#niedcamp Apps R Us

This is the powerpoint of my talk from #niedcamp which I made in case the technology failed me. I actually used http://www.popboardz.com/ on the day and then did live demos of Tap Roulette, Decide Now, Plickers, Padlet, iAnnotate, Kahoot and Nearpod.

Apps r us #niedcamp 2015 from Amanda Salt

#ililc5 Rachel Smith @lancslassrach Fabulous Formative Assessment Tools

As always, Rachel delivered an excellent session despite a stressful start with tech issues. As she pointed out at the start of the session, tech shortens the feedback loop, thereby making the assessment more relevant and able to inform your teaching.
She talked about one of my firm favs, Nearpod. A massive advantage to using Nearpod is that you can drag in powerpoints that have already been made then add slides to make the content interactive. There are different interactive options including drawing and surveys. When you set an interactive task, as teacher you get immediate feedback, as you can see who is answering and how long they are taking to answer.

Rachel then mentioned the Socrative teacher app, giving a quick demo of how it works. Again, I am familiar with this app and like it. If you set up a dept account, you can get the pupils to all log on to the same account and create quizzes for you which you then test using the Socrative Student app. 

Infuse learning is a very similar website although Joe Dale pointed out that it may have a short shelf life left. It can be pupil paced and looks worth a look. AnswerGarden allows answers of 20 or 40  characters with the answers displayed as a Wordle. You can share the link on Twitter or embed the code as two of the options. I've set one up for Form 3 on leisure so I'll share the results. 

A massive favourite in our iPad classroom is Kahoot. Teachers use getkahoot.com to create or copy existing quizzes, students get a class code for kahoot.it to play the game. It's fastest finger first to get the most points and pupils get feedback on what position they are in after each question. With my pupils, those who are on the board at the end of the quiz get a sticker for their star chart. 

We also use Plickers which is an excellent and immediate feedback tool. You set the question, have the class set up on plickers.com and then scan the class who hold up their Plicker (which looks a little bit like a jigsaw piece) It is unique to them and gives you immediate feedback re pupil knowledge and/or self evaluation. 

Rachel finished the session with the website Educanon, You can insert text into video. An advantage is that whilst the teacher needs an account, pupils do not. You can then make it into a QR code and kids can scan it or embed into Edmodo. Rachel's tips include: sets of questions are called bulbs and you can crop out sections of the video you don't want. You go to bulbs to find your video, select and when it gets to point where you want to ask a question, you tap to add the question. Pupils select no email then go to the video.

Whilst I had heard of some of these tools and sites, others were new to me. It is always good to revisit sites and it is excellent to get some new ones to have a play with. Rachel is filled with enthusiasm and we all left inspired to have a go too.  

Reflections of an iPad classroom 26/9/14

Oh blog, it's been a while. Apologies but I'm sure I'm just like the rest of you, hitting the ground running after the summer. 

So the iPads are still with me for the foreseeable future and the HODs and SMT in school have all got one each too. It's been weird for me trying to think about how to use one iPad in a classroom when I'm used to at least one between two, one each at A level. There are certain apps which lend themselves to it of course, from the fabulous Explain Everything to my two of my favourites for starters,  Decide Now and Make Dice Lite. 

I have been using Explain Everything in three main ways. Firstly, I have made some videos, using old PPTs and recording audio with them, as a way to flip the classroom. The videos are uploaded to Edmodo and the pupils can access them there in advance of the lesson, which frees up the lesson time to consolidate learning. Secondly, I have marked pupil work which they uploaded to Edmodo, talking through mistakes as I circled them using the pen tool and then I uploaded the video back onto Edmodo for them to watch and correct their work. Lastly, I have taken pictures of pupils' work in class as we have worked through translation work. It is easier for them to see corrections if they can see the base model on the screen and we talk through the different options they have too. I am finding that they are contributing more than they would otherwise. 

With the set of 17 iPads, we have been using Quizlet in bursts within the lesson to consolidate vocabulary acquisition. The pupils love it and feel it has really helped them learn the vocab. I set up a departmental account that they all log in to, which means that the tailored vocabulary is there waiting for them. Interestingly, we find the website better than the app, if you choose to use it. 

Finally, today I used Plickers for the first time. I had read about it on Twitter but hadn't done anything with it yet. It's a way of using one iPad in the classroom to assess pupil understanding and record answers. I'll do a separate blogpost on it soon.