instructional technology – Page 2

Everyone who has ever tried Kahoot loves it. We love it because it is fun, exciting, and a great way to review material. However, have you ever tried to use it to introduce new material? If you haven’t, you may want to take a look at Blind Kahooting. A Biology teacher names Steph Castle appears to be credited with creating the Blind Kahoot! and it’s actually a pretty genius idea. It’s using Kahoot! to introduce an entirely new subject, one for which they have little to no knowledge.

How Does It Work?

The gist is that you follow a template to create your Kahoot! that flows like this:

Q1 – Introductory Question – this question sets the scene and brings the students on board with the topic and/or the main goal.

Q2 – Toughest Question – ask the toughest question you can think of about this topic or goal. This question, if answered correctly, should demonstrate that the student understood the topic and could move on. Note: is not just okay that they get the question wrong, it’s expected.

Now, you explain the question and the answer to your students. This gets you going on the topic or goal.

Q3-? – Reinforcing Questions – Ask a series of questions that will take the students through the topic. The goal is for them to practice what they’ve just learned. You will also explain each answer after the question is finished. Basically you are using these questions to deliver your content and checking for understanding all at the same time. You may even want to ask the same question several different ways to ensure they are understanding the topic.

Last question – Ask your Toughest Question again. Can also be an application question. Should combine all the items learned in the Kahoot!

Wash, rinse, repeat – To introduce another topic or part of the topic, start the process all over.

When completely finished, be sure to leave enough time for the students to try to beat their score using Kahoot!’s Ghost Mode.

Resources

There are a ton of great resources and videos to help you through this process. Here are just a few:

How to use Kahoot! to teach new topics – video from Stephanie Castle that explains, in detail, how she designs a blind Kahoot!
The Art of Blind Kahoot!’ing – great overview guide to creating a blind Kahoot!
Step-by-Step guide to creating a Blind Kahoot!
Sample Blind Kahoot!
Inspiring ways to Kahoot! – cool ways to use Kahoot! For more than just review.

Collaboration, discussion, instructional technology, iPad, Mobile, Portfolio, Presentation, Research

#OneNewThing – Padlet

December 13, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

“Padlet is a virtual wall that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can put any content (e.g. images, videos, documents, text) anywhere on the page, together with anyone, from any device.” (Mrs. Treichler)

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, also has plugins for Chrome and WordPress

How It Works

Uses for Faculty & Students

Create a blank board and share it (either with specific people via their Padlet account, or via a general link.
Double-click on the board to add a new “sticky” note.
You can add:
- Text
- Audio
- Video
- Images
- Files
Drag the notes around to organize and sort them.

Works on a computer or almost any mobile device.

Discussion and collaboration
Constructing a classroom code of conduct or an assessment rubric with your students
Backchannel where students can write questions during or before class
Exit ticket
Brainstorming
Planning
Student-to-Student image sharing
Writing prompts and collaborative writing
Student introductions
KWL Charts
Curation
Flow maps
Opinion forums
Inspiration wall
Portfolios
Website bookmarking tool
More…
Even more…

instructional technology, Presentation

#OneNewThing – Twine

November 30, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

Twine is an interactive, non-linear story creator. It allows the user to create Choose Your Own Adventure-type stories or branched stories, tutorials, or assignments.
Can be web-based or a downloaded computer app.

How It Works

Uses for Faculty & Students

Each portion of the story is written in a small box. These boxes are then connected by adding the choices in one box which then automatically connects it to the boxes of those choices.

When read, the reader will be presented with a story page ending in choices. Depending upon which choice is selected, the reader will be presented with a different part of the story.

Non-linear storytelling has many uses:

Fiction writing or CYOA story
Story planning (can be used linearly as a planner)
Question path or flowchart
Tutorial creator
Text-based games

Things to be aware of:

In the online version, work is saved in the browser only so no account needed BUT the user must always use the same computer.
Since your work is saved only in your browser, if you clear its saved data or cache, then you’ll lose your work! This is not good. Be careful.
While there is no true SAVE button you can ARCHIVE your Twines to a flash drive, shared drive, or your computer.
You can also publish individual stories to files using the menu on each story in the story list.
Both archive and story files can always be re-imported into Twine on another machine to allow you to continue to edit them.

