Teacher Tech Tips--Easily Boost Teacher & Student Success

Linoit is a digital canvas with sticky notes. You can create a canvas with sticky note questions, videos, images, and documents. Then, share the link with your students so they can respond to your question. Great for checking out what students know and don't know before you begin a unit or use as an exit ticket at the end of a class.

Padlet is similar to Linoit with a few different and fun to use tools. With padlet, you can add some fancy backgrounds. You and your students can also add your image to your questions or responses, and you can add images and documents by dragging from your desktop, making it super simple for everyone to use.

Answer Garden is by far the easiest formative assessment tool to use. However, with its ease also come some drawbacks. Your questions and students' answers are limited in character length. That should not dissuade you from using it for brainstorming with your students or taking a quick check for understanding that does not require a lot of preparation on your part.

Today's Meet is a great tool to give all students a voice. It is actually called a back channel tool which is similar to Twitter. You ask students a question and they can easily respond by typing an answer that is less than 140 characters. Students can also ask each other questions and encourage each other. All of this is going on while you are conducting a discussion. Shy students will thank you and with its ability to provide a downloadable transcript, you will have a record of who responded, who understands concepts, and who needs more help. Great little tool!

The Answer Pad (TAP) is a tool which can be used to quickly assess students' understanding of concepts, but is so much more. This program also allows the teacher to ask questions which force students to "show" what they have learned. Whenever students have to demonstrate understanding, higher order thinking skills are involved. You will love this free online program!

This is a summary of what was covered in Section 2.

Participoll makes it easy for you to create poll questions within your PowerPoint slideshow/lectures. This downloadable program becomes a PowerPoint add-on for ease of use. Creating a poll slide every 4-5 slides will keep your students engaged and easily allow you to see if most are understanding the content.

Poll Everywhere is a great polling tool which allows you to create polls and check for student understanding online or you can download the PowerPoint addin and easily incorporate polls into your PowerPoint lectures. This polling system allows for multiple choice, open-ended, brainstorming, ranking, and clickable images type questions. What's not to like?

Flisti is a super easy polling tool to use. There are no downloads and no sign-ups. You simply type in your question and the answer options, then provide your students with the web address so they can respond. This is the tool you use when you only need to ask one quick question and you do not want to spend a lot of time preparing.

Go Soapbox is a multifaceted tool that you will absolutely fall in love with! You will be able to create polls, quizzes, and discussions all with this one great tool that you use during class lectures and discussions. And, your students will be able to ask questions even if they are shy. Go Soapbox will change the way you interact with your students and will enable you to check for understanding and download the results as data for later analysis. What's not to like?

Create a Google Presentation with embedded questions to keep students engaged,

This is a summary of what was covered in Section 3.

Kahoot is a fun way to see if students are understanding concepts and it also serves as a fun way to review with students. When you are done with this lecture, you will know how to set up your own Kahoot quiz.

FlipQuiz is a program designed to create Jeopardy like review games. After completing this lecture, you should be able to create your own FlipQuiz easily or create a similar Jeopardy type game based on two other programs discussed in this lecture.

Connect Fours is a great little game creator to help students make connections with concepts you are teaching. After completing this lecture, you should be able to create your own Connect Fours game for your students.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is a fun game to check for understanding with your class. After completing this lecture, you should be able to create a Millionaire game easily for your students.

This is a quick summary of what was learned in section four about games to check for understanding.

Blubbr is a free program designed so you can choose a video on a particular topic and embed questions creating a game-like, interactive quiz. When you are done with this lecture, you will be able to create your own interactive, video with quiz questions.

TedEd is a great little digital tool which will allow you to assign a video to your students and help them focus on the important information in the video as well as allowing you to check to make certain they understand the concepts. When you are done with this video, you should easily be able to create a TedEd video for your students.

Zaption, like Blubbr and TedEd, allows you to see what students understand about videos you assign them to view. After watching this lecture, you should be able to create a Zaption tour to assess what students know about a video you assign them.

This is a quick summary of what was learned in section 5 about embedding quizzes in videos to check for understanding.

Socrative is an easy to use online quiz program which also offers several other formative assessment options. After viewing this lecture, you will be able to create an online quiz, a survey, a gamified quiz, and an exit ticket.

Testmoz is a super easy-to-use online quiz generator with no registration required. It features 4 different types of questions and the test results are downloadable. After viewing this lecture, you will be able to create an online quiz to share with students.

This is a summary of what was learned in section 6 about an online quiz creator.

Formative is a fantastic way to formatively assess students. You can create classes, ask a number of different types of questions (multiple choice, true/false, short answer), see live results as students work, and easily grade what students have done online.

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