Get Feedback Quickly with AnswerGarden

If you need a tool to quickly collect feedback from students of any age, try using AnswerGarden. 

Synopsis
Create an "answer garden" by posing a question and distributing the link to students. (Users can access AnswerGarden on any device with a browser or via the free iOS app.) Participants can enter short answers that will appear in a word cloud. The more times an answer is submitted, the bigger the word or phrase appears in the cloud. 

In this example, the words "education" and "technology" were each entered 3 times, while "engaging" -- which is smaller -- was submitted only twice

Uses

1. Brainstorming
2. Voting
3. Discussions
4. Finding Common Ground/Getting-to-Know-You during BOY

How-To Create an AnswerGarden
1. Go to the home page. Either click the + sign in the top, right corner, or scroll down and click "create AnswerGarden." . 

2. Enter a question or prompt into the topic area.

If you don't want to do anything else, just scroll and click the "create" button at the very bottom of the page:

If you'd like a bit more control, through, here are some other options:

• Mode: decide how many times a student can answer, if you need moderate answers before they appear in the "garden," or if the "garden" is accepting new answers
• Answer length: choose between 20 and 40 characters in length
• Password: if you want to edit your "garden" or delete unwanted answers, choose a password to be e-mailed to you. (You'll do this each time you create an AnswerGarden, as there is no option to create an account.)

3. Share the link.  The actual URL is fairly short (for instance, the AnswerGarden I just created has this URL: http://answergarden.ch/view/189565), so students can just type it into their browser. (You can also use Google Tone to send the URL to student computers.) AnswerGarden provides slightly faster ways for students to visit the link, though:

Scroll down on the actual AnswerGarden to see sharing options.

AnswerGarden lets you share your garden on various social media channels, embed a copy onto your class webpage or blog, or share via a QR code. I always just turned off the lights, displayed the QR code on the Promethean board, and let students scan the code to join our poll. 

Teacher Tricks

• New answers do not automatically appear in the AnswerGarden; refresh the page periodically to see new answers. 
• Get an inappropriate answer? Walk the room. When someone posts something, the answer is underlined on their device. Find the person with the device that has the underlined inappropriate-ness, and you've found the culprit. (Mentioning this up front is a great deterrent!)

Ideas for Use

1. BOY getting-to-know-you project: everyone posts 5 adjectives that describe themselves or their summer. 
2. BOY getting-to-know-you game: the teacher poses a question (ex. "Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?"), and the students have to type in their answer. The answer that grows the biggest on the screen is the most popular. 
3. BOY learning styles group quiz: the teacher poses questions (ex. "Would you rather show your learning with a song or a play?" ... "Do you like numbers or words more?"), and the students type their answer. If you keep it pretty simple, you'll get an idea about what the class as a whole likes the most and design your curriculum accordingly. 
4. Quick, anonymous poll: quickly assess if the majority of the class understands the concept before moving on to the next part of your lesson. AnswerGarden is anonymous, but you can walk the room and look at student devices to see how everyone answered. 
5. Short discussion: ask or post discussion questions to a novel or topic you're studying and let students weigh in. 
6. Exit ticket (save the URL so you can review student answers later): "What other questions do you have about this topic?" or "What's one thing you're confused about in this lesson?"
7. Real life examples: ask for examples to illustrate student knowledge on a topic (Learning about the elements of literature? Ask students to submit examples similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, etc. Learning about polygons or supply and demand? Ask students to submit real-life examples. Reviewing the scientific method? Ask students for examples of when they could use this concept in their life).
8. Collect data for a graph: get answers quickly to create a class graph. (ex. students can post how many siblings they have. Once the page is refreshed, hover over the answers to see how many times each was entered. Then create a class graph with the data.)
9. Vote: decide on a class reward, fundraising idea, class pet name, etc. 

How would you use AnswerGarden (or would you use it at all)? What other BYOD tools do you use?

Quizizz: Game-Based Student Response System

Quizizz is a new multiplayer, game-based student assessment tool that can be used on any device with a web browser. One of the things that sets Quizizz apart is that it is self-paced and quiz questions, answers, and leaderboard all show on the student device.

