One of my favorite digital tools is Padlet. Padlet is a collaborative digital cork board and classroom response system that let’s you collect and organize virtual stickies of information including text, images, audio and video. At the recent 21st Century Learning Symposium I shared some strategies for using Padlet in support of Formative Assessment. During this session my intent was to model the versatility of Padlet whether you have a single internet connected device, a small set of 5-8 devices, or 1:1 student devices. I also modeled how Padlet can be used to support formative assessment strategies such as entry/exit tickets and cooperative learning structures. The resources for this session are embedded below. It includes guides and tips for creating your own Padlet boards.
I've also been developing a Student Guide that includes presentation slides and a video tutorial to help students begin using Padlet as a tool for research, presentations, and collaborative communication. I invite you to utilize this guide for use with your own students if you like.
Yesterday I was challenged by one of the elementary schools that I work with to help model iPad integration by using iPads 1:1 with students during direct instruction and then transition into a 1:1 iPad independent activity. I developed four different lessons targeted at K-1, 2-3, 4th and 5th grade. The lessons ranged from reading comprehension and academic vocabulary to comparative adjectives and research skills (at the teachers' request). Needless to say I was pretty pooped by the end :-)
Interestingly enough, one of the most popular strategies I used to facilitate my lessons was not tech related at all. I'm sure this strategy has a real name, but let's call it a modified think, pair, share. Whenever I asked questions, I asked students to whisper their answer into their closed fist first, then whisper share with a partner and then alternated between choral response or picking a random student depending on the nature of the question. The students seemed to really enjoy this and I had nearly 100% participation through out the lesson.
For my mini-lesson I wanted to minimize the number of apps we would use and ensure a high level of engagement during my presentation, so I selected Nearpod as my platform. I was pleased with the way that the app helped hold the student's attention while I moved through the slides and interspersed my presentation with interactive formative tools. The problem is setting up my Nearpod presentations took a bit of tech ninja skills to get the results I wanted. And after talking with several teachers I learned that many were most attracted to the whiteboard feature in Nearpod after seeing my demonstrations.
As luck would have it, later that night I learned about Infuse Learning from the #miched chat that occurs every Wednesday at 8pm. It has many similar features to the classroom response app Socrative, but with the additional feature of a whiteboard responder and (drum roll please!) text-to-speech. I have only had a brief time to test Infuse Learning but my feeling is that it this web app has great potential and a lower learning curve than Nearpod.
I'm still really pleased with what I was able to do with Nearpod especially because I was seeking a way to move seemlessly between the slides I created in Haiku Deck and the formative classroom response tools I wanted.
I loved the challenge of creating these lessons and wish I would have had even more time to develop the underlying lessons. The best part though was working with so many great students. What Fun!
Here is a brief video app tour of Make Dice Lite. This app allows you to create up to six custom six-sided dice. One or multiple dice can be thrown at a time. Creating custom dice is relatively simple and could be created quickly by having students open a document or website that contains pre-written questions or categories and then copying and pasting these onto your custom made dice. The one drawback to this Free app is the pop-up adds that occur between rolling events.
