Socrative

Socrative is an app that allows you to check for student understanding in real time with immediate feedback. This application has a teacher and student log in. The teacher is able to create quizzes, polling questions, or class exit tickets in just a few short steps. The format for questioning includes true/false, short answer, and multiple choice. As an educator, you are able to share with other educators around the world. As students complete the quiz/questions, you are able to see their progress immediately as the results are sent to your account in real time. Through this app, the teacher has the ability to turn the quiz into a game as well to make the quiz more engaging and fun for the students. Socrative is made by Mastery Connect, which is an on-line assessment website. I have used this website in my classroom to help me create curriculum tests. Socrative is a free app and well worth the download. In my classroom, I have used Socrative in small groups. After completing a math intervention group, I will send them a question to review what we did in small group. Their answer to the question is their ticket back to their seat. I have also used Socrative in whole group instruction by putting the students into teams and letting them race each other to the finish line as a review before I start the next days lesson. Socrative is a great way to assess your students for understanding.

Gamification in Education

I chose to learn more about gamification in education. After reading the article on the following website: http://blog.tophat.com/4-ways-to-gamify-learning-in-your-classroom/ I have learned many things about the process of using gaming in your classroom. Gamification is the use of game mechanics and design to enhance non-game context. Basically, gamification in education would be taking curriculum content and presenting it to your students in a gaming fashion. With gamification, students complete assignments designed by the teacher and earn badges and character statuses as they complete and turn in various assignments. Gamification is a great tool being used to engage students in the lessons and become more involved in their own learning. Gamification allows students to take control of their own learning. Gamification also allows students to engage in a little friendly competition as they compete with each other to reach new levels and complete assignments. There are many "gaming" platforms available for educators to use, and choosing the correct one can be tricky. You need a platform that is easy for students to use, so that they will not be frustrated as they work toward their learning goals. Gamification has helped tremendously in the high school setting and can be successful in all areas of education.

Plickers

      Plickers is an assessment tool that can be used in the classroom with the use of only one device. Each student is given a card with a scannable object on it. The card represents four different answer choices based on the way it is tilted. The teacher can give a question, students answer the question by tilting the card in the correct direction based on their answer choice, and then the teacher uses his/her device to scan the room. The teacher device will assess the answer choices and give the teacher immediate feedback of who answered the question correctly or incorrectly. This is a great formative assessment tool that gives the teacher immediate feedback during the lesson, but doesn't require each student to have their own device. Plickers is also an easy way to make sure that all students are engaged in the lesson.
       I have used Plickers in my classroom mostly at the end of units in just about every subject. In math, you can create a multiple choice assessment to review the skill you taught. Students will work the problems out and then turn their Plicker card the correct way to answer the problem. This gives me immediate feedback and lets me know which students are ready to move on and which ones may need additional intervention. I have also used this in language arts in third grade to review the four sentence types. Students listened to the sentence I read and then turned their Plicker card to represent the sentence type they heard. I was once again able to scan the cards and see which students understood the sentence types and which ones did not.
       I first heard of the Plicker cards at the AETC conference in Birmingham this past summer. I love the Plicker cards and they are easy to use since my school is not a BYOD school and I only have a few devices in my classroom. The students also love them, and they are always engaged in the lesson.

Nearpod

       Nearpod is an app that you can use in your classroom to present lessons and assess student learning. The app allows you to create and design lessons based on your curriculum directly from you iPad or iPhone. Nearpod also contains premade lessons that you can purchase or download for free. The Nearpod app has recently updated its database of lessons to include Common Core lessons that are already made and ready to be used. After the lesson is selected, the teacher can send the lesson to the students devices. Students can complete the lesson independently or they can actually follow along with the teacher as she is teaching the lesson in a whole group setting. The application will also allow you send assessments directly to their devices and when they are complete, the teacher can get immediate feedback of their performance and understanding.
       I have not used this application in my classroom, mostly because we are not a BYOD school, but the possibilities are endless. If I did incorporate this into my classroom, I would use it in math. In a math lesson, I could teach the lesson to the students with them seeing it on their devices and then I would give them a problem from the lesson to work on their own. They would have to submit the problem to me on my device and I could see if they had mastered the skill I taught. I would then choose student responses to share with the class. This is a great way to show how students solve problems in different ways. Another way I would plan to use this in a classroom would be a in small group setting. I would push a close reading activity to each device and allow students to closely read and code the text on their devices. I would then share student responses with other students to show examples of "thinking" through the text and coding the text. Nearpod is a great app that is user friendly and a great way to engage students into an interactive lesson.

Resources:
http://corkboardconnections.blogspot.com/2014/02/nearpod.html
http://www.nearpod.com/