Plicker

Ever want to quickly poll your students but don't want to hassle with the time it takes to set up devices? Plicker is for you!
I recently read a blog post from Richard Byrne about the top ten technology tools for educators this year and Plicker was on the list. Having not heard of Plickers I decided to look into it. Intrigued by what I read I emailed a teacher who I knew would be willing to try them out. Less than 24 hours later Plicker has been tried and deemed pretty darn cool by all involved.
What is Plicker? First of all, the word Plicker is a shortened form of "paper clicker". You know TurningPoint, right? Great tool, but sometimes finicky. The batteries in the clickers go dead, the students can't get their response recorded no matter how carefully they point to the receiver. Sometimes you just don't want to bother with checking out a TurningPoint kit from the library. With Plickers you print out a set of cards that have what look like black puzzle pieces on them, each side labeled with A, B, C, or D. Each student is assigned a unique Plicker (the Plicker below is #13). As with TurningPoint, students do not see how other students answer. Students display their Plicker with their answer choice facing outward (the Plicker below would register answer A if held in this position).

From the front of the room the teacher uses their smartphone to do a "sweeping" scan of their classroom as students hold their Plicker up to answer the question displayed. We found that as students saw their name checked off it worked best if they turned Plicker facedown - that way the teacher easily knew which Plicker still needed to be scanned. Teachers can enter questions on the Plicker site, or on their smartphone. As the teacher scans the classroom a chart shows on the phone which answers have been registered, and they are coded red/green for incorrect/correct.

The question is displayed via the LCD hooked up to the teacher's computer with the teacher signed into their account on the Plicker site, along with a list of the students in the class. The student list can be displayed by card number, first name, or last name. Teachers also have the option of displaying the answers next to the student name. Once all have answered you can display a graph of the answer choices, with or without the correct answer displayed.

   

The reports from Plicker do not compile all the results into one score, just by question. However, it makes a super tool to use for quick checks and exit tickets. Yes, you need a device on which to use the app - but there are Apple and Android versions. The version used to test Plicker was an Android. Since there is an Apple app, it is possible that an iPad could be used rather than an iPhone. Plicker cards are probably best used on card stock. The site does say if you laminate the cards to use a matte laminator so the glare does not interfere with your scan. 

Re-Charging Classroom Instruction with YouTube Edu and Google Apps

This session was presented by Kim Randall who makes her living doing these types of workshops around the world.  However, while sitting through the session, I thought she was a classroom teacher, because all that she suggested seemed very practical, do-able, and valuable.  Here I'll recap of some of the strategies she suggested and I'll provide you the list of resource links she accompanied them with.  Although you won't be able to use these strategies quite the way she anticipates (because our students won't have Google accounts until next year) with some modifications they could be used this year.

Strategy One- Vocabulary Development - this strategy could be used when teaching or introducing a wide variety of material.  Kim turned the session into a classroom and the session participants into engaged learners.  She first showed us a video on the City of London, a city of 11,000 people which is surrounded by London, a city of 7,000,000 people.  She paused the four minute video repeatedly to allow us to write down seven to ten key words or phrases.  Then she had us put ourselves into groups in which we agreed on a group list of 7-10 key words or phrases, which a group recorder typed these into a Google form.  From the form the terms went into a Google drive spread sheet from which she copied and pasted into Wordle to create a word cloud.

Strategies Two and Three - Using Google Draw Graphic Organizers - If you have a Google account, perhaps you are familiar with Google Drive.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Google Drive, let me give you a brief introduction, as NEXT YEAR you will have an ACPS Google account.  Google Drive is similar to DropBox in that it provides cloud (online) storage.  Additionally, there is an online word processor, presentation creator, spreadsheet, etc.  Each of these applications can be used collaboratively--two or more people can edit the document simultaneously.

Among these applications is "Google Draw"--which I had previously disregarded as not all that relevant to the high school classroom.  Well, I was wrong.  Kim Randall had us take what we had learned and collaboratively enter it into a couple of different graphic organizers.  I believe she made these herself, but there are a number of templates available for Venn diagrams and that sort of thing.
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Strategie Four - Three Facts and a Fib. Another activity session participants engaged in was to read through four statements and try to identify the fib.  These predictions were entered into a Google form so that the "class" could immediately see how many class members chose each of the four statements.  We then watched a YouTube EDU video on sea turtles to find out if we were correct.  This seems to be a very useful way of getting students to pay close attention to educational videos.  Of course there are many variations of this activity--for example having students watch a video and then create their own list of three facts and a fib.

Strategy Five - Half  the Story.  With this one, the teacher takes an image and simply crops out half of it. The students then speculate on what the missing part of the image shows.

Strategy Six - Caption It - Show the students an image and have them create a caption for it, thus encouraging them to study and analyze the image.  As a former social studies teacher I can see a lot of applications for this,.

Here is the list of resources Ms. Randall provided for use with these strategies--or some strategy of your own.

• www.youtube.com/education
• www.youtube.com/teachers
• www.youtube.com/schools
• http://www.google.com/edu/
• www.google.com/drive
• www.wordle.net
• www.google.com/images
• www.flickr.com      
• www.pics4learning.com

Text Messaging Your Students!

There.  That title should get your attention.  In my last post I promised to review ClassParrot, however, I’m going to break my promise.  ClassParrot couldn’t find a business model that worked and went out of business.  But, their idea was that teachers could increase communication with students and parents through safe and secure texting and I believe they are right on the money about that—well maybe not “money”—how about they were on the “mark”.  ClassParrot would give teachers a certain number of text messages per month, for free, and then charge teachers who wanted unlimited texting.  Perhaps that didn’t work for them because a number of other sites are willing to provide unlimited texting for free.  So, allow me to review three of those sites instead.  Even after going out of business, the ClassParrot site still provides this bit of information—only 22% of Emails get opened, whereas 98% of text messages get opened—now which would you say is a better way to reach students?

