Friday Matinee: Using Padlet in Your Class

Padlet is a great app for discussions, formative assessment, sharing documents, brainstorming, and more.  It looks a lot like an online bulletin board with a bunch of sticky notes!  The free version allows you to create 3 walls for free.  If you need another one, just delete a previous one.  Students can upload just about any file, add a link, search and add images, videos and more via Google, take a picture with your computer's camera, capture video from your camera, record their voice, record the screen, doodle, add a place/location, or link to another Padlet.  Wow!  That's a lot!!  What's more is that students can respond to other students.

I've used Padlet for years to have students give feedback on an article they've read, review a Chrome extension that they have tried, as a backchannel, or as a way to share a document with the class.  I've asked a question and had students respond.  I've even had them introduce themselves and add a video or image to show something that they are interested in.  The possibilities are endless and it is easy to use in a hybrid teaching environment.

Check out this video on how it works.  Want to try it?  Here's one I created asking about what the characteristics of effective feedback are.

Friday Matinee: Kahoot for Student Engagement & Review

Kahoot! is a fun game based way to engage your students and also check for understanding.  You can create a variety of questions and either play it live (even via Zoom) or you can assignment it as a challenge game where students play at their own pace when they have time.  Instead of you creating the questions for the game, ask students to submit questions to let them take over the review process.  

The Basic version is free and allows you to play live class-sized games or student-paced challenges so that students can play at their own pace.  Games will use multiple choice quiz questions.  There are 3 levels of premium accounts with various features including questions that drive deeper learning like puzzles, student typed answers, and more. 

All games can be played via Zoom!

Resources to get you started:

How to create a Kahoot

Host Kahoot! games - a step by step guide

Kahoot! challenges: how to assign Kahoots as Homework

Playlist of Kahoot! Tutorials

EDU Webinar on Kahoot for Distance Learning (the free upgrade to the pro version is no longer available)

Want to try a self-paced challenge?  Click here.

Need help?  Just ask.  We're here to help.  Also check out our Remote Learning Resources website.  We keep adding new ideas!

Friday Matinee: Review Jeopardy Game Using Google Slides

It's getting close to the end of the semester and using this Jeopardy template will allow you to either create the game for your class to play as a review or you can let groups of students use it to create the questions and answer then share their game with the rest of the class.  

Jeopardy 5 Topic Template

In order to use this template, go to FILE and choose MAKE A COPY.  Don't forget to "file" it in Google Drive in a folder so that you keep your Drive organized.  You can do this by clicking on the folder icon to the right of the file name at the top right of the screen.  

If you would like to use this template again, I would suggest that you make not 1, but 2 copies of this file.  One I would add the word MASTER to one of them so that you will know that it is your blank template

Friday Matinee: Using Pear Deck for Engagement & Formative Assessment

It actually feels like fall outside and it looks like it is going to be a great weekend to do something outside.  If you have a little time either over the weekend or sometime next week, take a look at Pear Deck.  It works with Google Slides (or PowerPoint) to help you add active learning and formative assessment to your presentations with learners of all ages.  There's a free and paid version of Pear Deck and I suggest you start with the basic free version.  You can add interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments right into your presentation.  You can control the pace of the class so that everyone (including those who are attending on Zoom) will be on the same slide at the same time.  Or you can enable your students to work through the presentation on their own.  Let's take a look by checking out these links:

Pear Deck Tutorial For Google Slides

Webinar: Using Pear Deck + Zoom to Make Learning Interactive in a Remote Learning or Online Class

20 Ways to Use Pear Deck to Engage Students

Ideas for Using Pear Deck in the Classroom

And there's lots of tutorials and blog posts on the Pear Deck website!

Friday Matinee: Using EDpuzzle to Improve Video Engagement

Want to know who watched a video you posted as an assignment?  EDpuzzle is an online program that allows you to create interactive video lessons by embedding questions and comments into videos from YouTube, Khan Academy, National Geographic, TED Talks, and more.  When these videos are assigned through EDpuzzle, you can see how much time a student spent on the video and how well they did on the questions.  It even gives you superpowers that prevent your students from skipping right to the questions!

The basic, free plan allows you to create 20 videos and share them with your class as an assignment.  To learn more about how to use EDpuzzle, I'm including a playlist of 8 videos, but you can skip #7 on integrating EDpuzzle with Google Classroom.  Want to know how much the students learned about a topic?  Let THEM create an EDpuzzle as a student project.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU6wYnG1CMASfLsEtFqGaYYskEB7rvH25

Want more information on using it with Canvas?  Go here and click on Using EDpuzzle With Canvas.

This app is being used by K-12 schools and universities for online learning.  You can even add screencasts you create.