Live Polling in the Classroom with SMSPoll

With SMSPoll, found at  http://www.smspoll.net/, teachers can set up online polls that can be utilized in real time during class room lectures.

With SMSPoll, teachers will be able to engage their students with animated graphs and other special methods for displaying collective classroom sentiment and opinions in real time. Whereas in the past the only way to gauge the aggregate opinion of a class was through a "show of hands", SMSPoll could completely change group dynamics in the classroom. Here is just an example of what a SMSPoll display looks like:

SMSPoll has its own web page dedicated to educational usage, which can be found here: http://www.smspoll.net/educators.php.

Advantages: As SMSPoll writes themselves, teachers can  "involve all students in the learning process, keeping them engaged, improving their knowledge retention, and assessing their understanding and retention of course material."

Also, SMSPoll in general seems committed to a fluid web experience by offering the embedding of of polls in PowerPoints and blogs. Nice to see form a company.

Disadvantages: Obviously, students would have to use their cells phones to send SMS (text) messages and participate in the polling. This might violate some existing rules about cell phone usage in the schools. However, SMSPoll has a "Web Voting" feature, too. With "Web Voting" enabled, your students will be able to participate from their computers, IPads, etc.

Also, although there is no limit to how many polls you can have, there is a limit to how many "votes" you can receive. The limit per poll is not very high - only 15. As we all know, most classrooms are not 15 students or below (what a dream that would be). Charges start at $20/month when you want to receive 50 votes. Here is the pricing page: http://www.smspoll.net/packages.php. So, although the charges are unfortunate, I still think SMSPoll is usable in spite of the limitations.

Engrade

Engrade is mostly known as a completely free online grading system. However, Engrade could actually better be described as a cluster, or suite, of learning management tools. Engrade offers teachers free online flashcards, wikis, calendars, quiz-makers and many other very useful classroom and learning management software apps.

Engrade's most popular feature - it's gradebook - is intuitive, even though the initial set-up can be a little cumbersome (but, what software set-up is not). Engrade is class-centric as I would describe it. The teacher has to create a "class" before they can use the gradebook (even though the other applications, like wikis and quizzes, can be created independently of the classes). Once a teacher creates their class and adds their students (which is done by essentially creating a space-deliniated text file), the teacher then has plenty of great options for customizing their gradebook. For example, through their individual settings, teachers can decide what type of grade scale they will use for the year (i.e. 0-100, traditional letter grade starting with "A" through "F", or custom features, etc.). Engrade's gradebook even lets teacher create assignment categories with weights, meaning that tests can account for 70% of the final grade while homework assignments will account for the remaining 30%. In fact, Engrade's gradebook is so accurately representative of real-life grading that it even gives the option to "drop the lowest grade" from an assignment category, which is a common and generous practice among many teachers.

Once a teacher creates their first class and sets up their gradebook, maintenance is easy. The whole Engrade interface is very reminiscent of Facebook's admin site, so it is simple and easy-to-navigate. When you have to report new grades, you simply create an "assignment".  An "assignment" is just a general term Engrade uses for any classroom activity that is graded, like a test, a book report, or anything else. While creating the assignment, you can then enter the "student" scores". Below is screen-shot of what the interface:

As I said before, Engrade also offers other learning management tools, like wikis, flashcards,  and an original app called "Allthink", which is basically a combination of a wiki, a set of flashcards, and a quiz. Like the main gradebook feature, all of these apps are easy-to-use. There does not appear to be any limit to the amount of wikis, flashcards, etc. that a teacher can create, but teachers can only upload 250 mbs of documents in the Engrade cloud (which is better than Engrade offering nothing at all of course.  


Overall, Engrade offers single access point, where teachers can not only use a great, free online gradebook, but also other useful learning management tools. The software is intuitive, and teachers should have a stress-free time managing it and making updates. The interface for teachers is convenient, consolidating all the apps in single place.

With its built-in attendance and discipline modules, Engrade could definitely replace some expensive SIS and learning management tools that school districts purchase. I think its a very valuable tool for schools.

The software is just slightly buggy in some places, which would really confuse less technology-savvy teachers. For example, while I was playing with the wiki feature, I incorrectly added a Youtube link while trying to add video to one section of my wiki. When I realized my mistake, I attempted to edit it, but apparently I "broke" the entire section. I had to delete it and start from scratch - which is not big deal, as in the teacher attempting to update it would not lose much work. But, it was a little confusing.

Lastly, and I do not think this is too fair to consider this a "disadvantage", but the UI engineers have not really figured out a creative way for displaying most of the content (grade and attendance reports) for the end users, i.e. the students. Students have to be added to the class roster by the Teacher. Once the teacher adds the students, Engrade will then assign each student a unique ID that the student will use to create their accounts. Once the student creates an account, then the student will be able to access their grades, attendance reports, and other information (that the Teacher has inputted) from an interface very similar to the teacher interface. Below is a screen-shot from Engrade that a student would see:

Engrade offers a great way to deliver content like this. It would be great to see a more creative way to deliver it. However, this does not take away from the communication value Engrade provides.

WiZiQ

WiZiQ is not a single web-based education application, like the other software applications we have reviewed thus far. Essentially,WiZiQ - found here at http://www.wiziq.com/ - represents multiple applications; it is a web platform that offers a few different education-related functionalities.

By signing up for a free account with WiZiQ, you'll have the ease and convenience of using a single website to accomplish several very helpful tasks that will foster and improve online learning amongst your student. With WiZiQ, you'll have a personalized administration web page which provides the following options:

Conduct Online Classes

• WiZiQ offers a special interface that allows you to share your desktop activity (i.e Mouse movements, typing) live with a community of online viewers who have decided to watch it. Basically, an online classroom is like chat-room or instant messenger application to the extreme, infused with a variety of rich multimedia capabilities. With WiZiq's online classroom application, teachers will be able to communicate live via audio, video or text chat, whiteboards, presentations (like MS PowerPoint), documents, and other multimedia files.

• My favorite feature in WiZiQ's online classroom application is the whiteboard. A whiteboard is a digital communication tool that provides all of the flexibility of using pen and paper (or, more appropriately, a chalk board), matched with all the dynamic creative tools you would expect from an online communications application. For example, WiZiQ users will have the ability to use shapes, smiley faces, hundreds of colors, special text, and a grid to guide drawings. Usually, whiteboard remind me of the MS Paint application we are all used to. Here is a screen-shot of what the WiZiQ whiteboard looks like (I had a little fun with the creative controls):

• WiZiQ users can schedule online classes that begin and end at set dates and times, and teachers will also have the ability to conduct online classes at a moments notice.

• To access and view these online classes, students can create their own user accounts through WiZiQ and follow ("track") their teachers. In addition, as soon as teachers begin an online class section they are provided with URL that will direct users to your shared class session. This URL should be very convenient for teachers dealing with students who will not be as proactive to create their own user accounts at http://www.wiziq.com.

• This is one of my favorite features of the online class. All class sessions are recorded for later playback form a unique URL. Teachers will even have the option of embedding their recorded online class onto their blogs, teacher web pages, or social networking site.

Create and Share Tests

• WiZiQ also provides the ability for teachers to create both public and private tests. Just like the online classes feature, teachers will be able to provide their students with a direct URL to the test. For example, click here to view a practice test I created.

• However, if your students actually have taken the step to create their own student WiZiQ accounts, you will not have to go out of your way to email your students with the links to the tests you've created . With their student WiZiQ accounts, students will be able to "follow" and "track" their own teachers. When their teachers create new tests (or simply make any updates to their account), student will be notified as soon as they sign into their student WiZiQ account.

• If you use WiZiQ's online test creator, and allow your students to take the online test without having already created a student WiZiQ account, then you (as the teacher) will not be able to view any sort of recorded results in regards to the online tests. The lack of the ability to easily see your students' performance after completing online tests is a similar issue that I have seen with other online testing applications, such as during my review of the ClassMarker application. However, if your students completed your online tests while logged in to http://www.wiziq.com/ with their personal student account, then you (as a teacher) would be able to see their results and track their performance. You could imagine how useful it would be to have your entire class create user accounts on WiZiQ. As a Teacher, you could monitor the individual and group performances of your class right through the secureuser interface offered by WiZiQ.

• With the WiZiQ software, you are limited to creating only multiple choice format questions. So, with only the ability to use a single type of question format, WiZiQ's online test feature certainly has limitations. With the ClassMarker application, you had the ability to create various types of questions (Multiple Choice, Fill-in the Blank, True or False, Long Answer), and ClassMarker even offers the ability to enrich your tests with images and audio files. WiZiQ does not. In addition, ClassMarker just had a more intuitive user interface for test creation and end result provided a more aesthetically pleasing display (Click here for an example of a test produced by ClassMarker).

• Overall, the true power of WiZiQ's online test application is unlocked only when the online tests are completed by students who have taken the initiative to set up user accounts with WiZiQ. When students take the online tests via their own WiZiQ accounts, then teachers will receive detailed reports with regards to their students performance on those tests. ClassMarker only offers a comparable functionality if teachers upgrade to a "pay" account. However, the interface and produced results of WiZiQ's online test maker cannot really compare with respect to the usability and flexibility of ClassMarker. Since ClassMarkerClassMarker over WiZiQ's online test-maker application. As I said above, WiZiQ's usefulness becomes apparent when the students take these tests via their own WiZiQ student accounts, as you could then see performance results and scores for each student. However, we all know how reluctant students can be to take the first step to create their online WiZiQ accounts. In addition, as teachers, we have even experienced how students will make excuses for not completing their work by blaming malfunctions in the software, which do not really exist (i.e. "I tried to take the test, but the website would not let me log in"). So, in choosing an online test-maker, I would choose ClassMarker, in spite of the fact that I would have to sacrifice the potential to see students' results and basically consider online test taking as more of another practice learning tool, rather than an actual exam. offers the ability to have different question formats and produces much slicker and friendlier online tests, I would prefer to use

Upload and Share Content

• WiZiQ also offers a platform for uploading and sharing educational materials. These "materials" can be uploaded in any file type, like .PDF documents, MS PowerPoint presentations, and video files. Here is the link to this very useful, content rich platform: http://www.wiziq.com/content/.

• WiZiQ's content sharing platform can be searched for materials by their subject area (i.e. "algrebra" or "Japan's geography"). As opposed to YouTube and SlideShare, where you are restricted to single content format (i.e. YouTube = rich video, SlideShare = Powerpoint presentations) WiZiQ's content sharing platform offers many different types of media.So, with WiZiQ, you can search for one keyboard and retrieve related content in video, text documents, PowerPoint presentations, and any of the many supported media files types that WiZiQ offers. WiZiQ's content sharing platform is great for teachers who want to provide their students with a variety of ways to learn the same subject material, but who do not have the technical skills or the time to create a video, and a Flash file, and a PowerPoint Presentation, etc. With WiZIQ's content sharing platform, now teachers have access to some great learning tools in multiple file types from a single website.

• Obviously, teachers do not just have to use the existing content on the WiZiQ site. Teachers can upload their own learning-based files to share with the public, or upload files with the intention of limiting access to only those who you want to see (i.e. your students). If you do this, your WiZiQ account will become a convenient, centralized location for all of your educational materials. If you use WiZiQ's great online class feature, then you'll have the ability to easily share your files with your students during that class. The only problem is that WiZiQ appears to limit uploads to 50 MB, and it is easy to have video and audio files larger than 50 MB. (YouTube's file size limit is 2GB. Even SlideShares's file size limit is larger at 100MB, and SlideShare does not even have the ability to have video or audio). However, I'm sure that as soon as WiZIQ becomes more popular they will feel the necessity to increase their maximun upload size, as users begin to request it.

WiZiQ offers many other cool features, as well. Another feature of WiZiQ offers a contact management and social networking system, so that you can connect with other teachers and education professionals. You can " follow"the teachers that upload content frequently and have creative ideas. In addition, WiZiQ has a pretty neat e-commerce aspect to the application, where you can "sell" your virtual classes to public learners. Once again, the old Internet adage "content is king" holds true. If you have a class with informative and unique content, users will purchase it. For more information on how to build a teacher business with WiZiQ, please click here.

Overall, WiZiQ is a very comprehensive one-stop-shop for technilogy-savvy teachers. It is a great way to augment online teacher-student participation and enhance educational technology in general - for FREE.

ThinkFold

ThinkFold, which can be found here at http://www.thinkfold.com, is a software application that provides a shared interface where multiple users can collaborate on projects in an organized fashion. It is "organized" because ThinkFold provides a structure and an outline that fosters orderly communications and contribution. ThinkFold is aimed at eliminating all of the cumbersome emails you may send to your fellow project members with multiple and non-distinguishing CCs and BCCs.

With ThinkFold, student group projects would be taken to the "next level". This application will enable students to work online at separate computers from any location where the Internet is available, yet see and experience their classmates' action as if they were working at the same desk. Student will be able to share text and images and rearrange their thoughts and ideas concerning a project in real time.

ThinkFold provides a split screen display and a great user interface that enables its users to easily observe and make sense of the changes their fellow collaborators are making (literally) second by second. See the screen-shot below for a visual of the display:

ThinkFold's website contains a useful (though small) repository of tutorial videos with real time demonstrations of the software and detailed instructions on how to use it. Here is the link: http://www.thinkfold.com/products/.

There is only one major problem. ThinkFold, as an application, is not available yet for the public. Currently, ThinkFold is in its "Beta" state, which means you can sign up for a ThinkFold account, and you will be notified when the software is available for you, but right now, you cannot use it.

Rest assured, when ThinkFold is available for public use, it could greatly change the way students collaborate on group projects both inside and outside the classroom. Teachers would also have advanced monitoring capabilities since they could observe virtually how the students actually interact in their workgroups, as opposed to assessing just the final results of the project.

SlideShare

In retrospect, it probably would have made a little more sense if I had reviewed SlideShare before I reviewed Empressr. You will see why . . .

SlideShare - found here at http://www.slideshare.net/ - is a free web application that transforms MS PowerPoint files into actual viewable, website-friendly presentations. The web-friendly presentations that SlideShare produces look and behave exactly how the PowerPoint presentations look and feel when they are viewed with MS Office. However, with SlideShare, your users will not have to download a PowerPoint file, then open it with their own local version of MS Office to view it. SlideShare will enable your users to view and control your MS PowerPoint presentation right on your website.

To put very simply, SideShare is like YouTube for PowerPoint.

Here is an example of how ShideShare presentation looks when embedded on your teacher pages, social media site, or blog:

SlideShare Quick Tour - Summary of features & capabilities

View more presentations from Amit Ranjan.

Upside: Teachers can use all of the rich media features offered through MS PowerPoint to relay their lessons and lectures with creativity and personality without having to worry about whether their students are able to readily and easily view these presentations from their preferred computers. With SlideShare, MS PowerPoint presentations can be accessed with a web browser an an Internet connection. Students will not have to download any files or have any special software. SlideShare makes PowerPoint so much more useful and valuable.

