Frequent interactive activities or lessons can create a huge impact on the learning of students. Not only do friendly competition, change and excitement drive students to learn, this creates a love for learning and curiosity. Learning has changed from being written work, to power points to screencasts and the ability to create projects on recently created apps or sites. Not only is it important to pay attention to all the multiple intelligences in the classroom, but to reach each of them in different ways! The apps and sites I will discuss below are great for instant feedback on how well your students are grasping concepts both as a whole and/or individually. (All of these apps/sites are free)
Poll Everywhere
This site was great because of the easy accessibility for both students and teachers! Many question types were available such as data/bar graph, word poll and live map, however the live map was only able to be used on I-pad and desktop. Students are able to access this from at home and it is very fun to use.
Plickers
This is a interactive site because students have paper codes to hold up (which are anonymous to everyone but the teacher) as well as the teacher using a handheld device to scan the answers of their students! The score sheet feature allows the teacher to do both summative and casual assessment. This is limited to multiple choice answers, and students must be in the same room to be scanned, as well as the camera may mess up if scanning sideways. I love how great the diagnostics with this site are, instantly showing red for wrong and green for correct, shows class history, shows if the class has improved since before and score sheet of student responses!
Peardeck
Students go to the website and enter the code, all students remain anonymous to everyone but the teacher. This site allows to multiple choice, graphs and spectrums which is awesome, but only allows five image uploads! All the responses are saved immediately. This is a very fun site to use as a student!
Padlet
This site is awesome because students can include pictures, links and documents attached to share with classmates! It is very easy for students and teachers to use. It is distracting when students are adding their responses on, however they can do this from home as well! Past response are able to be kept. This is a great way of responding, rather than written or typed work on a word document. This was such a fun site to use!
Socrative
I loved that this site allows students to be recognized by name or anonymously! Not only can the marks be shown to the class with names covered, there are no distracting elements to this site!The teacher class count is needed, but when a student joins late it needs to be reopened and rewrite the question. There are a variety of question types available, and each answer can be opened in different orders and have various lengths. Both quick and long questions and pictures can be used. The diagnostics are great such as detailed feedback, individual student reports and pdf printed copies.
Sprial
Although spiral was fairly limited to question types, the quickfire feature was very fun to use! The feedback on this site was fairly minimal, however it was very easy to use. Students will love the competitive nature by using the timer and canvas feature to respond.
Google Forms
Google forms is a neat way of understanding student understanding, however isn’t the most interactive site. The diagnostics on this are very detailed for teachers to gain understanding of their students. Teachers are also able to give feedback to students. This is a very easy way for students and teachers to interact on a fun level!
Kahoot
Although this site has “distracting” music, this is my favorite site! Easy for students to enter in the code on the website and create competition of knowledge in the classroom! The leader board allows for students to see the “top” students for the past questions. There is a great public source of questions which can be easily edited! Many different question types and the ability to have teams! There is a great amount of detailed diagnostics to show feedback! On desktops the answers only show the colors that correlate to the different question types on the teacher screen.
Overall
My favorite sites used were polleverywhere, kahoot and peardeck! Polleverywhere is very fun and simple to use! The ability to see other students responses and answer in different ways was fun to watch! I loved how easy Kahoot was to use, as well as how instead of showing your knowledge, it felt like playing a game with classmates! This can be used in many different class like settings and grades. Kahoot is a fun, interactive way of learning! Peardeck was very fun and exciting to use because of the different question types and ability to learn in a new, fun way! I can definitely see myself using both Kahoot no matter what age group I end up teaching because of the variety of ways you can use it! Plickers was the site I found to lack in feedback for teachers, however this would be a great site to use with younger children (especially since no device is needed). Each site is full of benefits for the classroom and should not be undervalued. I love how in todays classroom students are easily able to learn in new, exciting ways which show that learning is fun!
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