Getting Started

• To get started, create your FREE account at Quizizz.com. 
• As a teacher, you have the option of choosing a quiz from the online community, or you can create your own quiz. I especially like that hovering over a quiz gives you an at-a-glance preview of the questions, so you can quickly determine if it fits your needs. If you select the quiz, you get a preview list that shows all questions and answer choices.
• If you choose to create your own quiz, the process is simple and fast. Quiz creation happens in split screen. Meaning, as you type your question items (multiple choice or true/false, with or without an attached image), you are also seeing what the question item will look like for students. You also have the option to set the response time limit anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes for each question.

Playing the Game

• Much like Kahoot, students use a code to join your quiz, so there is no need to create student accounts, and there is no app to download. 
• Choose the quiz you want to administer, and select your options such as jumbling question order for students, showing/hiding the leaderboard, show memes after each question, etc. 
• Once you proceed, students navigate to join.quizizz.com and enter the quiz code projected on the screen. Once everyone is in, you’re ready to start the quiz. 
• Quizzes are self-paced. When participants finish the quiz, they have the option to review their answers while they wait on others to finish.
• As a teacher, you can download the student responses in to an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet provides data not only on the class as a whole, but also for individual students. 

(click here for video)

Tips:

• Do you plan certain subjects or lessons for your team? 
• After you create your quiz, share the link with your team members. 
• Want to challenge another class? 
• Share the join code with the other class. Since all questions, answer choices, and leaderboard rankings appear on the student devices, players don't need to be in the same room. 
• Want students to get to the join page faster? 
• When they visit the join page for the first time (on an iOS device), have them add the link to their home screen for easy access next time. 
• Have a feature suggestion for Quizizz? 
• Tweet them @quizizz and let them know! They welcome teacher feedback.

Favorite Finds from TCEA

Guest Post by Rachael Hulse, 3rd Grade Language Arts and Social Studies, CES

Hey Dragons! My name is Rachael Hulse and I am a 3rd grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher at Carroll Elementary. I attended TCEA this year for the first time with our digital team.

Here are just a few of my Favorite Finds from #TCEA15:

Charades for Kids!
This is a really fun way to review any vocabulary words. All you have to do is put in the word list and then you are good to go! We used this for Wordly Wise and they LOVED it.

Plickers
Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. They have a printed card that they hold up and rotate depending on their answer. The iPad will scan the cards and immediately give you results of what everyone answered. I have loved getting to use this with my students!

 Quizlet
This is a flashcards and study tool that will help students to review anywhere. Students can 1) study on the go, 2) play games to study, 3) create your own flashcards or 4) study with images and audio. A great tool for all learning styles.

Post-it Plus
Use the app to capture an image of the Post-it® Notes from your work session and manipulate them digitally. Capture up to 50 notes at a time and save as a board. You can combine boards. Export boards to PowerPoint, Excel or PDF file. This would be great to use during reading/writing workshop or for exit tickets.

All the apps are free and can be used on any iOS device. The apps can be used across curriculum and are a great way to engage your students. Be sure to give them a try. 

On top of all the great learning, a few of us enjoyed getting to see the Spazmatics perform at the conference. 

Left to Right: Jenny Bowen, me, Jessi Valles

Favorite Finds from TCEA

Guest Post by Candice Karas, Old Union Elementary School Science Lab Teacher

My name is Candice Karas, and I teach Science Lab at Old Union. This was my second year to attend the TCEA conference, and I found it just as beneficial (and overwhelming) as I did the first year! I definitely recommend attending if you get the chance.

Here are my top 3 favorite finds from TCEA 2015:

AnswerGarden.ch – a quick and easy way to assess students

• Create an AnswerGarden in less than 60 seconds – no account required.
• Type a question or prompt and give students the URL; they can answer on any device with a browser. Any time someone from the audience submits an answer, it appears in your “Answer Garden,” which is a word cloud. The more times that answer is submitted, the larger the word grows in the cloud. 
• This is a super-fast way to see what your students are thinking and how many students are on the same page. This tweet shows how I was able to spontaneously use AnswerGarden when a class of 4th grade students brought their devices to the lab.

