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Online Tools and Apps

Discover innovative online tools for education. Explore strategies and resources to enhance teaching, learning, and collaboration in the digital age.

Free Green Screen Solution for Chromebooks

by Miguel Guhlin April 29, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Looking for a new ed tech solution that will rock your world? I think I have something for you today: a free green screen tool that works on Chromebooks and is simple enough for students to master.

Wait, What Is Green Screen?

No doubt, you may be an expert green screen user on iOS devices like iPads and iPhone. The DoInk Green Screen app is one of the best tools out there for quick, painless visual effects. You can load up other heavy duty video tools, such as OBS or Camtasia, but they can be clumsy and may cost you money, like WeVideo does for Chromebook users.

Go Green with Green Screen Fun

What if I told you there was a free image and video solution that Chromebook users could employ?

Going Green on a Chromebook

A fantastic video effects solution that won’t have you reaching for your wallet is Kapwing. Kapwing offers browser-based green screen. You get seven minutes of green screen goodness before having to upgrade. Seven minutes is a LOT of time, especially for most student projects. All you need is an image or video captured with a screen that is green behind it. You can get a green background (ie., green plastic tablecloth) for $0.99 from Dollar Tree store, and you’re set to go.

kapwing

How Does Kapwing’s Tool Work?

Kapwing describes the process in this way:

Kapwing’s Green Screen Video Editor lets you remove the background from any green or bluescreen video for free and online. Use the eyedropper tool to key out any color from the background of the video. Then, overlay the layer on top of other videos and images.

You can upload several types of files, such as:

Video file
YouTube green screen video link
Images and GIFs

Once the files are in Kapwing’s editor, you click their “Effects” tab and select the “Chroma Key” option. You can do any of the following:

Add new backgrounds
Frame your canvas
Trim your video

Kapwing also provides a handy tutorial:

kapwing

Once you’re done, simply save the video.

You can find other great resources for this visual effects technique below:

Kapwing offers Chromebook users a fantastic tool to use for fun and easy special effects.

Feature Image Source

Photo by Unlimited Motion Ltd on Unsplash

April 29, 2021 5 comments

8 chrome extensions and websites you may not know april 2021 TCEA

Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (April 2021)

by Sara Qualls April 20, 2021

written by Sara Qualls

Last month, I shared some of my new favorite chrome add-ons, extensions, and sites. I’ve scoured the web and am back with some finds that you may not be familiar with. Let’s jump right into making life a little more fun and interactive.

Chrome Extensions to Try

Text Blaze. Want to save time? Of course, you do. This Chrome extension is here to help! Do you ever find yourself asking the same questions over and over again? Or maybe you’re giving the same detailed comments to someone’s assignment progress? Use Text Blaze to create keyboard shortcuts for custom text.

Magic Rainbow Unicorns Slides. First off, the name alone is a win. This add-on will allow you to change font colors or highlight with just a click. Just select the text and watch the magic happen! Most importantly, it will certainly catch the reader’s eye.

Grade Transferer. If you find yourself transferring grades from one platform to another, you will love this one.

Custom Cursor for Chrome. Tired of that boring arrow? Swap it out with another icon. They have a huge collection to choose from.

Must-Visit Websites

silk website art — *Art created on Silk*

Silk. Here’s another site to help you create some art. Move your mouse around, click, and watch the magic start to form.

Wake It Up. This one may help you overcome boredom or achieve true procrastination. You have sixty seconds to use the tools given to wake up the website. Enjoy!

Species in Pieces. Want to learn more about endangered species? This is an interactive exhibit that teaches you why the species is endangered as it forms.

Ocearch Shark Tracker. Curious as to where all the sharks hang out? Or maybe you have an upcoming vacation and you just want to make sure that sharks don’t frequent the area? Try this shark tracker to see where they are and where they like to hang out.

Have an add-on, extension, or website you can’t live without? Share it with me in the comments and it could make the list next month.

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April 20, 2021 3 comments

Online Tools and Apps

Five Fantastic Browser-Based Digital Tools

by Miguel Guhlin April 13, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Over the last few years, I’ve found myself circling back to use the same digital tools time and time again. So I challenged myself to try and find some new tools to add to my repertoire. Let me introduce you to these browser-based tools that will change your life and may save you some time. I also encourage you to drop your favorite digital tools in the comment section.

Digital Tools

You may know about some popular digital tools featured in the TCEA TechNotes blog. Those tools could include background removal tools (e.g. Remove.bg), note-taking tools, Bitmoji editing, video editing tools, and more. These are all fantastic tools that I keep close, but there are more than can make your life easier.

Let’s take a look at a few browser-based tools you can use.

Tool #1: Generate Graphs

Need a quick way to slap a graph together? Instead of reaching for some sprawling Office suite, try the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Create a Graph.

This fun graph maker works in your browser, giving you a variety of customization options. Since it’s designed for kids, there’s no doubt it’s easy and free. You can save your graph creation to your device in a popular image format or combine it with a tool like LightShot Chrome extension to grab it right off the screen.