In addition, SlideShare, as a website, offers a great repository of education-based SlideShare presentations that were previously created shared by generous users. You can find presentations on geography, algebra, the physics of time travel, and most any academic subject. This could be a great resource for teachers who do not know how to use MS PowerPoint to create their own SlideShares, or simply for teachers who lack the time to create similar presentations themselves. The link that you can use to search through the previously uploaded presentations is found below:

http://www.slideshare.net/category/education

Downside: For displaying PowerPoint-like presentations online, Empressr is really a superior application in that it conatins an amazing interface for actually creating these presenations, as well as the ability to add alternate forms of rich media (including video). In addition, the final results produced by Empressr look much better than the presentations produced by SlideShare (scroll down and see my review of Empressr for a comparison). Since you can also simply upload MS PowerPoint files to Empressr just as you would SlideShare, you might as well use Empressr.

21 Classes

21 Classes - found here at http://www.21classes.com/ - is a web-based platform that provides students with fully functional, yet safe and secure blog accounts.

Usually, a blogging environment is associated with unregulated and unsupported web publishing on topics ranging from relevant and informative, to the useless and rude. However, 21 Classes does not just allow any student who wants a blog to create one (Although any individual who would like to start a blog can easily do so using one of the many free blogging applications available on the Internet, like WordPress or BlogSpot). Teachers decide whether or not they want to use 21 Classes to provide their students with blogs by creating their own Classroom Portals. On the front-end, Classroom Portals are simply websites that serve as a centralized location where all of the student blogs for a particular class or (even) school can be found. Here is an example of a Classroom Portal that I found on the 21 Classes website : http://media.21classes.com/. Notice how all of the students' individual blogs can be accessed from this Classroom Portal page (under the "Student Blog" section in the bottom right). The front-end of the Classroom Portal offers a way for teachers to showcase all of the individual student blogs as on collective entity while continuing to allow their students the autonomy to create and maintain independent blogs.

However, just because the students will have the independence to maintain their blogs that are featured on the front-end of the Classroom Portal, does not mean that they will also have the ability to post any stories, pictures, or videos that they deem worthy of posting. On the back-end of the Classroom Portals, teachers will have the authority and a large degree of regulation in regards to their students' blog creation and maintenance. In fact, 21 Classe s offers a very wide array of options for customizing how you want to control the content posted in blog entries and comments and how you want students to register and create their blogs.

Basically, when a teacher decides to use 21 Classes to create the Classroom Portal and provide their students with individual blogs, they also become the "site admin". As a site admin, you'll have the ability to review and approve every posting that a student makes (or attempts to make) on their individual student blogs. As the site admin, you can either the edit the improper student posts yourself, or inform the student of the revisions that he or she should make before publishing the post. In addition, of course, site admins will be able to control how and (basically) where their students register for their student blogs. Teachers wi ll have the option of providing their students with the ability to create their blogging accounts themselves by signing up on the Classroom Portal site (basically, when students visit the Classroom Portal site, they will see a simple link prompting students to sign up as members). In addition, teachers can create accounts for their students manually and later give those students their own user name and password.

As for the students, they will have the ability to use a blogging interface that offers many of the same creative features that the most popular blog applications provide (WordPress or BlogSpot). Students will have the ability to add images to their posts and have the ability to quickly re-size them to their preference. Students can also embed videos in the ir posts from YouTube and other external video hosting sites. More importantly, 21 Classes offers students new blogging features to facilitate further education-based collaboration with their fellow students. For example, 21 Classes provides the ability to create "teamblogs" to which only certain designated registered users can post and the ability to have private work groups with password protected-information.

The user interface for the back-end of 21 Classes is extremely friendly and easy-to-use. I was so impressed the back-end provided colorful explanations about what the user will experience using 21 Classes; the back-end was not sim ply just a list of inks to various functions and applications (as most administration systems are). Also, you have many different options to customize your Classroom Portals, which are all expressed in understandable layman's terms. Here is a screen-shot of the back-end software:

I really like the solution that 21 Classes provides in regards to student blogs. At my job, I'm consistently asked by teachers and administrators what I know about blogs and other web 2.0 applications. It's definitely a hot topic (even though, in my opinion, people greatly underestimate the work it takes to maintain a decent blog). Obviously, the disadvantages to allowing and/or providing student blogs is that it encourages open communication and exchanges via blog posts and comments. The bloggers' posts are not necessarily the problem because they are obviously traceable (the post belongs to the blogger and no one else). However, ill-intentioned readers can create a fake user name to write nasty, rude comments in response to a blogger's posts. Such is unfortunately a very common experience on the web. With 21 Classes, teachers - as "site admins" - will have the ability to review comments before they are published on the student blogs. 21 Classes is really a great solution for those teachers and administrators that want to incorporate Web 2.0 applications in their learning curriculum.

