Small Teaching Tip Number 5 focuses on using Google Docs and Slides to make in-class group work more productive and efficient.

Collaboration and project management are important skills for college students to learn. Unfortunately, many students grumble about group work and faculty spend too much time managing logistics. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were tools that could make in-class group work more efficient and productive?

I have a possible solution for you! Google Apps!

All CofC students and faculty have free access to Google Apps for Education using their College email address and password.

Here are two ways you can use Google Docs and Slides to make group work more efficient:

Share Templates

In-class group work is most effective if students are given clear instructions, including the goals of the activity and expectations for a deliverable. Without purpose or guidelines, students will be less productive and more easily distracted.

One way to provide structure is to create an outline, template, or worksheet to guide students’ work. If you create this handout in Google Docs, you can easily share it with students who can then type on the document as they work with their teams.

But, Jessica, wouldn’t that mean all students would be typing on the same document?

Yes, unless you make this tiny but powerful change to the document URL: delete the word “edit” from the end of the URL and replace it with the word “copy.”

When students click on the URL you’ve shared with them, they will be asked to make a clean copy. Now, each student or each group can work on their own document.

Ask your students to share their document with you so you can see what they’ve accomplished during class. And if groups run out of time and need to finish outside of class, every group member can contribute from their own dorm room or apartment (because Google Drive is cloud-based).

Share a Slide Master

After students complete an in-class activity or assignment, do you ask groups to present their work to the rest of the class? This form of debriefing or “reporting out” encourages students to work harder because they’ll have to stand in front of the room to present to their peers. It also gives students much-needed opportunities to practice their public speaking skills, which are typically quite weak.

But if you ask students to create slides in Powerpoint, every student would have to email their file or save it to a thumb drive and then open it on the teacher station computer. This requires too much precious class time.

Instead of using Powerpoint, create an empty slide show in Google Slides. If you want students to design their own slides, simply create a presentation with blank slides (one slide per student or one slide per group, for example). If you want students to include certain pieces of information on their slides, create a template. You can then duplicate that template slide for as many students or groups that you have.

Next, give your students editing rights and share the URL with them (watch the animated GIF below). Every student can now access that slide deck during class and work on their individual slides. When it’s time to present to the class, you only have to open the one Google Slides presentation and the entire class’ work is right there!

We hope you found this week’s Small Teaching Tip helpful. This post is part of a series which presents low risk, high reward teaching ideas, inspired by James Lang’s book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning.

instructional technology, Productivity, Teaching Advice, Tech Generation, TLT

Start your semester off right!

August 15, 2016January 31, 2023 leea5

Starting a new semester can be daunting but let us help you with our Start of Semester Checklist! This checklist gives you a list view of important tasks to complete to make sure your semester starts off smoothly, it also tells you how to complete most tasks. Some of the tasks and include: Verifying your course shell has been created, confirming your course start date, enrolling non-students into your course, cross listing, and building course content and student enrollment. Let us make it easier for you, click on our checklist!

Start of Semester Checklist

1-1-1, Innovative Instruction, iPad, Web 2.0

Faculty Guest Post: Nearpod as an alternative to PowerPoint

August 1, 2016January 31, 2023 Laura Plotts

This month’s faculty blogger is Heidi Collins, who is Adjunct Faculty of French in the Department of French-Francophone-Italian Studies.

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Looking to shake up lectures from the typical Powerpoint and searching for a vehicle that better integrated student response in the presentation, I experimented with Nearpod during the Spring 2016 semester. This app allows an instructor to create a presentation and then push a slide show out to a student’s personal device. Perhaps more importantly, it features built-in activities and quizzes that require the students to interact with the presentation. Student responses from these exercises are available for the teacher to view and subsequently share with the class if they wish. The answers can also be saved and viewed later by the instructor for grading purposes or more in-depth evaluation.

The free version of the application gives you access to the basic features while purchasing the next level opens up more student activity modules. The Nearpod website allows you to create your presentation but the design capabilities are limited. It is easier to create the look you want by creating your slides in Powerpoint, saving them as images, and them placing them in your Nearpod presentation. You can also add activities like open-ended questions, free-draw, and quizzes to your slides. There are numerous Nearpod lessons available for free or a small fee. However, most of these are geared towards secondary school students.