Collaboration, Google, Google Apps, instructional technology, Share

6 Reasons You Should Be Using Google Sheets Instead Of Excel

October 28, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

I have always said that if I could only have two applications on my computer it would be Photoshop and Microsoft Excel. With those two applications I can do almost everything I need to do in a day. Lately, however, my eye has drawn to Google Sheets, and I have to say, I love it.

Now some of you may be saying, “Why do I care? I don’t teach accounting.” Well you don’t have to teach accounting to use spreadsheets in your teaching. They are great for collecting text-based information, running statistics and doing calculations, and graphing and analyzing text or data. So now that you are ready to use spreadsheets in your classroom, here are 6 reasons why you should use Google Sheets instead of Excel.

Reason 1: Collaboration

Unlike Excel, Google Sheets is collaborative. All CofC students already have Google accounts so it’s very easy to share a spreadsheet with them or for them to share with one another. When collaboratively editing a sheet each student can see the exact cell that is currently selected all other users, to prevent overwriting. There is also a built-in chat function so students can communicate online while collaborating on a Sheet.

Reason 2: Revision history

How many times have you heard, “Student X didn’t contribute anything to the project.” Now you can see exactly who contributed what and when using the Revision History. The built-in revision history gives you a timeline of all changes and additions to the spreadsheet, who made each one and when they made it. Just go to File > Revision History to see this record. The best part? This is all automatically recorded. While you can track revisions in Excel, it’s a more manual process and in the end, still leads to multiple versions and things being overwritten.

Reason 3: Sharing

Google Sheets are easy to share. Because they are already online, Sheets can be shared to OAKS or a website, using a link. These links can be set to allow the users to only view the sheet or to edit it. This is particularly handy if you want to post a spreadsheet in OAKS. Just go to Content and select New > Create a Link and paste in the shared link to your Sheet, making the file easy for the students to locate and easy to work on collaboratively as a class. This is something that can’t be done with Excel (Note: I believe this feature is available in Office 365).

Reason 4: The power of Google

From Alice Keeler, “Because of its tight integration with Google, Sheets can import all kinds of data from other Google services and the web at large. You can translate the contents of a cell using the function GOOGLETRANSLATE(), or you can fetch current or historical securities info from Google Finance with the function GOOGLEFINANCE(). And with Sheets IMPORTFEED and IMPORTDATA functions, you can pull information from the internet directly into your spreadsheet.” (Teacher Tech)

Reason 5: Google Forms

When paired with Google Forms it’s an easy way to collect data. Google Forms, also part of Google Drive (a.k.a. G-suite), allows for quick and easy form creation that professors and students can use to collect data. These forms can be completed by anyone, on campus or off, with or without a Google Account, and the data is dumped right into a Google Sheet. This can be used to replace an audience response system in your class, to check for understanding, to conduct peer evaluation, to collect lab data, etc. Once the data is in the spreadsheet, students can work with the data online or export the Sheet to Excel in order to take advantage of Excel’s more powerful functions and data analysis tools.

Reason 6: Explore with Graphs

Sheets has a super cool EXPLORE icon in the lower right corner of every spreadsheet. This offers a quick overview of the data in chart format. You can view the entire sheet or just specific rows or columns. It’s a fast way to get a first look at the trends in your data before moving on to your own analysis. Just click on the icon and Google does the rest. Don’t worry, if this doesn’t provide enough analysis you can always create your own graphs, pivot tables, and calculations. Excel doesn’t have this feature that I can find.

These are just my top 6 reasons to use Google Sheets. I have a ton more. So, can I do everything I did in Excel in Google Sheets? No, I can’t. Excel’s statistical analysis features and functions are still more powerful and probably always will be, but that’s not really what I use spreadsheets for much anymore. Most of the features I used in Excel, like shifting cells, can be done via a Google Add-on, which is a little extension that you can load to increase Sheet’s functionality. Given that, there’s very little need for me to go back to Excel.

Still not sold?

