New Features

December 7, 2021 By scrible

Scrible Gets a New Look and Layout

We’ve given the Scrible Library a makeover and made other improvements throughout the system!

Updated Design

In addition to an overall move to a brighter, white interface, we’ve made dozens of smaller changes to buttons, fields, messages, windows, tooltips, icons and layout for design consistency to give the Scrible Library a more modern look and feel. We’ve also made numerous improvements to give the Scrible Toolbar and accompanying On-Page Sidebars more breathing room (e.g. more padding/spacing in dropdown menus) and make them easier on the eye (e.g. larger color swatches and text size in dropdown menus).

Consolidated Library Sidebars

We now have a single sidebar area on the left of the Library to display each of the available sidebars (Libraries, Tags and Annotation Key) one at a time since there’s no great need to have two of them open simultaneously. This simplifies the interface and eliminates the previously possible busy layout in which you could have the Libraries Sidebar open on the left and the Tags Sidebar or Annotation Key Sidebar open to its right. Now, each of those is only viewable one at a time. All sidebars can be collapsed when not needed to give you more screen space to view the contents of your Library.

**New Add from Sources Sidebar and Button**

Under the Bibliography Tab and Outline Tab, there used to be a Sources Sidebar on the right that would display your sources and allow you to add citations to your bibliography and annotations (e.g. highlighted evidence) to your outline, respectively. That sidebar now appears on the left as the new Add from Sources Sidebar. It still works the same way. It’s just folded into the new consolidated sidebars area on the left. When you’re in the Bibliography Tab or Outline Tab, you can open/close this Sidebar using its own tab. When its closed, you can also open it by clicking the new Add from Sources Button.

**Outline Editor with *Add from Sources Sidebar* open**

Source Description Back in the Library

We’ve brought the Source Description back to the Library so you can see a brief helpful blurb about each source there. These descriptions have always been available, but were not displayed alongside each source in the Library.

Remember that you can enter/edit the description for a source in 2 places – in your Library and in the Information Sidebar on a source (e.g. webpage or PDF). In your Library, click the Information Icon at far right of the source entry to display the Information Window, where you can enter/edit the description. When viewing a source, click the Information Sidebar Tab on the right to view the Information Sidebar, where you can also change the description field.

You can enter your own description for webpages and PDFs. We automatically provide one for books. When there’s no description, we show a preview of the first annotation (if there is one) in place of the description.

**A description for each source is now visible in the Library**.

Flipped Citation Editor Layout

The Citation Editor layout has also been updated. The autogenerated citation is now found at the bottom and the the constituent fields that make up the citation are at the top. This is intended to draw your attention to those fields so that you’re more likely to check them and see if they require your attention. We hope that helps build the good habit of double checking the fields to ensure citation accuracy.

Remember that the Citation Editor is viewable in multiple ways, including (a) by clicking the Citation Icon at the far right of a source entry in the Library, (b) by clicking the Citation Icon to the left of a citation in your bibliography in the Bibliography Tab and (c) in the On-Page Citation Sidebar when viewing a source.

**Autogenerated citation at the bottom of the Citation Editor**

Updated Browser Extension Button

The buttons for our Chrome and Edge browser extensions are now updated to a teal color that matches our current logo and is frequently used throughout our interfaces. If yours hasn’t changed yet, it should automatically update in the next few days. New button color; same great features!

**New Scrible browser extension button design**

New On-Page Sidebar Tabs Panel

The tabs for sidebars that accompany the Toolbar on right side of a webpage and in our PDF Viewer are now all visually grouped together in a single panel. On a webpage, this panel can be moved up and down using a grip area at the top and bottom of the panel in case it’s blocking underlying content.

You’ve always been able to move the Toolbar on webpages using the grips on either end.