Once you have created and published your presentation, you are ready to use it in class. When you run the presentation, the students will use the code provided to logon to the presentation and will see the individual slides on their own computers or tablets. You can open the application on the classroom computer, but I found it worked better to run the presentation from my iPad and log the classroom computer into the presentation as the students do. This allowed me to project on the big screen what the students were also seeing on their own screens and reference it as we worked.

The first time I used Nearpod with my classes, I requested students bring a laptop, iPad, or other tablet to class with them. While it is possible to view the presentations on a cellphone, the small screen size limits the students’ ability to complete activities. Unfortunately, for a class of 20 students, I only had 4-6 students bring devices with them. This meant that groups of 3-4 students were working together which ultimately led to one or two students being less engaged in the activity. Luckily, TLT allows instructors to check out iPads for classroom use on a short-term basis. Doing this allowed us to have 1-2 students per device which led to greater student participation.

One of the downfalls of the application is that the whole class must stay together. This can be difficult if the students are working on an activity at different rates. In particular, if a student hasn’t submitted a response to a question, once the instructor pushes the next slide, half-finished responses will be lost. To alleviate this problem, I asked students to submit any partial responses when we were ready to move on.

One of the great things about Nearpod is that you can view the students’ responses and choose which ones to show to the entire class. This could allow you to highlight a particularly interesting response or perhaps a response with a common error that you wish to address. When working with grammar, I often prefer to have an incorrect response given instead of a correct one because it creates a teaching moment. However, students often only want to volunteer a response when they are sure it is the correct answer. With Nearpod, every student submits an answer, and I get to decide which ones we should look at together. I’m also able to quickly judge if many students are making the same mistakes.

The free draw activity also lends itself well to the language classroom. I created a lesson in Nearpod on prepositions of location. Using the free draw activity, I gave my students simple commands for drawing a picture. (Draw a girl. Draw a flower next to the girl. Draw a boy behind the flower. Etc.) Everyone was able to draw and then we were able to easily view the students’ drawings as a class and discuss them further in the target language.

Overall, Nearpod worked well to increase active student participation and provided a different way of doing things that helped engage the students. It also forced me to slow down a bit and gave me a better idea of how well the students were keeping up. Additionally, the premium features include being able to assign the presentations as homework which would be interesting to try as part of an online course.

TLT, TLTCon

8 Engaging Ways to use Technology in the Classroom

February 26, 2016January 31, 2023 Laura Plotts

I wanted to share the article 8 Engaging Ways to use Technology in the Classroom to Create Lessons That Aren’t Boring from EmergingEdTech that offers up some strategies and tools for the classroom at this time because a few ideas noted in the article will be covered by CofC Faculty at the upcoming TLT Conference which takes place March 8, 9, and 10th. There are still a few spaces available so register now at https://goo.gl/oVJf8M

The article mentions Socrative and Plickers. To learn more about these tools register for the Faculty Discovery Lab and Lunch on 3/9 from 11:50-1:15

Google Drive is another tool in the article. CofC has adopted Google apps for Education and Google Drive is available to all faculty and students. There will be a number a session on Google Drive: “Using Google docs for a final project in place of a final exam,” “Introducing Students to Collaboration Using Google Docs,” “Improve Collaboration and Efficiency with Google Docs” as well as “E-portfolios, Google Sites and Digital Projects,” and Using Blogger for Class Notes.” Check the Conference Schedule for dates and times.

PollEverywhere is listed in the article and although there will not be a session on it at the upcoming conference I think it is important to note that CofC does have a educational license to PollEverywhere. To learn more about it and view step by step tutorials visit: https://blogs.charleston.edu/tlttutorials/2013/09/10/poll-everywhere/

Like PollEveyerywhere, both Twitter and PowToon make an appearance in the article and are not featured sessions at the Conference, but TLT has created step by step instructions for these tools and if you would like to learn more about them contact your Instructional Technologist.

Best Practices, Pedagogy

Energize In-Class Discussions

November 13, 2015January 31, 2023 Jessica Smith

Last week, I was commiserating with an instructor about her struggle to engage students in discussion during class. “Sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall,” she lamented. Facilitating lively conversations that require students to apply, synthesize, and evaluate their knowledge is one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. Even the most brilliant lecturer can be stymied by an unresponsive class. So these are my top tips for improving class discussions:

Plan your discussion prompts in advance. Thought-provoking questions are challenging to come up with on the fly. So when planning your lectures and in-class activities, craft prompts as well. Without prior contemplation, we may resort to asking “any thoughts about that?” and be discouraged by the blank stares we receive.

