I'm looking for educational technology recommendations.
I volunteer as a teacher trainer at my church, and recently, I've become more and more aware of the lack of technology use by the teachers of in-person classes at church (myself included). And I'm quite sure that my church isn't the only organization whose in-person class offerings are suffering from this. With resources out there like Coursera, Khan Academy, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc., many of the in-person class experiences I've had in the past now seem totally antiquated.
But I still think the in-person class experience has a place, and I'm pretty sure that in-class technology can improve it by increasing student engagement and leveraging people's technology addictions rather than ignoring them.
Yesterday, I stumbled across Poll Everywhere, which I used (pretty successfully, I think) in my class today. The app allows you to create simple quizzes and display real-time, SMS-based feedback from students. I also looked into Socrative, which had a nicer interface, but I didn't like the fact that students also had to register for accounts.
So all of you teachers out there… Any recommendations on in-class apps that you've successfully used to engage students a little better?
(Or maybe I'm way off base and should just keep in-person classes as low tech as possible. If that's what you suggest, let me know!)
Much appreciated!
Image Source: Calico Spanish (labeled for reuse).
It depends on the size of the class. For anything above 30, engagement tech can be really helpful. Below that, unless you need to anonymize responses, it might be more trouble than it's worth.