Throughout my Integrating Technology and Literacy course, we've looked at many apps that can be useful to students and educators. One I played with was Voki. Voki is an app that allows users to create an avatar, choosing the voice, appearance, and background.The voki you create can then speak. You can record your voice from your device, call in a recording from a phone, or type in your message for a digital voice to read. Your Voki avatar moves its lips while delivering the message. I was able to create a Voki avatar that looks like a cartoon version of myself and add it to my homepage. The students love it.
Nearpod was introduced in class. It is an app that allows educators to create a slide presentation of backgrounds and text that students join and view what the teacher shows from her computer on their iPads. The app also lets the teacher create quizzes, polls, links, and open response questions with in a Nearpod file. I used Nearpod to run a class on the Coordinate Plane with my 6th grade math classes. It really cut down on off task behavior during the lesson and transition times. The students were engages and participating, even my students who struggle to remain focused. The most useful feature of Nearpod is the ability to get instant data feedback to use for class discussion and to modify instruction based on student need. I will use this app often in the future. I was user friendly, free, and motivated students to focus and participate.
Socrative is a student response system that allows educators to create quizzes and games tailored to student learning. Students take the quizzes from any device available; laptops, iPads, iPods or iPhones. Data from the student quizzes can be downloaded into a worksheet for tabulation. This is a great tool to assess student learning. I use Socrative when I need concrete data to show student masteryor to modify lesson plans and pacing.It takes a little time to input the questions and answers, but worthwhile if you are grading the work or using it for any evidentiary purposes.