Use hooks to launch the discussion. Rather than starting a discussion with a single question, consider building up to that prompt with a hook to pique your students’ interest and start their thinking process. For example, present a short case study, tell a story, recite a witty quote, show a video clip, or share a current event. These serve as points of departure that contextualize your questions and give students the opportunity to apply their knowledge.

Ask better questions. Often because we haven’t given them much thought in advance, our discussion prompts fall flat. Our questions are too vague, too long-winded, or limited to yes-no answers. Instead, make sure your questions are succinct, clear, and open-ended. This may seem obvious, but I often ramble a bit when asking questions forcing students to inquire, “so what’s the question again?” Some ideas for discussion prompts:

Ask for students’ input: What should ___ have done? What would you do in this case? Have you had a similar experience in your life?
Ask “how” and “why” questions: How might this argument be made more persuasive? Why do you think the author made this argument? How does ___ compare to ____?
Ask evaluative questions: How compelling is the author’s argument? What are the implications of ____?
Ask prediction questions: What will occur next? What might happen if. . .?
Ask justification questions: What evidence led you to conclude that…? What is the reason…?

Give your students a chance to think. Many of us are uncomfortable with silence, so when students don’t immediately respond to our questions, we continue talking. It’s easy to forget that students are disciplinary novices who need greater time to ponder than we do. So when asking a question, pause for a good 30 seconds before probing further. Don’t surrender and answer the question for your students. Force yourself to endure the silence.

Think-pair-share. Many faculty turn their noses up at strategies implemented in K-12 classrooms, but that’s where a majority of innovative pedagogy comes from. Think-pair-share is a simple but brilliant way to encourage conversation. First, after presenting your hook and prompt, let students jot down their ideas on scrap pieces of paper. Then, ask them to turn to their neighbors and share their ideas. Finally, bring the entire class together and have the pairs report what they discussed. This gives students the chance to think and talk through their ideas before being put “on the spot” in front of the entire group.

Use positive reinforcement. When students contribute to class discussion in ways that demonstrate higher-order thinking, acknowledge it. Saying, “that’s a great question” or “good point” is an effective start, but be more specific with your feedback. For example, “Sam makes an excellent point. I appreciate how you supported your claim with evidence from the reading.” This demonstrates to students what a “good” response sounds like, providing a model they can all use.

Ask follow-up questions. When students respond with brief or incomplete answers, don’t miss the opportunity to ask a follow-up question such as, “Could you tell me more?” or “Why do you say that?” or “How did you come to that conclusion?” You can also pull in other students to contribute: “Let’s help Jamie out, why might we reach the conclusion that. . .?”

End discussions purposefully. Before moving on to the next lecture topic or question, summarize what was discussed or ask a student to do so. This helps students to synthesize new information and integrate it with existing knowledge. You could also consider ending your class with some type of “exit ticket” such as a minute paper or Poll Everywhere poll (which is a free tool for CofC students and faculty). Exit tickets are a quick and easy method to help students solidify their understanding as well as communicate to the instructor what they still have questions about.

Do you have other suggestions for facilitating engaging class discussions? Please share!

For help improving discussions in your online course, check out this post written by my colleague, Mendi: https://blogs.charleston.edu/tlt/2015/10/28/tips-for-more-effective-online-discussions/

TLT

Using Canva and Haiku Deck in the classroom

October 22, 2015January 31, 2023 Laura Plotts

Back on February 4th, 2015 TLT posted our Top Ten Tech Tools and for today’s post I would like to highlight two of those tools, Canva and Haiku Deck , and share a few ways to use them in the classroom. Both are free, easy to use, and rely on images instead of a lot of text. Here are a few suggestions on using them with your students:

Canva

These uses are from Holly Clark’s 5 Great uses for Canva in the Classroom

Think-Pic-Share

Think – First, ask students to think about what they learned and find a way to summarize it. Being succinct and articulate is a very important 21st century skill and NOT one students do very well on their own. Teaching the art of concise writing – that is still able to catch the readers attention is not easy to do. Learning how to do this is extremely valuable in today’s 140 character world.

Pic – Next, find a picture (at this point teach about creative commons) that is a good graphical summarization of what was learned.

Share – Gone are the days where students turn in work that it is only seen by the teacher, graded and then returned. Once they are done and have shared their work…they look to see what others have turned in. Students will compare their designs with the other students and begin thinking about their thinking – or better yet thinking about their learning.

