting a website that you ant to shorten and share with someone. All yopu do is click on your URL shorteener and it soes the job immediately. Your URL shortener will make it short enough for people to copy or to be able to add it to a document and enable it to look neat within the document. I have three URL shorteners that I like to use mainly because they are also Chrome extensions which means, as explained, you just have to click on them rather than opening them on their own websites to get the shortened URL. 

a) bit.ly.com
I like to use bit.ly because it enables you to either use their number/letter combination or to create a custom link of your own wording which is far easier to share than a bunch of numbers. You’ll notice in the image that I have opted to use www.bit.ly/SNSA-Science

b) Goo.gl

The Google URL shortener is also a favourite of mine because it is a Chrome extension (easy to click on) and also because it creates a QR code which you can easily share with others.

c) Tinyurl.com
Tinyurl cn be used on its website or as a Chrome extension. As a Chrome extension it simply shortens the link. As a website it gives the option of creating a custom URL using your own words.

5. Google Tone
https://goo.gl/TSWBWH

Google Tone shares websites via sound! Google Tone turns on your computer's microphone (while the extension is on) and uses your computer's speakers to exchange URLs with nearby computers connected to the Internet. You can use Google Tone to send the URL for any web page to any computer within earshot that also has the Google Tone extension installed and turned ON. They’ll receive a Google Tone notification.

Watch 2minute Teacher Tech demonstrate this.

6. Open a  backchannel using TodaysMeet
https://goo.gl/zArFPG

Today'sMeet is designed to be a backchannel that you can create and others can link to, but this versatile tool can be used in many other different ways. To create 

To create a room, just go to TodaysMeet.com, give your room a name (no spaces, full stops or certain other characters). Decide when your  room will close (i.e. how long you would like it to exist - the maximum being one month). Then click “Create your room.” and share the link. From then on  everyone can communicate and chat in the link. 

Watch Edtechteachers demonstrate how it is used.

7. Share your whole presentation via Google Drive 
An easy way to share all your links duing a presentation or workshop is to share your whole presentation via google Drive so that everyone can log into it. One would need to use one of the URL shorteners or the customised links, or even a QR code to share it.. 

There are other ways in which o share links but these are the main ones that I currently use.