Interactive Learning Tools in the Classroom Review

In my EDTS 325 class I have been introduced to so many different tools and technologies that can be used in a classroom. These technologies can be used to help students be engaged and test their level of understanding within the subject. While exploring these technologies I got a better understanding on what works and what doesn’t work in terms of the student’s interests and the teacher’s presentation. I have learned that there are so many different ways to present the same ideas. I am going to reflect on the resources I have learned about and why they either work or don’t work for me as both a teacher and student.

My top choices for resources are blue and my bottom choice is in red.

Teacher use:

 Socrative:

in order to use the tool Socrative the teacher needs to create an account, which is free and easy to get. The app itself was really easy to follow and create your quizzes in. It has a great layout was all included into one quiz. You pick the type of question you want and write in the question and answers right on the page. They also give you an option to write an explanation as to why the answer is in deed the answer. You can also mix the type of questions up giving variety and fun. Another great quality about Socrative is that you can print out the quizzes on paper and hand them out this can be a great fast and easy way to create a quiz for your students to do on paper as well as through the Internet. It is also really easy to share and use with the students. The students can have fun with these quizzes making it a win for the teachers.

Plickers:

For Plickers the teacher needs an account which is easy to get and easy to use. It takes a little longer to set up this app because the teacher needs to have the list of students in the class ahead of time and be able to assign each student to a certain card. But it is worth the longer time. The teacher’s can assign and print out up to 63 cards. Its very easy to set the questions up but you need questions that can be a and b answers at least. The teacher can set up more than one class onto the site. This would be very beneficial for high school teachers who teach the same course to multiple students/classes. The free version is definitely worth using.

Padlet:

For Padlet the teacher needs to have an account. Padlet is really easy to set up you just pose a question or subject, set a background, and add instructions for the students to follow. It is not timely at all making it simple to make in a matter of seconds. It is easy to upload your own background and even pictures as well. You need to have open-ended questions, which require a long thought our answer with an explanation.With Padlet a teacher can see what everyone wrote, and assess them off of the site. The one downfall to Padlet is that it does not have an automatic grader, or a progress report. The Padlet is my bottom choice is because it really isn’t even quiz it is a place to create information almost more of a blog where students can post questions and answers to a question or subject.

Students Use:

Kahoot:

This tool is so easy to use for students to access questions. All the students do is go on the Internet and look up Kahoot.it.com and they receive a room code and put it into their device (computer, tablet, phone—tablets and phones are the easiest) once the students get in with the code they put their name in. The teacher has access to deleting names that are not appropriate. Once in the students get their name put in they have immediate access to the quiz. Students cannot be anonymous when responding but the only names the students will see is the ones in the top 5 spots. The students see the questions and answers on the board only on the device they will see the colour matching to each on their phone.The teacher can decide if they want to do teams or individual players. The students in competition will be more likely to try and play. Some would say the music is distracting but I feel the music actually gets the students more pumped up to play. There is one tiny down fall to this app and that is with the jumble feature. It is really hard to look at the board and at the device while writing in the right answer.

Plickers:

Plickers is really easy for students to use. The students do not need any accounts or codes all they need is a piece of paper or card as Plickers calls it. Each student is identified with their own special card with their name and pattern on it. When the teacher scans in their card with their answer of a, b, c, or, d. The letters are located on each side of the paper. The only type of technology you need is a tablet for the teacher to scan the answers on.The teacher can see what you chose as your answers but the to the other students on the board you are completely anonymous. It is definitely made for more specific answers and all of the set up is on the teachers end. There could be the distracted element of not so much distractions but rather the way it is easy to copy other student’s answers so the teacher should make the cards smaller so it is harder to read off of.

Peardeck:

When using Peardeck students need to have a Google account in order to participate. By using it with your Google account you get an automatic account for the tool. The students then get a code that they insert into their page. The teacher does not see your name as you are anonymous which can be good for the students. The teacher only gets an overall look at the students understanding. With their accounts they are identified but not to the teachers. This could be used on multiple devices (computer, phone, tablet.) The responses available are either choose whichever answers are already available or short answer the numbering one is weird and these ask for either specific answers and open-ended questions. The reason Peardeck is in my bottom choice for this category is because on the students’ device it doesn’t exactly explain how to use it; for example the number question doesn’t explain what the number one does. It just gives you the space on the phone as if you would know. It makes it very confusing at times for the students.

