Instant Opinion Polls in the Classroom

For a long time now I have been looking for a tool that enables instant polling in the classroom or in the lecture room. I specifically wanted something that:

•  doesn't require registration (especially from the people I'm polling)
• updates very quickly
• works on any platform from computers to mobile devices

It looks like I have finally found what I've been looking for and best of all it's free. The tool that I have found is Mentimeter and it does all of the above.

• Here's an example of a poll I created where you can add your vote: http://vot.rs/d6dbde 
• Here is a link to the results http://mentimeter.com/public/5dc1bf7d6eeb (if you are one of the first to read this article there may not be many results yet).

Creating the poll was really quick and easy I just went to http://mentimeter.com and typed in my question, then I clicked on 'Create Question',

I then entered my selection of answer choices, chose a theme and clicked on 'Save and Start Presenting'.

The poll is then ready to use. There are a number of ways of sharing it.

You can get a URL with a code to restrict entry or to make it quick and easy to share in presentations (Here's one on the flipped classroom. The URL is always http://vot.rs/ then you have a specific code for the poll, which in this case is 23512 ) anyone with this code can then vote. By all means give it a try.

You can click on share after you create your poll and get a direct web link which you can share through social media, such as Twitter or Facebook etc.

By clicking on 'Share' on your poll page you can also get an embed code or a link to to a public results page. I've embded the poll below to show you how it looks.


So what's so great about creating live polls?

• Well they are great if you are lecturing or presenting at a conference with a wireless network as you can get instant feedback and responses that everyone can share in and so involve more people.
• You can use them in class as a quick test to see if students have understood your material.
• You can get students to create them and test each other.
• You can use them for opinion polls in class, both before and after discussions to see if there is any shift in opinion.
• The responses are anonymous, so it's a good tool to use to get honest feedback if you are doing action research in class, especially if it is related to a sensitive issue, such as your own teaching style or methods.

What's not to like?

• Well there isn't much I can say that I don't like about this tool.
• I'd like to have polls with more than one question though.
• You have to be careful about using polls like this on mobile phones if your students are having to pay a connection charge, so it really helps to be able to get them on the wireless network if you are using it in class.

I hope you find http://mentimeter.com useful and enjoy using it with your students.


Related links:

• 10 Tools for Increasing Engagement in Online Courses  
• 3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations  
• Questioning the Role of Technology in Education  
• iPad Apps for English Language Teachers  
• Technology can sometimes be wasted on English language teaching

Best


Nik Peachey

Getting Learning out of the Classroom with Augmented Reality

For a while now I have been expounding the wonders of augmented reality (See: Augmented Reality and Web 3.0) , so I thought it was time at last to give some examples of how we can actually get students using this technology and to show how it can superimpose the Internet onto their physical world.

So here are some teaching suggestion which exploit two augmented reality type apps and gives students some reading, listening and speaking practice, as well as a bit of exercise.

The apps you need for this activity are both free and the first is 'Woices'.

Woices is a simple voice recording app that you can use on your mobile device to create and upload audio files to the Internet. You can also add an image to your audio recordings. The wonderful thing about Woices though is that by using GPS it understands where you were when you created the audio file and 'attaches' it to that location, so anyone who has the Woices app can go to the location and find the audio file by clicking on the 'Explore' icon on their app.

So it's a bit like leaving hidden audio notes around the world that only other Woices users can find.

Here's how it works. 
First register on the Woices website and download the app for your mobile device.
When you open the app it looks like this. You simply click on 'Record' to start speaking.

 When you have finished speaking click on 'Stop'. Then you can listen and delete the recording (recordings are called 'echoes'), or if you are happy with it, you can click on the small blue arrow on the right and add a title and description as well as a photo to your echo.

Then you click on 'Send' to publish it to the internet and this will use your phones GPS to attach it to the location where you created the echo.

To find 'echoes' which are relevant to your location, just click on the 'Explore' icon and you will get a list of 'echoes' which have been left close to your location.

The second app is called Layar and Layar enables developers to create web based multimedia information (called 'layers')which can only be accessed whenever you are close to specific locations.

Layar comes with  a number of packs of layers and the one that I want to use is the Wikipedia one. This layer enables users to find entries in Wikipedia which relate specifically to places in their environment.

So wherever the user is standing when they  activate the app they will get information which relates specifically to that place.

Here's how it works.
You need to download the Layar app for your mobile device. Make sure that when you open the app for the first time, you enable the location tracking feature so that Layar knows where you are. Then go to the layers.