Check out Alicekeeler.com. Alice Keeler is a Google Sheets guru and she always has some amazing cool tricks that you can do with spreadsheets in the classroom. She has written some Add-ons for Sheets that allows you do have more control and automate some processes. Teacher Education folks, you will love her as all of her examples are from her classroom experience. Check out this one:

Have everyone contribute to their own tab – Give students their own and collaborate. This add-on takes your class roster and automatically creates a spreadsheet tab customized for each student in your class. It can even copy a template to each tab. What a great timesaver!

Google, instructional technology, TLT

#OneNewThing – SAS Writing Reviser

August 23, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

SAS Writing Reviser is a Google Docs add-on that helps to create better writers. Writing Reviser collects and highlights a multitude of potential flaws in a paper or writing sample and displays it in categories for the writer to review and change if desired.

The goal of the Writing Revisor is to make the writer think about the possible flaws and decide how best to fix them.

– How It Works

–

Uses for Faculty & Students

Search for and install the SAS Writing Reviser’s add-on in your Google Docs.
Open a paper and run the Reviser.
Select the category you want to see and watch as all of the items that match that category are highlighted

Require students to run the report once they have completed their paper or writing project then require them to fix the problems they wish to fix and rerun the report to show their improvement. The student must turn in the assignment and the report.
Students can use it check their writing for common mistakes. Much more robust than any Microsoft Word features.

Tip:
Start by running the report and working on your top one or two areas of concern. Working with the entire report is overwhelming.

What it looks for:

Wordiness
Prepositional Phrases
Passive Voice
Simple and Run-on Sentences
Subject-Verb, Prepositional Phrase, and Subordinate Clause Openings
Weak Verbs and Verb Tenses
Cliches & Jargon
Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
and much more

For more information on SAS Writing Resources visit https://goo.gl/zQ1yCD

instructional technology, TLT, Video

#OneNewThing – Adobe Spark

August 15, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

This summer I attended a teaching symposium where the mantra was “One New Thing,” or the act of finding one thing that you think will meet a need and implementing it instead of feeling pressure to implement many things. This new series will focus on helping you potentially find your #OneNewThing.

Adobe Spark is an online graphics and video application. Use the Social Graphics app to create graphics with text to post to social media or to liven up blog posts or presentations. Use Web Stories to create interactive pages for storytelling or newsletters. Animated Videos allows the user to create animated slideshows and presentations with images, text, and recorded audio.

How It Works

Spark Post – create stunning graphics

Get started quickly using a theme or start with a blank slate.
Add your own images or use the built in image library.
Search the text library to find just the right font and layout to meet your needs.

Uses for Faculty & Students

Spark Post
Create graphics to

illustrate your concept in a presentation.
add to blog posts or social media.
spice up a newsletter.

Spark Page – create beautiful web stories

Create a beautiful, eye-catching story using photos and text.
Choose from preset themes or start from a blank slate.
Add motion to your photos as the user views your page.
Your page resizes for any size screen, including mobile.

Spark Page

Create

Webpages
Newsletters
Class presentations
Storytelling

Spark Video – create compelling animated videos

Start with a beautiful template or a blank slate.
Add images, text and icons to tell your story.
Finish with music and a voiceover.

Spark Video

Create

Video tutorials
Video presentations
Video newsletters
Music videos
Documentaries
Video blogs
Document events

If you use Adobe Spark tweet about it using #OneNewThing and add TLT at @tltcofc! We can’t wait to hear from you.

instructional technology, Productivity, Teaching Advice, Tech Generation, TLT

Start your semester off right!

August 15, 2016January 31, 2023 leea5

Starting a new semester can be daunting but let us help you with our Start of Semester Checklist! This checklist gives you a list view of important tasks to complete to make sure your semester starts off smoothly, it also tells you how to complete most tasks. Some of the tasks and include: Verifying your course shell has been created, confirming your course start date, enrolling non-students into your course, cross listing, and building course content and student enrollment. Let us make it easier for you, click on our checklist!