Quick Reflection

Canva can be used as a quick reflection tool. What about a six word summary about what was just learned.

Collaborative Designing

Students can share a Canva with another student – and together they can work to make it better. It might be smart to make each Canva go through one other “student editors” or “Co-creators” eyes before being published.

For a tutorial on Canva visit http://goo.gl/5XHIaL

Haiku Deck

The uses from Holly Clark’s post that I listed above can also be applied to Haiku Deck. For the Think-Pic-Share under “Think” Haiku Deck limits bullet points to five and limits the amount of text that can be added to a slide so students will need to be succinct. Under “Pic” Haiku Deck pulls from Creative Commons and cites them. This is a great opportunity to talk with your students about Copyright. For Holly’s Quick Reflection idea keep in mind that Haiku Deck limits bullet points to five and limits the amount of text that can be added to a slide.

Digital Portfolio

Haiku Deck is not limited to images from Creative Commons. If using an iPad any photo in the Camera roll or if using the web version any image on the Computer can be used to create a slide. In addition to an image the student could add text to reflect.

For a tutorial on Haiku Deck visit https://goo.gl/rbtNxN

1-1-1, iPad, Mobile

Guest Post: How a Calendar Service Saved and an App Nearly Destroyed My Sanity

May 27, 2015January 31, 2023 ratcliffcr

Our guest blogger is Gretchen McLaine, Associate Professor of Dance. Gretchen was a participant in the 2014 Summer FTI, and this post is a review of Gretchen’s experience integrating two new tools into her courses.

If you are like most faculty here at the college, you embrace any opportunity to make more efficient use of your time and simplify your work life. Being the lone full-time faculty member and director of a vibrant, new program, I appreciate any chance to make my job a bit more manageable. However, with so many options from which to choose, I turned to our Faculty Technology Institute last summer for finding ways to make my life easier.

One of my favorite time savers is YouCanBookMe. If you do not currently use this website, you should. YouCanBookMe is a free service where anyone with your URL can schedule an appointment with you. Not only does the site sync with your Google calendar, it only shows your availability, not any personal information about your appointments. You can also decide specific times of each day to make yourself available/unavailable. My URL is included on my syllabi as well as on my office door. All of my advising appointments are scheduled through this amazing, free service, which has stopped the endless hours of emailing back and forth with students as we try to coordinate schedules.

My experiences with the Grader application has almost cost me my sanity, and has certainly cost me a lot of wasted time. Available for iPad, this app is supposed to integrate with the College’s learning management system, otherwise known as OAKS. One of the advantages of its use is the ability to grade files submitted to OAKS dropbox folders without requiring Internet access. However, before you can grade offline, you must go through the app while online and download the contents of these folders, remembering to hit the download buttons on each folder and then hitting the sync icon. If you are unable to do this, then the app isn’t useful. And even if you grade while off-line, you must sync again whenever you regain Internet connectivity for those files to be returned to the students. For some reason and on multiple occasions, I have graded papers only to have lost them when I synced the folders. And while there have been some improvements in the stability of this app over the past year, I have also experienced this app freezing while grading (losing graded papers in the process) on multiple occasions. Maybe it is user error, but my experiences with this app have proven more frustrating than fruitful.

1-1-1, Faculty Technology Institute, Innovative Instruction

Guest Post: Haiku Deck + Air Sketch = Sweet

April 17, 2015January 31, 2023 Jessica Smith

Our guest blogger is Jeremy Clement, instructor and internship coordinator for Hospitality and Tourism Management. Jeremy was a participant in the 2014 Summer FTI and this post reports on his experience integrating new technology tools into his courses.

FTI Tools in Action: Classroom Engagement & Instructor Versatility Made Simple

I could write a book about all the tools and ideas I walked away with from the Summer, 2014 FTI. As many will attest, it was almost overwhelming. The trick seemed to be to approach the experience with some expectation of how you can utilize the tools and technology you’ll find. I had some notion at the time…but have found since that the skills and abilities I gained from TLT have far more applications than I could’ve ever imagined. So rather than try to report on them all, I’ll simply report on the combination that I’ve utilized, quite successfully, since.