Page Eraser – erase unwanted portions of a webpage before you display it to your class

• This is a Google Chrome extension.
• Very easy to use: install the extension in your Chrome browser, click its icon when you’re ready to use it, and then click portions of the webpage you’d like to disappear. 
• Nice for getting rid of distracting or inappropriate elements on an otherwise great website.
• The presenters had lots of other useful Chrome tips on their Tackk, and Kristie Johnson has a great ThingLink with more Chrome extension ideas.

Appear.in – video chat tool

• No registration, account, or downloads needed
• Connect up to 8 people in the same video chat
• You could use this to connect to more than one classroom during a Mystery Skype session, hold a debate between up to 8 classes, or to let more than one class take advantage of a guest speaker or virtual field trip. 

Bonus: http://bie.org/resources is a website full of PBL resources.

If you’re looking for other resources, check out my technology blog, search #tcea15 on Twitter, or visit this website to take a look at all of the handouts from this year’s conference.

ClassFlow ... The Newest from Promethean

We have previously discussed student response systems like Kahoot, Socrative, InfuseLearning, and PollEverywhere. The newest kid on the block with a twist is ClassFlow. As of January 2014 teachers are able to sign up for a complimentary ClassFlow account. The website states that with ClassFlow, teachers can build and access interactive lessons from any web browser, share lessons with other peers, and collaborate using the latest mobile and student response technology. Not only will ClassFlow help teachers save time at the planning and setup stages of lesson development, but it can also facilitate a more connected classroom. They got my attention with the ability to use my 5 iPads, 6 netbooks, 12 students with Smartphones, 12 ActivExpressions, and 3 laptops all within the same lesson in ClassFlow.  The ability to send graphs and images to the students (similar to InfuseLearning), have them complete a task, and send it back also gained my attention. 

 Ron Clark says ClassFlow really makes lessons more engaging. The kids get feedback on their work and everyone collaborates together. ClassFlow really connects us all.

Points of Interest for the classroom teacher:
•    Deliver, create, and easily organize lessons from any web browser
•    Develop lessons by seamlessly incorporating a variety of teaching resources and formats–video,  PowerPoint, documents, webpages, new content and more
•    Collaborate with a community of teachers by sharing lessons online
•    Unify your classroom technology, from your interactive whiteboard to tablets or any student devices.
•    Make edits, save changes, assess students, deliver and even share your lessons. 
•    Information goes two ways with ClassFlow. Send and receive feedback from your students - even photographs

The following Youtube video shows ClassFlow in action.  https://classflow.com/how-it-works
Check it out at https://classflow.com/ and let me know what you think.

Kahoot! Another Student Response Website

In September of this year I introduced you to Infuse Learning.  I am happy to say many teachers have found success with this new virtual response system for students. As we are all well-aware, there are many  websites that can do similar things.  A new one I ran across is called Kahoot.!  How is it different from the other response systems out there?   In short, Kahoot takes student engagement to a whole new level by turning a normal multiple-choices quiz into a whole-class trivia game against the clock!  On top of that, Kahoot has gone the extra mile by making these fun quiz games accessible from any device, be it a laptop, tablet or mobile phone.  It is FREE, FUN, and SIMPLE to use.
This new tool can be used to:

• Review for Exams, quizzes, and daily lessons
• Determine prior knowledge of material to be taught
• Allow students to create their own quizzes for their study group
• Run a survey
• Reveal weaknesses in student knowledge
• Increase student engagement in a fun and productive way

From Learners to Leaders

The Kahoot website states "The Kahoot! pedagogy is based on creating a trusted learning space, encouraging a loop from "learner to leader.  Devised from typical behavior, gaming and teaching models, the Kahoot! pedagogy creates a cycle which encourages both independent or collaborative research and creation, whilst also empowering learners to present and share their new-found knowledge to their peers, in a playful and social manner."