 

Here is a quote from a blog by Anna Otto (which you can read in its entirety here):

There are several web-based texting sites that allow you to text students while avoiding the legal risk of exchanging personal contact information with them. You won’t know your students’ cell phone numbers, and they won’t know yours. All of these types of sites let you send messages through their website, some also let you text straight from your phone. They’re great if you’d like to help students remember to study for an upcoming test, remind them to bring in certain supplies, let them know about date and time changes for club/athletic events, and more!

 

Not only am I too cheap to have a smart phone, but, believe it or not, I have texting blocked on my feature phone—I mean I am really a skin flint.  So, perhaps I’m not the best one to be doing this review.  But, here goes….

 

Celly (http://cel.ly/) – as in cell — a cell could be your first block Biology Class, the athletes on a football team, a study group, or the kids going on a particular field trip.  Celly seems to be a wonderful vehicle for organizing protests—it has been used a lot by the occupy Wall Street movement.  I’m not sure how it works or looks on a phone, but, if students go to the Celly website they’ll find they have opportunity to open their own cells or to join up or drop in on hundreds of other cells—not just Occupy Wall Street, but lots of Occupy sites seem  to show up.  This makes the point that you can set up as many cells (or classes) as you like.  You can join Celly and set up cells either on your computer or on your phone—oh, they also have an Android App (no iPad app at this point.)  The easiest way to have students join your cell is to have them send the text “join” to the group and enter the correct code.  You can set up cells: 1) that anyone can join, or 2) anyone who provides a description of themselves of which you approve, or 3) only those who know the password can join.   Once they are in, you do not see their phone number and they do not see yours. 

 

You can then send out group texts from your computer for free.  On your phone, standard text messaging rates apply—but a group text counts as just one text. 

 

Being the cell administrator gives you several options.  You can set things up so:  1) you can text the students but, they cannot reply, or 2) so that they can reply, or 3) so that students also may send out texts to the whole group, or 4) so that students can send out texts “curated” by you to the whole group (meaning if it makes it past your one teacher censorship board it is sent to the group – similar to moderating a blog).  If a student replies to a text with a question, the teacher can then answer that question privately.   Standard messaging rates apply for the students, so you might want to get parental permission for this one.  For those students who may be as frugal as I am and therefore, don’t have texting, replies can also be made through Email. 

 

Of the sites I’m reviewing today, this is the only one where a student can respond to a multiple choice poll and have the answers appear on your website—to be projected on a screen—no, wait, we can’t do that in school—but, the capacity is there.   To assure that your students get plenty of sleep you can shut down the reply capability every night at bedtime.  Celly also allows you to add “hashtags” to texts so that they can be easily filtered and sorted.  Finally, with Celly you can create messages and schedule them to be sent later.

 

Remind 101 (https://www.remind101.com/).  This site is supposed to be the elegantly simple one, and in many ways it is.  You add a class and it creates joining instructions in PDF format which can immediately be printed and distributed.  However, I tried to join a group I created via Email (to see how it worked) and Thunderbird told me my message was not deliverable.   Furthermore, when I tried to schedule a message to be delivered later—something didn’t pop up on my screen allowing me to do so.   To sign up via Email, one needs an Email address.  Remind 101 does have an iPhone/iPad app.

 

Class Pager (https://www.classpager.com/) – this looks and acts a lot like Remind 101—I don’t know which came first, but, one of them obviously viewed the other’s site.  The advantages of Class Pager over Remind—you can set up polls (but not multiple choice ones) and you can respond to students individually.  The disadvantages are that you can only set up one class for free—their business model charges $10/month per additional class and students can’t join via Email—they must have texting to join.

 

In conclusion, if I were to select one of them, it would be Celly.  I’ll grant you it is not as simple to use as the others; however, it seems to work best with my machine, with our filters, and with my restrictions (no Smart phone, etc.)  Now, would I really use it in a classroom?  As a coach or sponsor of an extracurricular activity, I’d definitely use it—after clearing it with my principal first.  As a classroom teacher, I think I’d give it a try, restrict its use to very limited occasions, and see how the students and parents react.  If communication with parents and students is key to classroom success, how can it hurt to try it out?

Classroom Polling on the Net

One of the better sessions I attended at the EdTech conference was presented by Jeff Nugent of a Commonwealth University. It was on classroom polling. Jeff was concerned with showing us the uses of polling and not merely how to do it. To do this he had us become students in order to demonstrate how polling makes student’s thinking visible, and therefore can be used for formative assessments. We also experienced how it could be used for peer instruction and mass
collaboration.

We each came into the classroom with a mobile pad, laptop, or cellphone with texting capacity. We went to the website polleverywhere.com. Jeff had the following question displayed: If two glasses of water are filled to the same level, but, one has ice cubes in it, which glass of water will have a higher level once the ice melts? We clicked on our responses (or texted in a response) and as we did a bar graph appeared—responding to each answer as it came in. The next question we responded to was; “How confident are you of your answer?” After giving us a moment to respond, Jeff asked us to “convince your neighbor.” Following which we were polled again on the original question.

This was a quick way to get us thinking about a science lesson, not just listening to a teacher explain the answer, but doing some analysis, building arguments, listening to others, reasoning, etc. It really made for a high interest lesson. If you're interested in using something like this, let your friendly ITRT know, or simply go to "polleverywhere.com" and create a poll for yourself.

There are several other similar sites I’ve looked at this school year, some of which also enable a teacher to have a “backchannel discussion” going on during class. But, I’ll tell you more about those sites in some future blog.