Prior to the FTI, TLT had turned me on to AirSketch for classroom presentations. AirSketch is a free app that simply converts your static presentations – you actually convert your PowerPoint or other materials to PDF first – into an interactive whiteboard in the classroom. In addition to that (and my favorite part) is that it is linked to the classroom projection system via a URL address you call up in the Internet browser on the classroom computer, not via some physical media or content saved directly to the computer itself. Once you enter the URL, the students are exposed to a live version of your presentation.

Your presentation on your tablet or mobile device…not your presentation on the in-room system, wow. That means you can walk throughout the classroom, face whatever direction you’d like and still have access to advance your content or mark up the slide being displayed…all while using your own tablet from the palm of your hand. The freedom is incredible.

For someone who is a bit fidgety, like myself, this allows you to move freely about the class without being tethered to a console or station at the front of the room. I still generally stay in the front for most of my class…but I can’t say enough about the freedom and flexibility inherent in being able to move about and see where I’m at in a lecture, all without having to look back at the screen behind me or staying behind a podium. I find it is more engaging for the students and more natural to my presentation style.

AirSketch is an effective and impressive tool in and of itself. Outside the classroom, I’ve used this technology numerous times to give reports or lead discussions and meetings. Without exception, someone always asks ‘how did you do that?’ I honestly think I might’ve won over some of those audiences simply due to my practiced use of this simple, yet powerful tool.

Event Management — Haiku Deck title slide

Now here’s where the FTI really amped that up to another level. Haiku Deck was introduced during the FTI as an alternative to PowerPoint for creating engaging and dynamic presentations. I have to say, I was instantly hooked. The program or app (Haiku Deck is accessible via a website or can be downloaded as an app) essentially pairs your presentation content with an expansive database of beautiful, vibrant photographs via the use of its unique correlative categorization feature.

Essentially, you type in the main theme of the slide and they find a plethora of engaging and interesting photos and images that follow the same theme or concept. I don’t claim to know exactly how it works, only that it is both effective and fun to use. My only issue is I tend to get lost looking at all the cool images and trying to pick the one that is most appropriate and also the most engaging. It allows me to mix up a little left- and right-brain activity and really bring more of my personal style and creativity into what can sometimes be dull and emotionless presentation material.

EMBOK Model — Adding user’s own images to Haiku Deck

Not only does Haiku Deck offer their own photo library, you can also include your own images. This feature allows you to integrate photos, diagrams, or other materials as the backdrop for the slide and details surrounding the subject. I’ve provided some examples to give you an idea of how this might be integrated.

The unique design function of Haiku Deck does have some limitations, but I developed a workaround that I think everyone can benefit from. Essentially, I usually need to include more data on a slide than what Haiku Deck’s presentation builder will allow. I found this frustrating at first and thought that would limit its usefulness for my particular course given the volume of information I need to display as a part of my presentation.

Characteristics — Haiku Deck slide edited inside Powerpoint

So, my solution was to use Haiku Deck to build the base slide – typically including a graphic and a slide title or subject line. Then I would download the presentation into PowerPoint, one of the various options they provide for exporting your content. I would then use the tools available in PowerPoint to add content over top of the Haiku Deck slide. The result was what I consider a beautiful balance of engaging graphics and pictures supplemented by the course materials I need to deliver in a more comprehensive format than what Haiku Deck had to offer.

Poll Everywhere results added to Haiku Deck slide

Now, once I had the PowerPoint deck fully developed, I convert that presentation to a PDF. From there, it’s a simple matter of pulling it up via AirSketch and calling up the URL in the classroom. My course evaluations were the best in my department, certainly in part due to the use of this unique blend of tools and technology. Of course, I didn’t stop there – I also integrated other FTI-introduced tools like Poll Everywhere which can be seen in my examples here as well.

The versatility and level of engagement I was able to accomplish as a result of information I gathered in the FTI have surely improved my teaching style as well as my personal appetite for trying and implementing new tools and technology in the classroom. Honestly, even the fails are learning opportunities as the class has to work together to find a better way to tackle the challenge. My evaluations are one indicator but certainly not the only one I’ve received.

If you’ve gotten this far and still find this interesting, I would encourage you to check out Haiku Deck’s pending software launch – Haiku Deck Zuru. This new offering, not yet released but eligible for subscription as a charter member, promises to utilize artificial intelligence to essentially read and convert a preexisting presentation into a Haiku Deck in one fell swoop. I find that both fascinating and exciting.

Assessment, iPad, Mobile, Tech Generation

Track Your Teams with Score Keeper by Learning Dojo

January 29, 2015January 31, 2023 Amy Ostrom

Score Keeper – What is it and how can I use it?

Platform – iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad
Price – free in the App Store (NOTE: this is listed as an iPhone app)
Download – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/score-keeper-by-learning-dojo/id954956153?mt=8

Overview

Using Team Based Learning or Gaming in your classroom? Having a hard time easily keeping or resetting the score? Score Keeper will not only help you to add up or detract points from 2 teams, but it also allows you to reset the score with one touch. When a team gains or loses a point the app will comment with encouragement or gentle teasing. (Yes, you have the option to silence the app if you’d like!). Simple to use and ready to go, Score Keeper will help you keep track of those points! Game on!

Faculty Showcase, Information Session, Innovative Instruction, Round Table Discussion, TLT

Giving Thanks for Technology: November Faculty Showcase

November 24, 2014January 31, 2023 Jessica Smith

At our November Faculty Showcase, we gave thanks for the many ways technology makes us more efficient, productive, and engaging instructors. Special thanks to Kate Pfile, Mary Ann Hartshorn, and Gayle Goudy for sharing their experiences using instructional technologies. In addition to learning about innovative teaching strategies, we also collected over 34 pounds of canned goods to be donated in time for Thanksgiving. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

During the Showcase, Kate Pfile (HHP) showed us how her students use Popplet (Free; iOS and Web) for a postural assessment assignment. Popplet is a digital mind-mapping application that allows users to visually capture ideas and make connections between them. Kate asks her students to take pictures of a friend’s posture, then use Popplet to analyze musculature by identifying the relationships among various body parts. Popplet can also be used to enhance brainstorming, tease out ideas, plan projects, and organize one’s thoughts, such as when writing a research paper. Even better, Popplet allows multiple users to collaborate synchronously or asynchronously, so small groups or an entire class could work together.

Example Popplet with Kate's Annotations, made in Goodnotes — Example Popplet with Kate’s annotations, made in Goodnotes

Gayle Goudy (SOTA) shared her experiences with flipping her art history courses. Flipping has become a hot topic in education, as instructors move lectures outside the classroom while reserving class time for discussion, problem-solving, activities, and group work. This allows students to accomplish the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy on their own while they work through higher levels of cognitive work with their classmates and instructor. There are a variety of approaches to flipping your course, whether you want to flip the entire semester or just a handful of classes. TLT can point you to numerous technology tools that will facilitate this change, including Voicethread and Kaltura Mediaspace.

Mary Ann Hartshorn (TEDU) is a TLT Superstar: she presented at both of our Faculty Showcases this semester! Mary Ann shared how she uses Google Docs for a collaborative annotated bibliography assignment and the OAKS Discussion tool to encourage community-formation. To read more, check out our recap of the October Faculty Showcase.

TLT’s instructional technologists also had tech tools to share. Laura Plotts, instructional technologist for LCWA, showed faculty how Haiku Deck (Free; iOS and Web) provides a fantastic alternative to “death by Powerpoint.” With Haiku Deck, there’s no chance of presenting slides crammed with bullet points. Instead, the application forces users to keep text to a minimum and use images to tell their story. If you want students to learn to speak extemporaneously, Haiku Deck can help wean them off of reading directly from their slides. Because of its eye-catching designs and graphics, it’s also perfect for video lectures, conference presentations, sales pitches, and keynote addresses.

Kaitlin Woodlief, instructional technologist for SSM, shared a tool that allows instructors to collect real-time feedback without the need for student devices. Plickers (Free; Android and iOS) makes formative assessment and live polling simple.

Students don’t need iPads or smartphones; instead, each student responds by holding up a card that’s printed with a special image that has letters around the sides. If, for example, the answer to the question is A, the student will turn the card so that the letter A is on top.

The instructor then uses their smartphone or iPad camera to scan the room and capture the cards. The app registers the student answers which then can be displayed to the room. For those who worry about their entire class having devices, or those who simply don’t want to bother with students having to log in or register, Plickers may be just what you’re looking for.

If you’d like to learn more about any of these tools and strategies, please contact your instructional technologist. Thank you to everyone who stopped by! Be on the look-out for our Spring Faculty Showcases, including a few new, exciting events!

Share Templates

Share a Slide Master

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Canva

Think-Pic-Share

Quick Reflection

Collaborative Designing

Haiku Deck

Digital Portfolio

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Score Keeper – What is it and how can I use it?

Overview

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