InfuseLearning/Socrative - Virtual Response Solutions

Bring on the BYOD/BYOT!

Formative assessment is a powerful tool for teachers. Infuse Learning is a lot like Socrative and can be used as a free virtual learner response system. Both of these learning tools work great in they BYOT environment. Socrative allows for multiple choice, true/false, and short answer while InfuseLearning allows for True/False, Multiple Choice, Sort and Order, Text Response, Numeric Response, Likert Scale, and Draw Response. (Check out Infuse Link and Infuse Draw - Awesome!)

Both programs allow you to ask questions on the fly. Socrative comes with pre-made quizzes and also allows teachers to share quizzes. Both programs allow you to create your own quizzes.  Socrative and InfuseLearning both run web based while Socrative also has an app. InfuseLearning does now work well in Internet Explorer.

You can't go wrong with either program for formative assessment in your classroom.  Take time to check out both InfuseLearning and Socrative, your students will thank you for it.

ipadio - Podcast From Your Phone

Ipadio takes any phone call and streams it live on the web. Ipadio lets you record from your phone and publish online.  It is very simple and user friendly to use.  Check out the tutorial video below.

Ten Ideas for Educating Innovatively with ipadio (aka Podcasting made easy)!!!

Google Forms Adds Collaboration

The new version of Forms now allows you to collaborate with others while building your questionnaires and surveys. Awesome. Check out the short videos below:

Aurasma - Augmented Reality

Aurasma app is a new way to see and interact with the world. Aurasma is available on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Aurasma is an augmented reality app that’s changing the way that classroom displays can come alive. Adding an effortless way to make displays more interactive and improving an otherwise unchanged way of displaying students’ work and information within the classroom. Aurasma is the only application that lets you create and share your own augmented reality. Which is one of the reasons why Aurasma is such an excellent app to engage students in the learning environment.

Using the simple tools within the app, you can create your own Auras (as above) and share them with other Aurasma users and therefore anybody with the app can view the Auras that you make. This can lead to some awesome interactive displays. If you do not wish to make your own then you can choose from thousands of digital animations already on the platform.

There are so many ways in which this app could be used in education...

A Few Ways Students Can Publish In Under a Minute

Pencamp is a simple platform for quickly publishing your writing. To get started writing and publishing with Pencamp just enter a name for your page and enter specify a password for editing then start writing. Pencamp is not a blogging platform it's a platform for publishing an informational article or story about a specific topic. You can create as many Pencamp pages as you like for free. Commenting is not an option on Pencamp pages.

Scriffon is a simple service for writing and publishing online. Scriffon isn't a blogging platform, it's a writing platform. That means that you cannot edit the layout or navigation on the page on which your writing is published. Each writing that you publish is given it's own url. You can go back and edit your writing even after it has been published. If you want to you can use multiple pen names under your Scriffon account name too.

Pen.io is a simple blogging service that you can start using in a minute or less. To use Pen.io just head to the site, name your page, and select a password for editing. Once you've done those things you can start blogging. To edit your page just click on any of the predefined text and start typing. To add more pages just type the the ":page" tag, to insert videos just type the ":video" tag. One short-coming that Pen.io has is that it doesn't support images yet.

Wordfaire is a new service for quickly creating and updating a live blog. To use Wordfaire just sign-in with your Twitter, Facebook, or Google account. Once you've signed-in just choose a url and name for your blog  then you can start blogging. Wordfaire updates as soon as you stop typing and hit "update." People viewing your blog will see your updates as soon as you press "update."

This one does assume that your students already have a Google Docs account in some form either through your school's domain or as a stand alone account. If your students do their writing in Google Docs they can publish their final drafts as stand alone webpages by selecting "publish to web" from the "share" menu. Then they can distribute the links to their pages however they like.

Screenleap - One Click to Share Your Screen

www.screenleap.com

One-click sharing - Just click a button and start sharing your screen in under 5 seconds (Java is required to share).

Hassle-Free Viewing
View from any PC, tablet, or smartphone with a web browser. No software to download or install.

No Setup
Allow people to see your computer screens without needing to set up an account.

Text to Speech Extensions in Chrome

Speak It is a Google Chrome extension that enables you to have the text on most webpages read to you. With Speak It installed just highlight the text on a the page you're viewing then right-click to activate Speak It. Then click the play button to have the text read to you. The voice is very digitized, but it is clear. Installing Speak It takes just a few seconds. To install it go to Speak It's page in the Chrome Web Store and click the install button. Restarting your browser is not required in order to activate Speak It. If you decide that you don't want to use Speak It any longer you can uninstall it by right-clicking on the Speak It icon in your browser and selecting uninstall.

Announcify is a free text to speech application that is available as a Chrome browser extension and as an Android app. With Announcify installed in your browser any time you're viewing a webpage you can simply click on the Announcify icon in your browser and have that page read to you. A bonus aspect of using Announcify is that in order to make a webpage easier to read it enlarges the text of the webpage and removes all sidebar content.

Select and Speak is a simple text to speech Chrome browser extension. Select and Speak installs with just one click and does not require a browser re-start. Once Select and Speak is installed just highlight any text on a webpage, click the Select and Speak icon in your browser, and listen to the reading of the text.