Apparently, student blogs have only 1MB of space allotted to them. Wow! One megabyte in computer-storage-terms is very small. Basically, a single high resolution digital photo can easily be 1 or 2 MBs. So, if students want to have a blog with more than one post containing a couple of pictures each, there will definitely be problem. Until 21 Classes increases the server space provided to each student, students will have to be very careful to mantain a site with only the most relevant information and delete the excess. This seems very unintuitive and practically contrary to the fundamental nature of a "blog", which is supposed to a chronological collection of information. This 1 MB of storage is discouraging, but I guess only time will tell how students react to the limitations. Of course, there is an option to up the webspace per student to 25 MB for $9 a month.

Also, 21 Classes does not offer very many themes for the Classroom Portals and student blogs. In fact, there are only three (3) different styles to choose from. If you are familiar with CSS, you can create your own styles and themes.

Footnote

Footnote, which can found here at http://www.footnote.com/, is an unbelievable tool for History, Social Studies, and any teacher that appreciates a historical context to their lessons. Footnote is a repository of millions of primary source documents and photos. More specifically, Footnote offers over 62 million images that represent never-before-seen documents from every historical era and civilization advanced enough to produce said documents. Using a type of super-slick viewer interface that I have never seen before (and one that I found out that Footnote has actually patented), teachers and students can experience and interact with the actual documents produced by chronicled persons, agencies, and governments from decades and centuries ago. Check the screen-shot of Footnote's UI below, which is clip from a 1963 local Mississippi newspaper reporting on a murder case which had serious implications in the battle for Civil Rights:




The implications of having such a large database of original historical documents is quite astonishing. For example, students can look at the actual files produced by the US Army during the Vietnam War in regards to the awarding of "Unit Services Awards," which were given to special regiments that performed important duties with courage and bravery. Students can read the unfiltered accounts of exceptional army missions from the Department of Army, as well as the original recommendations for the awards from high-ranking army official and congressmen. Footnote offers a portal into the past by enabling its users to experiences original historical documents and artifacts first-hand.

Footnote's very impressive database is not merely a museum, however. Footnote provides its registered users with the ability add annotations and comments to the items and sections they find. This type of interaction could be great for classroom learning and very memorable for the students.

One of the most attractive aspects of Footnote is that it is extremely well organized. Teachers and students have the ability to search the archive by either keywords (subject areas) or by person. Footnote also offers a very slick and useful "time-line" feature that enables you to "explore [Footnote] by historical era". In addition, Footnote has "Spotlights", which are special archives that highlight specific historical events (i.e. "The Vietnam War Collection"). With so many effective ways to search the database, find your interests, and focus on specific topics, the Footnote users feel like the site was solely designed for and dedicated to his or her own subject area, yet retain a wealth of historical information at their fingertips.

Advantages: Obviously, Footnote would just be a phenomenal way to incorporate real historical artifacts into everyday lessons. Finding useful and creative ways to use Footnote would not be difficult at all. For example, a valuable homework assignment would be to have students simply search the Footnote archive for historical documents that are relevant to the current lesson plans, and then make thoughtful comments through the provided Footnote interface in . Not much else to say . . . as this is just a great application.

Disadvantages: Unfortunately, after some hours of use, you will probably find that not all of the original historical documents and photos stored in the Footnote database are free. However, this should not distract from the overall utility of this application.