Start of Semester Checklist

instructional technology, iPad, Mobile, Presentation

App of the Week: AirSketch

February 29, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

Turn your iPad into a wireless whiteboard! Annotate PDF documents and images live. You can project PDF documents such as exported PowerPoints, to a computer on the same local network then annotate them in real time. Airsketch works like a mirror image of your iPad (viewed inside of the Airsketch App) that is projected by another computer through a shared website.

In other words, it does not connect your iPad wirelessly through the projector — it allows you to display your Airsketch to a website, which is projected by another computer.

For example, when you open Airsketch on the iPad, there is a small wireless icon in the bottom left. When you select that icon, it gives you the IP address that your display can be seen. When you open Firefox (or another web browser) on a classroom computer and put that address in the URL, you will see the same screen as on the iPad.

From there, you can display PDFs (but not PPTs unless they are converted to PDFs) via Dropbox; select the Send-To icon in Dropbox located in the upper right. You can also show images on your iPad’s camera roll.

Price: Free, $9.99 for all the features

Platform: iPad only

More Information: http://www.qrayon.com/home/airsketch/

Collaboration, Distance Ed, instructional technology, iPad, Mobile, Presentation, Share

App of the Week: SyncPad

February 22, 2016January 31, 2023 Mendi Benigni

UPDATE: 3/1/16 – My apologies. I wrote this post in advance and had it auto post. It turns out between when I wrote it and when it posted, SyncPad is no longer available. I attempted to contact them via their website but the contact form no longer works. — Mendi

SyncPad is the ultimate whiteboard for remote and local collaboration. Would you like to share your ideas with a coworker but you are out of town? Don’t worry, just create a room with your SyncPad and share the name of the room with your co-worker, who can enter in his SyncPad or simply use any browser, visiting http://mysyncpad.com/roomname.

Uses:

Remote Tutoring
Collaboration
Shared Whiteboard

Price: Free, $4.99/mo Pro.
Platform: iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch
More info: https://syncpadapp.com

Collaboration, instructional technology, TLT, Web 2.0

New VoiceThread Commenting Features

February 1, 2016January 31, 2023 Jessica Smith

If you haven’t explored VoiceThread since last semester, you will be pleased to learn about the tool’s three new commenting features. Direct replies and threaded conversations make interaction more interactive and dynamic, while private replies allow participants to engage one another more discreetly.

Direct Replies

Owners and editors of VoiceThreads are able to insert comments directly after someone else’s comment on a slide. For example, students can reply directly to the feedback left by their classmates or questions asked by their instructor. To do this, click on the direct reply icon inside a person’s comment window (it looks like an arrow). Your reply will display directly beneath the original comment, but bumped in slightly.

Threaded Discussions

The threaded discussions feature makes VoiceThread more similar to an online discussion board, with comments branching off an original comment. This helps to keep robust back-and-forth conversations more organized.

To use this feature, you must enable it in Playback Settings.

Threaded comments are represented by a round identity image (as opposed to the usual square shape). To start a new threaded conversation, click on the threaded comment button inside a person’s comment window.

Threaded discussions would be particularly useful if you’d like to encourage multiple students to engage one another about a VoiceThread’s content. In contrast, a direct reply is a dialog between two people (though the interaction can be seen by anyone who has access to the VoiceThread). This would be best for asking a single question or offering praise.

Private Replies

The private reply feature allows you to start a private, two-way conversation with someone who has commented on a VoiceThread. Private comments are represented by a round identity image with a padlock icon. To start a new private conversation or add to an existing one, click on the private reply button inside a person’s comment window.

The private reply option could be especially useful if an instructor would like to include an assessment in a VoiceThread. For example, an instructor could leave a comment asking the students to reply to a question. To prevent the students from seeing one another’s responses, the instructor could request students use the private reply option. That would permit only the instructor to see the students’ comments and would allow him/her to respond directly to each student.

Let us know what you think about these new commenting features. We’d love to hear your ideas!

Category: instructional technology

New Way To Introduce Course Content In Your Classes

How Does It Work?

Resources

#OneNewThing – Padlet

How It Works

Uses for Faculty & Students

#OneNewThing – Twine

How It Works

Uses for Faculty & Students

#OneNewThing – SAS Writing Reviser

– How It Works

–

Uses for Faculty & Students

What it looks for: