Adding students in ThingLink: The Nightmare Begins

Today was the third day of working with a 3rd grade class using ThingLink. The first two were a failure because I spent the entire time straightening out student logins. It wasn't until this third session that students could start working on their project and even then there were a few problems. The student management component of ThingLink needs to be rethought. At first blush, setting up student...

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Formative Assessment Toolbox: Socrative

Formative assessments are a vital tool for any teacher to give feedback to students and/or guide their instruction. They should not be used for grades. In the digital classroom there are many excellent choices, including Socrative. Socrative is a student response system that runs on tablets, smartphones and the web. Teachers can survey students, ask formative assessment questions, or facilitate...

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App Criteria: Choosing a good iPad app

As a Digital Learning Coach I've been working with several schools as they define what they want to do with iPads. Sadly, most of what I find on their iPads is what I consider to be junk, useless, and educationally inappropriate apps. It seems that previous tech folks, and in many cases, teachers, have simply installed the free app of the day or the latest "Top 20 Apps for Education" without really...

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Edmodo Part 16: Link Your Google Drive

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. If you use Google Drive you can link it to your Edmodo Library. With this method you can store and organize your files in Google Drive and then share them with your groups. This could save you a lot of time and keep all your resources in one location. Click the Library...

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Edmodo Part 15: Library

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo. Your Edmodo Library is like having a Dropbox or Google Drive attached to your Edmodo account. You have unlimited file storage and can upload any type of file or link to any website. With items stored in your Library you can then attach them to any post or assignment...

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Educreations: adding students

I've talked about Educreations before and I love it for students to demonstrate their learning and understanding of pretty much any concept. Because students must narrate what is happening on screen, it's easy for the teacher to understand what they are thinking. One of the features I also love about Educreations is the classroom management. Teachers can create multiple classes with any number of...

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Awesome iPad App: ThingLink

ThingLink is a digital tool that provides users with the ability to turn any image into an interactive masterpiece. Create multiple hot spots on specific parts of the image that launch videos, text, audio, and links to websites. The website and iPad app versions have similar functionality. ThingLinks with full interactivity can be embedded on any web page. ThingLink is free, either on the web or...

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