You'll find the Wikipedia layer in the Education section. Click on it and then click on 'Launch'.

When you hold up your phone and move it around slowly you should start to see the Wikipedia summaries appearing at the bottom of the screen.

At the top of the screen you'll also see a kind of 'radar' screen which shows you where the interesting places are in relation to where you are standing.

If you click on the small Wikipedia summary you will get two more icons.

One of these takes you to the entry on Wikipedia for that location.

The other takes you to a map, which will show you how to get to the place from where you standing.

So here is how we can use this to create motivating out of school activities

• Ask your students to find 5 interesting places around their town using the Wikipedia layer. They should go to each place research it on Wikipedia  using the Layar app and then record a short audio entry using Woices and add a picture to it. (You can check their entries through the Woices web based interface)
• You could make a kind of treasure hunt and got to the places yourself and use Woices to leave audio clues about the next place to visit, so that students have to listen to your clue when they get to the location (by pressing the 'Explore' icon on the Woices app) and research the places around them on Wikipedia to find out where to go next to find the next clue. You could get them to leave an audio entry and image at each place along the trail to prove they have been there.
• You could use Woices to leave audio notes at a set of locations and have factual errors in the notes. Then your students would have to visit the places, press 'Explore' and find the factual errors by comparing your audio with the Wikipedia entry for that place.
• Get students to create their own audio tours or treasure hunts for each other using Woices and the Wikipedia layer.

What I like about augmented reality

• I think it's great that we can get students learning about their environment outside of the classroom.
• Taking learning out of the classroom like this gives students tools which they can use in their everyday life.

Things to be aware of

• Be careful of your students e-safety and make sure they don't leave any information about their home address or where they live.
• Make students aware of their digital 'footprint' so that they use social media responsibly.

I hope this shows at least a little of the potential of augmented reality apps on mobile devices. I think there is huge potential in these kinds of apps to develop location based experiential learning that can get our students out and about exploring their environment and interacting with the world around them through the internet. I hope you give it a try.

Lastly, I'd like to welcome Worth Ave Group as a new advertiser. 
 

Related links:

• Augmented Reality and Web 3.0
• Creating texting dialogues for students 
• Audioboo to Posterous 
• 3 Tools for exploring wifi during presentations 
• Questioning the role of technology in education 
• iPad apps for English language teachers 

Best
Nik Peachey

BirthMom Buds Fiesta

Okay, my fellow birthmoms. Guess what's coming up in May? Yep, you guessed it!  It's the annual BirthMom Buds Retreat!  This year, the BirthMom Buds Fiesta is being held at the Hilton Garden Inn, Uptown Charlotte. We'll have weekend of activities planned beginning on Friday, May 4th - Sunday, May 6th. Limited space is available, so if you plan to attend, be sure to email Coley at: birthmombuds@gmail.com as soon as possible.



Hoping to finally meet some of my fellow birthmom bloggers this year!



Hasta Luego!



-Amstel

Merry CHRISTmas!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." - Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas from Amstel, De, Deanna, Don, our family & friends... and the whoopee cushions!  Many blessings to you and your family this holiday season.



 -Amstel 

10 Tools for Increasing Engagement in Online Courses

Over the last few years I've done a lot of work developing writing and redeveloping online courses and course materials. In the initial rush to get learning online many organisations got themselves a Moodle platform and then attached a whole load of PDFs and .docs, added some forums and the odd video clip and called it an online course. It's no surprise then that drop out rates for online learning courses have been so high.

The advent of Web 2.0 though, brought a whole bunch of new tools that course designers could take advantage of to make content more social, interactive and engaging.

Here are some of the tools I've been using recently to embed a bit more interactivity into the courses I work on.

Storify - http://storify.com

Storify is a great tool for collecting together  a mixture of web based resources and references into a web based widget that you can then structure into a digital research paper. You can easily pull in comments from Facebook, Twitter or Google searches as well as a range of other social media sources. You then add blocks with your own commentary and reflections. The whole thing can then be embedded into a webpage. This is a great tool for developing digital literacy and referencing online sources.

• Here's an example of a Storify text designed to share information about Wordle.

Tricider - http://tricider.com

Tricider is a great tool for crowd sourcing opinion. You start with a single question problem and then you or your students can add possible solutions to the problem. Students can also add some pros and cons to the solutions and vote on the ones they prefer. These can be embedded into webpages and can give far more structure to online discussion than things like threaded forums which often become garbled and confusing.