**Sidebar tabs can be moved vertically on an article to uncover underlying content**.

Updated PDF Page Zoom and Navigation Controls

In our PDF viewer, we’ve consolidated the page zoom options in the Toolbar into a single dropdown menu and moved the page navigation controls to the Pages Sidebar (f.k.a. Thumbnails Sidebar). This declutters the Toolbar a bit and sensibly unifies page navigation with page thumbnails.

Page zoom and navigation controls updated in the Scrible PDF Viewer

We hope you like the makeover and that it helps you work more efficiently and effectively. As always, if you have any questions or run into any problems, please let us know!

September 16, 2021 By scrible

Scrible Launches Revamped Assignment Management System

Educators, we’re excited to announce our new and revamped assignment features! Based on feedback from you over the years, we’ve completely overhauled and redesigned how Scrible assignments work from the ground up.

Easier Navigation

Assignments are now more visible by being in the top navigation bar of the website when you’re signed in.

**Assignments are now available directly in the top navigation bar**

Overview: How Assignments Work

When you create and distribute (i.e. assign) a Scrible assignment, we create a special Assignment Library for each student that houses their work for that particular assignment. You can access the work done in these assignment libraries at any time to see how your students are progressing and provide formative feedback. You can set requirements for various aspects of an assignment to create measurable goals for your students. Class-level and student-level progress toward the goals is summarized in an assignment dashboard.

Assignment Distribution Options

We redesigned how you distribute (i.e. assign) assignments to students to give you more options/flexibility.

Distribute via Class/Section

You can distribute an assignment to your classes if you’ve imported/synced them from elsewhere (e.g. Google Classroom) or manually created them within Scrible. If you teach multiple sections of the same class, you can now easily create a copy of the assignment for each section of the class.

Distribute via URL/Code

Don’t have your classes in Scrible? Want to distribute an assignment outside of a class? We now offer the ability to create a URL and code for the assignment that you can share with students. When they follow the link and sign into their account, they’ll be added to the assignment automatically. Alternatively, they can also enter the code on the Assignments Page in their accounts to join the assignment.

**Updated assignment distribution options**

Google Classroom Assignment Sync

If you’ve synced your class from Google Classroom, you can now also sync your assignment so that it appears as an Assignment in the Classwork tab of Google Classroom. If you enable this Google Classroom Assignment Sync, students can access the assignment from there and must submit it from there.

**Scrible assignment within Google Classroom**

Customizable and Changeable Assignments

Previously, you had to choose among 3 specific assignment types (annotated bibliography, research project and research paper), each with its own features. Now, there is a single, base assignment that you can easily configure to meet your needs. You choose which specific Assignment Options and Requirements (described below) to enable/disable based on your teaching and learning goals, thus enabling more flexible assignment design.

Furthermore, you can adjust the options and requirements as the assignment progresses, even after students have started working on it. For example, if you decide to add a writing component to an existing research project, you can simply enable the paper features mid-way through the assignment and students will instantly see the Papers Tab in their assignment library. So, you can update an assignment’s configuration anytime.

This real-time adjustability means you can also expose just the right features to students at just the right time to prevent them from potentially being districted early-on by features they won’t need until later in the process. It also means you can pace and stage-gate student work so that students don’t move onto the next step too early. For example, if you want to review and approve their sources in week 1 before they start their outlines in week 2, you can disable the outline feature until week 2, thus preventing them from creating outlines using bad sources.

Bottom line? You now have more options and greater control when managing assignments!

Assignment Options and Requirements

The options to customize an assignment appear in the Sources Tab, Bibliography Tab, Outline Tab and Paper Tab, all of which appear under the Options and Requirements Tab. Let’s now look at each one of these separately.

Sources

Assignments typically involve information sources (a.k.a. “sources”). For example, a paper assignment will require a set of curated articles with annotated evidence to support arguments made in the paper. You can provide students with sources or require them to curate their own sources within the assignment library.

To include sources for students, you can select sources from your own libraries to add to the assignment. These will be copied to each student’s assignment library and will include any annotations you made on the sources. So, you could highlight noteworthy passages of articles or add comment annotations containing questions you want your students to answer.

