4 Tools I am Pumped to Try

Another great week with Discovery Education is over, and I was happy to share some fun math resources to the Fellows at the Siemens STEM Institute. But being a team lead doesn’t mean that I’m not learning as well – here are 4 great online resources I had a chance to try out this week, and look forward to using in my classes to increase engagement.

Kahoot – create fun quizzes for your class with this tool. You broadcast the questions one at a time, and students earn points based on their speed on correct answers. Keeps class-wide leaderboards. 

ThingLink – annote pictures with information, and share your works digitally. Provide information about key aspects, or external links to share additional information. Here is my first attempt, using a sampling distribution example as the context.  Click the link to try it out!

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/556526980820893698

Plickers – load the applet, print out the pre-made response cards, and prepare for a quick, engaging formative multiple-choice assessment.  By scanning the room with the app, you pick up student responses, which can then be linked to students if you choose.

Answer Garden – billing itself as a “minimalistic feedback tool”, Answer Garden allows students to share briefs thoughts on a topic you choose, then gathers the results in a word wall.  Here is how I used this as a potential class bell-ringer in a talk I gave earlier this week:

Students can them respond on a laptop or smart phone, with multiple responses allowed. How could these responses then allow us to start a class discussion?