If you just need to "see" that the value is updating on the $scope, use an ng-click on a button to call a function and console.log() the value after you've changed it in the view.
<div ng-controller="myCtrl">
<input ng-model="item.text">
<button ng-click="logText">Log it</button>
</div>
function myCtrl(){
$scope.item = { text: '' }
$scope.logText = function(){
console.log($scope.item.text)