Alternatively, you can include bookmarks for sites that you recommend your students use such as specific subscription databases available to your school.

You can also set a requirement for how many sources students need for the assignment. If you set a source count requirement, the assignment dashboard will show a graph displaying each student’s progress towards that goal, along with additional metrics regarding the types of sources they curated (e.g. database article, news article, print source, etc.).

**Assignment configuration options under the Sources Tab**

Bibliography

If your assignment doesn’t require a bibliography, you can disable the bibliography and citation features completely and your students won’t see the Bibliography Tab in their assignment library. If the features are enabled, you can specify the required citation style (e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago) and control additional features such as specifying whether to use an annotated bibliography and/or split bibliography (e.g. for National History Day projects).

You can set the required number of sources your students should have in the bibliography. If you choose to use an annotated bibliography, you can also specify the number of words your students must write in the citation annotation for each source. Note: we call these citation annotations to avoid confusion with annotations such as highlights, comments, etc. Additional metrics will be shown in the assignment dashboard to show progress towards these goals.

**Assignment configuration options under the Bibliography Tab**

Outline

If your assignment doesn’t require an outline, you can disable the outline features and the students won’t see the Outline Tab in their assignment library. We’ll be adding additional options here later.

Papers

If your assignment doesn’t require a paper, you can disable the paper features and students won’t see the Papers Tab in their assignment library. If you enable them, you can also create the document for them to write in for the assignment. This can be a new blank document, or you can select an existing doc from Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive to use as a template. Each student will receive their own copy of the document to work in.

You can specify a word count requirement for the paper, which will display a metric in the assignment dashboard tracking student progress toward the word count goal.

New Feedback System

Assignments now have a built-in feedback system in the form of threaded discussions in a new Feedback Sidebar, which you’ll see on the Assignment Review Page and your students will see on their Assignment Page for an assignment. You and your students can post new messages to initiate topics of discussion. You can provide feedback and students can request feedback or clarifications on various aspects of an assignment. You and they can reply to one another. Once the discussion is complete, you or they can mark it as resolved to minimize and move it to the bottom of the Sidebar. All resolved discussions are preserved and can be marked unresolved to move them back up for continued discussion.

Moving feedback to this new Feedback Sidebar yielded a new layout for the Assignment Review Page that now provides you with more space to view/review student work to the left of the Sidebar.

Assignment Management Example

Let’s consider a research paper assignment. Let’s say you want to focus your students first on collecting sources and finding important facts. So, you create the assignment and disable the bibliography and citation, outline and paper features so your students don’t get ahead of themselves or distracted by the corresponding tabs in their assignment library.

For younger or inexperienced students, you might not want them to search for sources. So, you include sources in the assignment that you’ve previously curated as the starting point for their research. As a result, they can just focus on annotating those sources to find the facts they’ll need.

When the class is ready to move on, you can adjust the assignment to enable the bibliography and citation and outline features. The corresponding Bibliography Tab and Outline Tab will then become available in your students’ assignment library so they can start creating their outlines and bibliographies.

When the class is ready to start writing the paper, you can adjust the assignment to enable the paper feature and create a paper using an existing Google doc as a template, with each student receiving their own copy of the template.

Legacy Assignments

Already created an assignment this semester? It’s still available via the Legacy Assignments section link at the bottom of the new Assignments Page.

Have Questions?

See our new help guides that cover this new assignment management system in detail.

If you still have any questions or suggestions for improvement, including new features requests, please let us know!

January 30, 2020 By scrible

Scrible Adds Assistive Features for Accessibility and Comprehension

Scrible Edu Plans now include new features to aid reading accessibility and comprehension, including Read Aloud, Dictionary Lookup and Translation!

Why?

