All About Science

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Week 4 of the Connected Educator Class

Some of the sites and organizational tools that I discovered this  week

Much of our time these days is spent online whether we are at home or at work.  We spend much of our time reading and researching about all sorts of things.  Diigo helps you streamline the information and dramatically improve productivity.  There are annotation tools in which you can add digital highlighters and sticky notes whether you are working on a PC, tablet, or mobile device and they will always be there when you return.  You can build a personal library and access it anywhere and collaborate with students or staff. 



The Science Spot has a plethora of information for science teachers.  You will find lesson plans & activities for the classroom, project ideas for clubs or classrooms, science trivia, science starters to challenge students, word search & puzzles, teaching tips, technology lesson plans & activities, and links to many other resources.  I found several things that I will be able to use this next school year.

Remind101 is a free service for teachers that allows you to send text messages to groups of students and or parents from your computer, your iPhone, or your Android phone.  You will not have to upload cell phone numbers or give their personal phone numbers out.  There are standard text messaging rates that will apply so it is important that anyone who subscribes should have a phone plan that allows sending/receiving text messages.  If students & parents cannot receive texts, they can subscribe via email instead.  Only the person sending Remind101 messages (teacher, principal, coach) needs to create an account.  If you just want to subscribe to receive messages, you do not create an account. 
Messaging is 1-way broadcast communication—there is no inbox of replies to manage and no accidental texts received at midnight!  Students cannot reply so there is no chance of unfair or inappropriate communication between student and teacher.  It is not necessary to have a smartphone to use Remind101.  However, you must be able to receive texts.  If you cannot receive texts you can sign up to receive Remind101 notifications by email.  Teachers can send messages via the website by logging into their account at www.remind101.com.  If a teacher would like to send Remind101 messages via a mobile device, they will need to use the Remind101 iOS or Android app on a smartphone or tablet.
 
Socrative is a FREE program that can make classes more engaging and interactive.  Teachers can initiate activities and prompt students with questions.  The students will then respond to the questions on their smartphone, laptop, IPod touch, tablet, etc..  Socrative can run on any device with internet access.  Here are a couple of ways that you can use Socrative.  You can use it as a single response activity to allow students to reply to your prompt or question without entering their names.  In a single response activity your verbally pose a question or prompt to the students and they respond with a word, sentence, or multiple choice selection.  The anonymous reply format is useful for surveying students if you want them to submit responses to questions or prompts that they might be reluctant to share in an open format.  You can also use Socrative to administer short quizzes.  The short quizzes can include multiple choice, true/false, and short answer responses.  They also have a new option in which you can include pictures in your questions about diagrams, charts, and any other item that you have an image of.  You can set the quiz to give students immediate feedback on the multiple choice and true/false questions.  You can see the results of the quizzes in real-time and download a report of all students’ answers when all of the students have completed the quiz.   
Here is a video on how to use Socrative.


Other organizational tools:


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