A Quick Comparison of Five Popular Backchannel and Informal Assessment Tools

During yesterday's webinar on backchannels and informal assessment tools Poida suggested that I create a chart comparing the key features of popular backchannel and informal assessment tools. The chart embedded below provides a comparison of seven questions frequently asked about TodaysMeet, Padlet, Socrative, Infuse Learning, and Kahoot. (Click here for the recording of webinar that I gave about these tools).

Click here if you cannot see the chart.

Free Copyright and Creative Commons Courses for Educators

Peer 2 Peer University is again offering some free courses on Copyright and Creative Commons for educators. Copyright for Educators and Creative Commons for Educators begin in March and run through early May. Copyright for Educators has an enrollment limit and requires an application. Creative Commons for Educators does not have an enrollment limit nor does it require an application.

Here are the goals of the Copyright for Educators course:

• Understand the basic concepts of copyright law.
• Identify copyright issues in education.
• Understand when fair use or other copyright exceptions apply to teacher, librarian, or student use of copyrighted content. 
• Strategize and talk with your students, peers, and administrators about how to use copyright exceptions in education.

These are the goals of the Creative Commons for Educators course:

• Find educational resources that are open for sharing and remix 
• Remix open educational resources 
• Share remixes on the web 
• Attribute CC licensed materials 
• CC license your work 
• Explain CC licenses and how they work 
• Edit collaboratively 
• Work transparently 
• Advocate openness

Thanks to Jacques Cool for sharing the announcement about the courses on Twitter. 

Webinar Recording - A Teacher's Guide to Backchannels & Informal Assessments

Earlier this evening I hosted a free webinar on using backchannel and informal assessment tools. In the recording embedding below I demonstrate how to use Kahoot, TodaysMeet, Socrative, and Padlet. I also answer a bunch of questions from the participants in the live session. A copy of the guide that I mention in the beginning of the recording is available here.

Click here if you cannot see the video.

Glove and Boots Fix Your Grammar

Thanks to Denise Blain I have been sucked into the web series Glove and Boots. The video that Denise shared with me is all about grammar. In the video below Glove and Boots use fun examples from the the web to tackle the differences between "its" and "it's," "your" and "you're," and the proper uses of "there," "they're," and "their." Glove and Boots also teach you when it is appropriate to use "literally." The video is appropriate for high school audiences.

Group Reading With Google Documents

Using the commenting feature of Google Documents is a good way to create a record of classroom conversations about an article that you have shared with your students. Using the commenting feature is also a good way to have the conversation about an article occur entirely online. In the video below I give a demonstration of how to do this.