Flexibility/Variety of Questions:

Socrative:

Socrative allows for a number of variation concerning questions. You can have multiple choice, short answers and have the questions where you can get more than one answer you like best. There does not seem to be a limit of questions or words with Socrative. With Socrative you can shuffle up the questions and answers order so that students will have a difficult time cheating off of one another. You can also choose if you want the quiz to give instant feedback to the students, or to be teacher paced or have an open navigation. Students do not need to be in the same physical locations because the questions are on your device. You just need to be sure that each student has the codes to the room. Teachers cannot have more than one room going at once, but can only have 50 students (with free version) and 150 students (with pro).

 Polleveryhwere:

It allows quite a variety of different question types it gives you options for multiple choice, word cloud, Q&A, rank order, clickable image and surveys. With the word cloud you could do a couple of different things you can ask what words come to mind when you think of this subject and what are your favorite… the with question and answer you can ask open-ended questions and opinions, the rest cant be too flexible with questions. The amount of people who can answer the questions is the amount of your audience size meaning everyone can only vote once. (the amount determined from plan) 25 people plan is the free one. You use this technology with the students at the same time so you cannot shuffle up questions and answers when creating this. Students have to be in the same location because the question is on the board.

 Peardeck:

You can do multiple choice, and even a graph of excitement (1-10) it groups it and gives an average of the graphs and ideas in a calculated averageThe student can also have a write in question (short answer.) Students can use the ball to choose where they feel fit like thumbs up students can draw whatever they want. Peardeck allows for a few different types of questions for the free ones along with a few with the pay ones. The free ones available are multiple choice, write number, and write text. With the plan you can get drag a dot, drag a line, draw on a picture, and draw something. The reason that Peardeck is in my bottom choices for this category is because the one that you pay for is way more fun rather than the one for free. There is not a word limit or question limit. You do this quiz with the class so in order to read the question from the board you need to be in class to do it.

Diagnostic/Feedback

Socrative:

The one aspect I love especially as a future teacher about Socrative is the information that can be recorded about the responses. The teacher sees variation in responses and has the ability to turn off and on names of the students if they want it to stay anonyms. It gives you the options to save data and information that you can use for report cards. It also gives you pdfs of the individual students. The pdfs’ tracks their progress and would be great for parent interviews to print and show the parents the students’ growth and understanding of concepts. It also gives an overall percentage of the grades from the students, which shows you as a teacher what you need to go over and change the way of teaching it. This is extremely handy and is all averaged out for you. This is something that any teacher would love to use.

Plickers:

I really like the format of this learning tool. When the students are given cards it is programmed under that persons name so when the students answer a question the data gets put into the system of Plickers. After the students answer the questions a score sheet gets put onto the teachers account. The score sheet function gives teachers access to a score sheet with the questions hey had gotten wrong. The score sheet gives each student results along with an overall percentage letting the teacher know what the majority got wrong.

Padlet:

Like I said above Padlet is a lot like a blog rather than a testing tool. The questions have to be open ended and the system does not grade the student’s work for you. By not having an automatic report or grader can make it more time consuming for the teacher to read through and grade. One more downside is the students have to manually put their name in the answer and a lot of students forget to add names making it impossible to grade and assign marks to.

Final Summary

After creating and using each of these learning tools I have learned so much about what you can do in a classroom. There are a couple of tools that have stuck out to me that I would like to talk about one last time. The first one that was my favorite tool to use as a student was Kahoot. Kahoot was so much fun and got the whole class involved and ready to learn even the music set the tone as being fun. Everyone wanted to get the right answer and it was the competitive tool that every classroom needs. Kahoot was also so easy and fast to set up as a teacher I will definitely be using this tool in my future classroom. The second tool I would like to talk about is Padlet. I don’t really like padlet very much because if you have a blog, you pretty much have Padlet. As a student I found it hard to use because when everyone is posting everything is moving around. As a teacher I would dread having to go through all the posts and read/grade them when you can use another tool to post and do instant marking for them. If I did an activity where students would post pictures and comments to themes I would use a blog or something a bit different.