Too Long…Didn’t Read

I’m really not big on “text speak”, so last Saturday at EdCamp Harrisburg when Meredith Martin (@geekyteach) share the Chrome extension called TLDR, she had to explain the title to me. TLDR stands for “too long, didn’t read”. We’re all guilty of it. We open an email or webpage, see lines and lines of text, and that’s it…we never go back. If we do this, imagine what our students do!

TLDR is a free extension for the Chrome browser that lets you create a summary of any webpage with a single click. You have the choice of a very short (about a paragraph) summary or of creating a short, medium, or long version of the article.

TLDR could be a great differentiation tool, allowing students with reading difficulties to tackle a shorter passage. It could also be a great critical thinking opportunity. Have students read an entire article and then use TLDR to create a shorter version and determine whether the message is still the same.

If Chrome is your browser of choice (a pretty good choice, in my humble opinion), click on this link to get the TLDR extension:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tldr/giepilabiomhlcmlefmbfkgeoccfhhhc?hl=en

There is also a TLDR extension for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tldr/ I have not tried this one, but if you’re a Firefox user, give it a try.

If you need a way to summarize text on a webpage or differentiate longer articles, give TLDR a try and then write a comment below to share how it worked.

If you need any help, you know how to find me!