Answer Garden/Nicole Moore's EduWin and Kahoot!

As I got closer to the end of the school year, I always liked polling both students and parents about their favorite memories of Third Grade. I would create a Google Form, requesting three terms and sorted the parent and student responses in the spreadsheet. I would take the answers and dump them into Wordle, and then add screenshots of the Wordles to my final newsletter. It was always interesting to see the differences in parent and student responses.

I've written about word clouds in previous blog posts. Recently, Lisa Highfill and Andrew Schwab tweeted about another word cloud tool. AnswerGarden is a bit of a cross between Padlet and Wordle or Tagxedo. Padlet, because it captures and displays responses to participants in real time, and Worlde or Tagxedo, because it creates a word cloud as participants answer.

In a classroom, AnswerGarden is a great instant feedback tool. It can be used in any curricular area for brainstorming or to gauge student understanding. An AnswerGarden question is easy to create and there is no sign up required for you or the participant. A down side is that since you have no account, you'll need to save your AnswerGarden URL and responses. While AnswerGarden word clouds are rather utilitarian looking, responses can be exported to Wordle or Tagxedo where you can add color and formatting.

Another thing I like about AnswerGarden is the ability to send results by Twitter, making it another great way to invite parents into your classroom.

As with any tool that displays results in real-time without moderation, "that" student may try to take advantage of the situation and send an inappropriate word or comment to be displayed. While there is no way to prevent this, a quick walk around the room will show which student submitted the offending word since words the participant entered will be underlined on only their screen. Still worried? You can use Moderator Mode where each answer is submitted to "AntiGarden" and you can manually approve each response before it is displayed.

To give AnswerGarden a try, you can get started by going to their website  or by downloading the free app from the App Store for iOS. Create a question. For example, "Which ed tech tool have you found most useful in your classroom this year?" Then, set the mode. I like Classroom Mode which allows one answer per submission and unlimited unique (to the participant) submissions. Set an Admin password so you will be able to edit the responses, and have a Reminder e-mail sent to yourself with the link and password if you think you'd like to access it again.

Create your AnswerGarden question. If you are using iPads,  give your students the AnswerGarden ID number to sign in and participate. If you are using the web version, use the long URL to create a shorter one to give to your students. They can easily access AnswerGarden on their Chromebooks and begin responding. As students respond, your AnswerGarden will grow. Let's try it here.

When finished, you can Share the wordcloud on Twitter, Export to Wordle or Tagxedo, or create a QR code.

Teachers with iPads will love the iOS app, free  in the App Store. Create a question and give your students the AnswerGarden ID number to sign in and participate.

If you decide to give AnswerGarden a try, let me know how you are using it. I'd love to share your ideas with other teachers.

EduWin/Nicole Moore and Kahoot

Nicole Moore found a great way to use Kahoot in her classroom. Using her class Android tablets, students used the Kahoot app and added the Game Pin. Once they were in, Nicole presented addition problems, giving her great formative assessment results, and giving the students a great time while reinforcing skills. Kahoot can also be used on Chromebooks, easily accessed on the USD Symbaloo page, or through the iPad by creating a bookmark.

If you haven't yet tried Kahoot in your classroom, you might like to give it a try to liven up those last days of the school year and review and reinforce this year's key concepts. Review an earlier blogpost to get started.

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.

Get it Done Faster/Lisa Mata's EduWin

Whenever I'm working in Google Drive, there are a few actions I do over and over again. Luckily, there are a few shortcuts that I have learned over the years that help make me more efficient. While I love shortcuts, there are a lot of them. So many, that I can't possibly remember them all. But over the years, I have a few that I have come to make so much a part of my work flow, that they come automatically. I thought I'd share of few of them with you. And once you are comfortable with them, you can share them with your students.

You'll start most shortcuts by first, highlighting the text you would like to perform the task on. When pasting, place your cursor where you would like the pasted text or image to appear.

Action	On your Mac	On your Chromebook
Copy	command + c	ctrl + c
Paste	command + v	ctrl + v
Select All	command + a	ctrl + a
Undo	command + z	ctrl + z
Print	command + p	ctrl + p
Find on a Page	command + f	ctrl + f
Cut Link	command + x command + k	ctrl + x ctrl + k

Many of these actions can also be accessed by right clicking. To right click, on a Mac, hold down the control key and  the mouse/mouse pad. To right click on a Chromebook, press the alt key and click the mouse.

A full list of Keyboard shortcuts can be found in the drop down menu under Help.

This Week's EduWin

Formative assessment can take many forms. In Lisa Mata's class, one of the tools she uses is Kahoot! a game-based response system that can be accessed from the web. Lisa is a Tech 1, with a full set of Chromebooks. I have also seen Kahoot used with just a few devices and shared in groups, with students taking turns responding.

Kahoot! awards points based on the correct answer and the speed with which the answer was entered. The leading scorers are shown at the end of each question, and the player gets personalized feedback informing them of their standing.

In some classes, students may not want their scores to be public. That is why Lisa allows students to make up a user name when they sign into her Kahoot!. This way, individual students are able to remain anonymous while playing but still get their personal feedback.

Lisa recently used Kahoot! to review the unit on California regions that students had just finished. It can be found at http://goo.gl/TC1z3W  (only available if you are signed in). 

Here's one I made just for fun. You should be able to take it for a test drive in single player mode. You will, however, need to open up two screens, one that will show you teacher /presenter mode, and the other for student/participant mode.

Kahoot! is free. It is simple to create a quiz, and you can add pictures and video to the questions. Students quickly sign in using a "game pin," no sign ups or accounts are needed. The data you receive can help you tailor your lessons to target those areas your students need more instruction in. 

Be warned, this is not a quiet class activity. The excitement Kahoot! generates will convince you the students are engaged and having fun, while reinforcing content.

Watch this video tutorial to learn about how to set up Kahoot! to use in your class.

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.