Thing 8: Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing

For Thing 8 I selected Prezi (www.prezi.com) and TodaysMeet as well as a response app called Socrative (www.socrative.com).  I chose Prezi because one of the Social Studies teachers was looking for a collaborative way to have groups summarize and share information from a unit.  Prezi now offers the ability for students to collaborate and create Prezis in real time.  The students find it a welcome change from the boring world of PowerPoint and since they could work on different parts of the project at the same time it was really awesome!  In fact, one of our students that was out sick actually logged in during class so he could work at home with his classmates.  The Prezis were great and really allowed students to showcase the big ideas for their peers in a format that kids found very easy to use and fun to interact with. 

I also used TodaysMeet with a class to respond to a lesson.  I first used this at a conference in February and thought that it could be very useful for students to respond to instruction both during the actual class and after they go home to think about what they learned.  Is it very easy to use and allows learning to extend beyond the classroom.  I know we've all attended a meeting, class, or workshop and then on the drive home had a great idea that we wish we could share with the group.  TodaysMeet allows chat-like postings to easily be inserted and others can respond or not.  For a more in-depth response for the classroom we've also tried Collaborize the Classroom which provides the students an opportunity to respond and discuss postings.  TodaysMeet and Collaborize both provide a way for students to work/interact from home or school but TodaysMeet is more tweet-like, where Collaborize has a bit more substance.

Socratic was a great way to have my Freshmen actually use their phone in my class for something other than texting their friends!!  It's unbelievably easy to setup and use and allows instant feedback in the classroom.  There is multiple choice, true/false, short answer, quizzes, exit tickets, races, etc.  The multiple choice and true/false are autograded, you can combine question types, and reports are downloadable in Excel format.  Compatible with any device that can access the web and FREE it's really a great alternative to the Promethean and clickers that sometimes work and sometimes don't!  My freshmen LOVED it and we will continue to use it.  Works great with vocab and other grammar type exercises. 

Thanks for the great opportunity to explore these fantastic tools!