Dotstorming

https://dotstorming.com/
Dotstorming is a platform that allows you as a teacher or the students to ask a specific question
and receive input from others in the form of voting. The people that are able to assist in
answering the questions are invited by link or email. In order to maintain only classroom
participation if needed, the questions can be set for a password to be required. The title
“Dotstorming” originated from the answer the voters like the most receiving the most dots. There
is also a group chat that allows the students to talk amongst the group while voting. The basic
version is allowed for free, with the “Gold” version free for 30 days. The basic version limits the
amount of questions and voting that is allowed on the account.
The tool can be used by a teacher by creating polls for students to answer. The students can be
asked questions that require deeper thought into a subject that has been covered. The teacher can
then see the answers that the students have given.
Students can use this application as a research tool. For instance, a student can find out how the
majority of the classroom feels about a specific subject. This can provide insight on how a
percentage of the class feels about it. Another way the student can use the application is to
increase their knowledge base about a specific subject or increase their motivation in learning.
Advantages of this tool include being free to use, you are provided quick analysis of questions
answered, and as a teacher, you can assess how students feel or understand certain material
without the students feeling like they are being assessed.
Pinup
https://pinup.com/H1Y6xbyY4
Pinup is a collaboration website that allows the user to share a page by providing a link to join.
This application is designed to be a corkboard, where individuals can share information and
pictures on the same page. There is a group chat available to the invited members and all
members can add and collaborate until the session has expired. Once the session has expired, the
students are still able to visit what they call the “canvas” to view the information but are unable
to alter it. Photos can be uploaded and mock PostIt notes can be created and rearranged. Pinup
is a free service and would be useful for student project groups or thought provocation and
sharing.
The teacher can utilize this Web 2.0 app by encouraging collaboration from the students in the
classroom. This allows classroom discussion to be increased from beyond just the classroom
hours and allow the students to participate in a real way. It would also be simple to assess
student participation and understanding according to their Pinup.
The students can use this to collaborate on different projects and share ideas. It would be useful
for groups of students to be able to provide individual ideas to expand group ideas.
Some advantages of this tool include the ease of collaboration, the sharing of ideas by the
students and the ease of monitoring the ideas by the teacher.
Stormboard
https://stormboard.com/
Stormboard, similar to Pinup, is a Web 2.0 application that is designed for collaboration. You
can create a Stormboard that allows students to share information, pictures, drawings, and ideas
with their other classmates. Another asset of Stormboard is the ability to upload Word, Excel, etc
onto the page to allow others to not only view them, but to change them for more collaboration.
The Stormboard app works on many electronic devices including phones, tablets, and computers.
The upside of this app is there is an Educator pricing, which is free until a specified time,
however once that is over, would require you pay for the use of the application if you plan to use
it for more than 5 participants (collaborators) at a time. The downside would be that you would
need to pay the $10 per month in order to have access to many of the features such as Word
editing.
Teachers can use this application to collaborate in many different ways. A Word or Excel
document can be created for students to build on to or make changes to. The teacher can use this
app to monitor group projects, idea boards for units, or require students to contribute in a specific
way.
Students can use this application for group projects. Collaboration becomes much easier with an
interactive site to do so. Students can ask questions that other peers can reply to or even
contribute to group ideas and questions themselves.
Advantages of the Stormboard application is that it is accessible by many different types of
devices, therefore accessible from more than just the school. This can provide a way for students
to work together with ease.
Quiznetic
https://quiznetic.com/
Quiznetic is a free Web 2.0 program that allows you as a teacher to create an interactive game for
your students to “race” each other around a multitude of boards by getting answers correct. The
students’ answers are logged into a spreadsheet that will enable you to see who got what
questions correct or incorrect. There is also a Team Mode which encourages students to work
together towards a common answer. The game has a limit of 30 students, which is sufficient for
most classroom settings. Quiznetic has the ability to set specific questions as worth more than
others, depending on the importance of the question (set by you as the designer of that specific
game). The game is able to be used in the classroom as a live game but also revisited as a
homework assignment, able to be access from multiple types of devices.
Teachers can use the Quiznetic application to increase the students’ motivation for learning.
Using the games to test knowledge of units and information provides the teacher with
information in spreadsheet form regarding the different students’ levels of comprehension.
Students can use the games as motivators for learning the information that is provided by the
teacher as well as a confidence booster for their comprehension. Another use students may find
helpful is creating interactive games for projects and presentations.
Advantages of this application include the ability to change the “worth” of each question,
making some things more important to comprehend as well as the answer scores being
transferred to a spreadsheet to allow the teacher more information on the students’
comprehension levels on a specific subject.
MangaHigh
https://www.mangahigh.com/en-us/
MangaHigh is an application centered on using gaming as a way to encourage learning as well as
adapt the information to the student. The games are set in a way that allows students to be
ranked on a leader board as well as providing students that have the best performance with
medals of accomplishment. The program provides information to the teacher regarding how the
students are performing on each gaming assignment as well as allows parents to monitor
progress and learning. As it is an international program, there are many classes working in the
system. It is possible for multiple classrooms to engage in competitions to see which classroom
is fairing better on the information. There are certain restrictions to using the Free Version
instead of the paid version, however it is possible to use the free version in the classroom.
Teachers can use the MangaHigh Web 2.0 application to gauge comprehension levels on math
concepts. The application can also provide the teacher with a way to motivate the students to
learn by keeping a score of the students in the classroom.
Students can use this application to test their own comprehension. The questions can be
explained so there are multiple other ways the gaming application can be useful to a student
including learning more information regarding a particular math concept that they have been
struggling with, obtain more support and help in that specific skill, or increase their confidence
in mathematic performance.
Advantages include the multiple classroom engagement, the international programming, other
teachers participating and co-supporting, and the information provided to the teacher regarding
student performance.
Prezi presentation: https://prezi.com/p/o_xn36nuga8a/