Skaffl - Distribute, Collect, and Grade Assignments on Your iPad

Skaffl is a free iPad app that is designed to help you distribute, collect, and grade assignments on your iPad. Like similar apps, on Skaffl you can create classrooms that your students join through a class code. Once your classroom is created you can distribute assignments and hand-outs to your students. Assignments can be created in the app or you can attach items created outside of the Skaffl app. Your students can submit work through the app. You can grade your students’ assignments directly within the app. Assignments that aren’t going to be graded (a rough draft of an essay, for example) can be annotated by you to provide students with ungraded feedback.

Applications for Education
Skaffl could be a good solution for teachers who want a simple way to distribute and collect assignments without wading through a myriad of extra features that they won’t use.

If you're looking for a similar app that does a little bit more than Skaffl, take a look at Otus, GoClass, or Nearpod.

Connect Fours - A Fun, New Review Game from @RusselTarr

My friend Russel Tarr, who recently took me to a party with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, sent me Twitter DM earlier today about his new review game called Connect Fours. Connect Fours is based on the concept of the connect wall in the BBC gameshow Only Connect. The idea is that you have to create four sets of four related terms from sixteen terms displayed on the board. For example, I created a game about the four major professional sports leagues in the United States. Sixteen team names are displayed on the board and players have to arrange the teams according to the leagues that they belong to.

Applications for Education
Playing a Connect Fours game could be a good way for students to review big concepts from a unit of study. One of the sample games that Russel offers is all about World War I. Sixteen terms related to WWI are displayed and students have to sort them into four themes about WWI.

To create your own Connect Fours game head to the game page and select "create new game." On the next screen enter the terms that you want displayed on your game along with the title for the groupings of terms (see my screenshot below for clarification). Your game will be assigned its own URL that you can distribute however you see fit.

The Pre-Conference

On Saturday morning I posted a fun thread for sharing "welcome to teaching moments." There are some good stories on that thread. This video that Ken Haynes at BoomWriter sent to me isn't exactly a "welcome to teaching moment," but it is a fun video that most of us can relate to.


Disclosure: BoomWriter is an advertiser on this blog.