Try Poetica's WordPress Plugin for Editing Posts Like Writing on Paper

Poetica is an interesting service that you can use to edit documents almost as if you were writing on paper. Poetica offers a collaboration function that allows you to share drafts of documents with reader that you invite to join your editing team. Until today Poetica was a stand-alone service. It can still be used at Poetica.com but it can now also be used as a WordPress plugin for editing blog posts.

Editing writing in Poetica is very similar to the manner in which we have written edits on papers for years. When you read a document in Poetica you can click on any word or space between words to insert a line drawn to the margin where you then write your comments. Clicking on a word or space also allows you to simply insert a suggested word above a line in the document you're editing. If you want to suggest a change for an entire sentence you can highlight it and insert a drawn line to the margins where you can write your suggestions. Your suggestions are written in blue while your corrections are written in red.

Once the Poetica WordPress plugin is installed on your blog it will replace the default WordPress post editor. The plugin provides the editing features that are found in Poetica.com as described above.

Applications for Education
Poetica itself is an excellent tool for collaboratively creating and editing documents. The visual connections between markings and the comments could make it easier for your students to match your suggestions to specific portions of their documents. These same features could be great for students who are collaborating on the development of blog posts.

How to Use ClassDojo's New Class Story Feature

Earlier this month ClassDojo released a new feature called Class Story. Class Story allows you to post pictures, text, and links for parents and students to see within the ClassDojo apps and website. The feature is intended to help you keep parents informed about what's happening in your classroom. You can use Class Story on your iOS or Android device. You can also use it in the web browser on your laptop. In the video embedded below I provide a short demonstration of Class Story.


Applications for Education
Using Class Story is a good middle ground between being a full-fledged blog and a simple SMS update delivery system. Posting to Class Story could be a good way to share highlights of classroom activities and or reminders about upcoming events.

Two Easy Ways to Gather Feedback During Slide Presentations

Earlier this week I received an email from someone who was looking for way that students could respond to prompts during a slide presentation without the teacher having to keep a separate window open all the time. Two options immediately came to mind. My first suggestion was to try ParticiPoll. My second suggestion was to try using the commenting feature in Google Slides.

ParticiPoll is a service that you can use to add interactive polls to your PowerPoint presentations. Your polls are created and delivered within your PowerPoint slides. Once you've added ParticiPoll to your PowerPoint you can create as many polls as you like. Each poll can have up to six response options. The best aspect of ParticiPoll is that you don't have to leave your slidedeck at all in order to administer the poll and see the results of your poll. Your audience can respond to your ParticiPoll poll through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. To respond they simply go to the URL for your poll and choose a response. When you want to display the poll results you just click to the next element in your PowerPoint slidedeck and the results are displayed for all to see. All polls are anonymous.



ParticiPoll.com - Free Audience Polling for PowerPoint from ParticiPoll on Vimeo.

If you're a Google Slides user, you could share your slides with your students before you begin your presentation (Google Classroom makes it easier than ever to do this). As you're presenting ask students to submit their questions for you as comments on the slides. It's not the ideal solution, but I've done it and it works.