Scrible’s annotation tools have always helped students digest articles as they read critically to highlight key points and make comments to capture their thoughts about the text. This is true regardless of whether that reading is tied to a larger project or downstream paper.

Unfortunately, the ability to effectively read and comprehend a text is a vital academic and life skill that many students struggle with due to a learning disability, limited vocabulary or lack of familiarity with a new language.

So, based on educator feedback and requests, we’ve now extended Scrible’s ability to support literacy beyond annotation with 3 new assistive features to support text accessibility and comprehension – Read Aloud (i.e. text-to-speech), Define and Translate!

Not Just for SPED and ELL

While originally designed to support special needs and ELL (English language learner) students, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) taught us that designing for students with particular challenges actually benefits all students, including those without the challenges. So, these new features can actually help a broad range of students. For example, the Translate feature helps native English speakers digest a foreign language text.

What’s Different?

You might’ve seen these kinds of features elsewhere. So, what’s different here? Well, building them atop our existing platform and alongside our annotation system allowed us to combine them with that system to offer unique capabilities and enable novel teaching and learning experiences.

For example, a teacher can pre-annotate an article to indicate which parts a student should focus on. The student can later have just those annotated portions read aloud to help them better absorb the content. In this way, the teacher is able to support the student in a more engaging way than in other systems where the student might use a standalone read-aloud feature.

Furthermore, our Define and Translate features take advantage of the Sidebar concept underlying our Comments Sidebar, Citation Sidebar, etc. So, we now have a Definitions & Translations Sidebar where definitions and translations are displayed and retained. Why does that matter? Because a student can later revisit the Sidebar to review the words and phrases they found challenging. In contrast, in some other products, definitions and translations are ephemeral… displayed temporarily and inaccessible later.

Where to Find the New Stuff

Each of the new features has its own new button in the Scrible Toolbar. In each case, you can select text and click the button to have the text read aloud, defined or translated. Alternatively, you can click the button to toggle it on and then select the text to be read aloud, defined or translated. As described above, definitions and translations appear in a new Definitions & Translations Sidebar and are saved there for later.

New assistive features in the Scrible Toolbar and the new *Definitions & Translations Sidebar*

Read Aloud

Read Aloud Selected Text

Select passages and click the Read Aloud Button in the Toolbar to have the passages read aloud in a voice of your choice.* Alternatively, you can toggle the Button on first to enter Read Aloud Mode and then select the passage.

**Toggling on the *Read Aloud Button* and selecting text to be read aloud**

In this case, every text selection you make with the modified mouse cursor is read aloud. The selected text is underlined orange and each word is underlined green as it’s spoken. The reading can be paused or cancelled via the Read Aloud Context Menu that appears over the selection.

**Selected text shown as it’s read aloud**

Read Aloud Annotations

Click on an annotation to see its Annotation Context Menu and then click the Read Aloud icon in it to have the annotated text read aloud.

You’ll see the annotated text underlined orange and each word in it is underlined green as it’s spoken.

Choose a Voice, Pitch and Speed

Choose Read Aloud Settings from the Read Aloud Button dropdown in the Toolbar to see options to change the voice to a different gender or accent and to change the speed and pitch of the voice.

Define

Use the Define feature to find the definition for an unfamiliar word. When you select the word and click the Define Button in the Toolbar (or toggle the Button on and then select the word), the definition appears in the Definitions & Translations Sidebar, where it’s saved and remembered for later. So, if you’re later re-reading a passage and need to see its definition again, it’s right there for you.

Translate

Use the Translate feature to translate to/from 50 different languages. Click the Translate Button Dropdown to see and select the to/from language options. Like with definition results, translations are shown in the Definitions & Translations Sidebar, where they’re saved and remembered for later.

Our Edu Plan users can translate single words. Edu Pro Plan users can also translate a phrase or longer passage.

When translating a word to/from English, you’ll see a translation dictionary type list of possible translations for the word, including the part of speech and back translations for each of the possible translations.