• Here's an example discussing the pros and cons of Moodle (Feel free to participate)

Urtak - https://urtak.com

You can use Urtak to create simple social questionnaires for your courses. Although the responses are quite limited (Yes / No / Don't care) This can still be a useful tool for quick straw polls before developing deeper discussion through a forum. It also give students the chance to compare their opinions anonymously with those of classmates and also add their own questions to the questionnaire. The questionnaires can also be embedded into web pages and materials.

• Here's an example of a questionnaire about Education Today

Intervue.me - http://intervue.me

This is also a tool for creating questionnaires, but in the case of Intervue.me the questions can be open ended and the respondent leaves their answer verbally using a web cam. Intervue.me can't be embedded into pages , but you can link to your questionnaires and you can download the video clips of the answers as mp4 so you can then use these in materials you develop and as the basis for further discussion.

• Here is an example of a questionnaire asking teachers about their use of technology

VYou - http://vyou.com/

You can use Vyou embed a video booth that students can go at any time of day to ask you questions. The video booth gives the impression that you are always available and builds some presence on your course. The messages students send you are delivered to an inbox and you are notified so that you can answer them. Vyou also has a very handy mobile app so you can answer the questions where ever you are on your iPhone or other mobile device.

• Here's an example of my own Vyou Q & A page on this blog

Keek - http://www.keek.com/

It's a good idea to get students to keep a learning journal on any course they do. It can feel a bit dull though writing journal entries to yourself, so why not get student to create a video based learning journal using Keek. They can add entries each day just using a web cam and microphone and you can leave video comments on their entries. Students on your course can also be encouraged to 'follow' each other. Individual entries can also be embedded into web pages which can enable you to build pages that share insights from your course participants. Keek also has a free mobile app that allows you to up date from mobile devices such as iPhone.

• Here you can see some examples from Keek users

Bundlr - http://gobundlr.com/

This is a really useful tool for sharing theme based collections of bookmarks. It creates a very visual record of the book marked links which you can then embed into your course pages as widgets. This can be a really useful tool for setting research tasks based around a group of online resources.

• Here you can see a bundle of links relating to digital storytelling

Zooshia - http://zooshia.com/

Zooshia is a handy tool for creating widgets from social network sources that can be embedded into web pages. The widgets show a dynamic stream from whatever source we select. This can make suggestions for twitter or facebook people to follow much more informative and can also allow you to embed dynamic widgets from YouTube channels which will make your content much more dynamic too.

• Here is a widget I embedded into my blog showing the postings to my Facebook page

Present.Me - http://present.me/

Present.Me  can help you create online presentations from your PowerPoint slides. You can then add your talking head commentary to your slides and embed the whole thing into your online course. This works well as a lecture replacement and having a presenter that you can actually see along side your slides can help add to the engagement with your learners. You can embed this into your page and build a forum around it for follow up discussion.

• Here you can see a useful series of presentations showing you how to create a good presentation

Goanimate - http://goanimate.com
 

Online course content can become very dry and serious, so why not spice it up by creating a few animations using something like GoAnimate. It's a an easy tool for creating short animated dialogues that can be exported as video clips and embedded into your course. You can use these to introduce topics or raise issues for further debate.

• Here you can see a selection of channels that have been developed using animation

I hope these ten tools and the links from them have given you a few ideas into how you can spice up your online courses and make them more engaging and enjoyable and help you to retain students. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other free tools you have found useful for developing online content.

Related links:

• 10 Tech Tools for Teacher Training Courses
• 3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations
• Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students
• Create a Video Q&A Booth
• So Ask Me a Question
• Create Video Questionnaires
• Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak
• Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks

Best


Nik Peachey

November is National Adoption Month!

Did you know that November is National Adoption month?  In honor of National Adoption month, I'm happy to share a piece I wrote for Adoption Advocate, a publication of the National Council For Adoption.  Hot off the press and just released today!  Special thanks to Nicole Callahan for asking me to do this.



The article is titled: My Perspective on Open Adoption and Recommendations for Birthparents



Hoping that I represented the birthmother voice well.  Let me know what you guys think. :)

Allow me to brag...

Allow me to take a moment to brag on little babe... Yes, these are real. :)

 

News anchor, gymnast, swimmer, surfer, musician...and now: billboard model! 

Is there anything she can't do?