Teachers can never have enough tools! NEVER! Kahoot! (2013) I’ve come to accept, Prezi (2009) I’ve yet to rely on as a functional tool and Quizlet (2005) I can’t live without!
Kahoot!
Kahoot!, as a middle school teacher, love it or hate it, you have to accept it because students LOVE it. I didn’t jump on the Kahoot! bandwagon till this past year mainly because students were playing it everywhere else and I figured they’d be bored of it if they played it in my room too. I was wrong! Students seem to never tire of this game based learning but I don’t find it a very effective tool for education. It’s entertainment with too much emphasis on “game” and not enough on “learning”. I’ve played a review game right before I tests and the students who placed at the top of the Kahoot! game and bomb the test. The forced speed of Kahoot! awards too much credit for answering the fastest. Students consequently place too much emphasis on answering fast versus knowing the content. One thing I do like about Kahoot! is that it is mobile friendly.
Prezi
Since I first saw Prezi, a presentation creating website, over a decide ago I thought it was PowerPoint on steroids. I like the idea of it more than I actually like Prezi itself. Viewing somebody else’s work on Prezi can be overwhelming at times and using it to create a presentation is more challenging than I’m willing to put time into. For me, Prezi isn’t as user friendly as it could be. Whenever I’ve tried using it, I’ve always ended up with something way out of proportion–super tiny usually. It’s just not something I’ve committed to in 10 years so I doubt I ever will. The fact it’s not gone mobile (except for Prezi viewer) also makes it something I won’t use.
Quizlet
Quizlet, a website that revolves around digital flash card sets, is hands down my favorite tool. Over time it’s shown great ability to adapt, change and move forward successfully. From digital flash cards to test review and now Quizletlive, Quizlet has evolved well. Here the emphasis isn’t entertainment or bells and whistles, it’s on learning. I appreciate how Quizlet makes other people’s card sets so accessible. Search with key words, topics, course titles, textbook author etc and you will easily find a study set you need. You can study their set or copy it and add it to your collection. I rarely make my own cards but when I do I appreciate that I can add pictures (with a fee), edit and organize the cards so easily. I have classes I teach and classes I’m taking on my Quizlet account and most of my sets of flash cards I’ve copied from others. When studying flash cards in the test prep mode, I love how Quizlet uses multiple choice, fill in the blank, true/false etc to review small sets of cards at a time till mastery is shown and before moving in to a new small set of cards to study. Quizlet also has a feature that reads the flash cards to you. This is an incredibly helpful tool for English Language Learners, struggling readers and auditory learners. Finally, I know Quizlet is an effective learning tool because I’ve literally taken entire college course, earned an A, and never cracked open the text book simply by using Quizlet and a few YouTube videos. Quizlet works!
PROJECT UPDATE–
Definitely sticking to the timeline as my final project. Google webpage is official dropped. Making one for the entire unit on Westward Expansion and Reform. Holidays and World Cup will have me brining the midnight oil this week but in the end it will be worth it because it’s something I’ll actually use in my classroom.
NVCC 218 Intro to Digital History 