* Available voices for Read Aloud and the ability to highlight the words as they are spoken will vary based on browser, operating system and the voice selected.

October 8, 2018 By scrible

Scrible Now Supports Co-Teaching

(Image credit: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction)

Educators whose school, district or campus subscribes to Scrible Edu Pro can now add co-teachers to their classes. A co-teacher has the same access to all sections, student assignments and class libraries as the teacher who created the class. For those who sync their classes to Scrible from Google Classroom, we now automatically sync co-teachers in Google Classroom into their classes in Scrible.

You can view the co-teachers for a class by going to your Classroom page in Scrible and choosing your class from the list. This will open the Class Page, which lists the sections of that class. Click the edit icon to the right of the class title to edit the class details.

On the subsequent Edit Class Page, you’ll see a new section for Co-Teachers displaying the current list of co-teachers for the class.

If you’re using Google Classroom, you won’t have the Add Co-Teacher Button. You’ll need to add co-teachers in Google Classroom and let them sync over to Scrible via our Google Classroom Sync.

For classes that aren’t being sync’d from Google Classroom or other applications (like a learning management system (LMS)), click the Add Co-Teacher Button and enter your co-teacher’s email address to invite them.

After they’re invited, when they’re in their Classroom page, they’ll see a pop up notice alerting them of their pending co-teaching invites. When they click on this alert, it’ll pop up a list of co-teaching invites that allows them to accept or decline each invite.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this new feature. Let us know what you think!

— The Scrible Team

October 8, 2018 By scrible

Scrible Expands Support for Books and Print Sources

(Image credit)

Scrible Edu Pro has long offered the ability to add books and print sources to your bibliography via the Add Offline Source feature. We’ve now taken this to the next level! The Add Offline Source option has been replaced with two new options: Add Book and Add Print Source.

Working with Books

When you add a book, as you enter its title, we suggest potentially matching books and automatically populate the citation details. You can also enter a book’s ISBN to search by that instead.

Once you’ve selected the book and clicked the Create Button, the book is added to your Library as a new source.

When you open it, you’re brought into our new Book and Print Source Editor. It allows you to enter passages and annotations from these sources into Scrible. Simply click the Add Passage Button to show the Passage Editor and then type in a passage and enter its corresponding page number in the book. Page numbers are optional but encouraged because passages are grouped by page to help keep them ordered correctly. The Editor displays each page with the all of passages you’ve entered for that page. By default, passages are added to a page in the order you enter them, but you can drag and drop them within a page to reorder.

While editing a passage, a mini annotation toolbar appears atop the Passage Editor with options to set the color and style of the passage. You can apply an annotation type and color to each passage so you can maintain a consistent annotation style across all of your digital sources (e.g. webpages and PDFs) and print sources (e.g. print books, magazines, newspapers, etc.).

Once entered, as with annotated text in digital sources (e.g. webpages and PDFs), you can apply tags to annotated passages and add comments to them using the icons appearing to the left of each passage when you hover over it.

As with webpages and PDFs, all annotations and tags for book and print sources flow through the system and appear in the Sources Sidebar in the Outline Editor in your Library and the Scrible Writer Google Docs Add-on.

Working with Print Sources

The screenshots shown here are for the example of working with a book, but what about print sources like a print magazine or newspaper? Similar story. When you choose Add Print Source in a Library, the print source you enter is added to that Library. Opening the source brings you into our Book and Print Source Editor. As with books, you can add a page number and passage so that your entered passages are grouped and ordered by page. You can apply annotation styles/colors, attach comments and add tags to the passage. In this case, however, the icons are a bit different. Instead of the book icon in your Library, the print source appears as a newspaper icon and the Add Passage Button is similar . As with the book annotations and tags, everything for a print source flows through the system and appears in the Sources Sidebar in the Outline Editor in your Library and the Scrible Writer Google Docs Add-on.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these capabilities. Let us know!

— The Scrible Team