Tool #2: Crop Photos into Shapes

Do you have a favorite tool in Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint? If you dislike square, rectangular image shapes with sharp edges, I bet I know what your favorite tool is. It’s the crop to shape tool. In both Slides and PowerPoint, you can crop any image into the shape you want. That shape can be a star, a circle, whatever. But what happens when you don’t need the power of an Imperial Cruiser to whittle an image down to shape? You use IMGonline.

This versatile website makes it an easy matter to modify images. One nice tool is making a photo into different geometric shapes. They have quite a selection of shapes, up to one hundred, in varied categories including household goods, animals, hearts, arrows, and transportation.

You can make some minor adjustments, upload your image/photo, and then let it work its magic.

In this case, I’ve chosen shape #44, a hot air balloon, and combined it with a work image. I love the result, don’t you?

Here’s what you see once the image processing is complete:

Tool #3: Create Custom Buttons and Badges

Need to make your own button images for use in Canvas LMS or Schoology? Maybe you want to create some nice buttons for use in Google Sites or Microsoft OneNote. One way to do that is to take advantage of ImageFu.com. You’ll be cranking out badges and buttons in no time.

Let’s take a look at the button maker first. This tool allows you to do quite a bit, all for free and without copyright restrictions. See the interface below:

With this interface, you can make rounded box buttons. Simply use the corners radius sliders (shown above, bottom left quadrant) to adjust it all. Isn’t that amazing and easy?

Want a circle? You may want to take advantage of the ImageFu badge maker utility, shown below. You can round out the “arms” of your badge to make a circle, or change their spikes. You can adjust colors, orientations, and shadows.

Give it a try; the possibilities are endless and you will look very professional graphically with this browser-based tool.

Tool #4: Make Images Smaller

Are you a web designer or responsible for your district/campus content management system page? One new image format that’s gaining popularity is WEBP. In lieu of using PNG, JPG, or GIF, each of which can come with hefty file sizes, try WEBP. This new, super light image format works great on content management systems (e.g. WordPress) and also works great in browsers. WEBP is not yet supported in Canvas or Schoology however. It does work in Google Blogger, but not in Sites or Google Workspace.

WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster. WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM quality index.
WebP is natively supported in Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge, the Opera browser, and by many other tools and software libraries (source: Google Developers).

In spite of its partial adoption, WEBP is making inroads. The reason why is the terrific size savings. Consider that I took a PNG photo, 223K in size, and converted it to WEBP. The new size? 17K. That can result in significant size savings on websites, making images faster to download on mobile connections. Give it a try with native conversion tools or Cloud Convert.

Tool #5: Insert Web Pages into Other Websites

Need to embed a website in another tool such as a Canvas or Schoology learning management system page? You could rely on iFrame Generator to create the embed code. While some websites offer iFrame Generators, some websites do not. That’s where this tool comes in handy.

Let’s say you needed to embed this TCEA website in Canvas or Schoology. You could insert a link, but that’s not too exciting, is it? Instead, use the iFrame Generator. It will give you the code you need to embed a web page into another website, as you can see below:

The result is a fantastic looking page that appears in a website (e.g. Schoology):

The entire web page of content drops right in and the student need not leave your learning management system or website.

But Wait, There’s More!

Wondering how I made that Wanted poster at the top of the blog post? I made it with Tuxpi’s Wanter Poster Creator. Tuxpi has a host of other tools you can use. Here are a few more neat tools you may like:

Canva: Tons of great tools, including image cropping to shape
LunaPic: Remove backgrounds, crop pictures in shapes
OOOO Plus: Crop images into a variety of shapes
PhotoPea: Need a superpowered image editor with low price? Try PhotoPea for layered edits of shapes.
JoyPixels: Need some amazing icons? JoyPixels and the brand new IconsMania (SlidesMania creator) are definitely two places to check out.

These fantastic browser-based tools should expand your awareness of what’s possible. Since they are browser-based, you can use them on a variety of devices, including mobiles, and can share them with your students.

Really, There IS More

Two of my favorite browser-based tools didn’t make the list above, and I’m going to fix that right now. Here are two must-have in your bookmarks, on mobile or desktop browser, tools:

Remove.bg: Use this to remove the background image of any photo or image, then replace it (or make it transparent) with something else
Cleanup.pictures: Use this to remove any object, text, person, or defect from an image.

I love using these two tools in combination with Kleki, a browser-based image editor. It’s so easy to edit a Bitmoji to be happy, or to mix-n-match components from one Bitmoji to another.

Feature Image Source

Image created by author.

April 13, 2021 6 comments

Chromebooks Google Tips and Tricks Online Tools and Apps

Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (March 2021)

by Sara Qualls March 25, 2021

written by Sara Qualls

There are so many great new add-ons, extensions, and websites you may not know are out there on the world wide web. How will you ever have the time to find them all? I’ve done some of the leg work for you so that you can become more productive or help kill time. With that said, let the productivity or procrastination begin! Here are my finds for March 2021.

Chrome Extensions To Try

Full Page Screen Capture. This thing is a lifesaver when it comes to capturing the entire screen. And yes, I mean the entire thing. It scrolls for you all the way to the bottom to get every drop of goodness you need on that page.

LastPass. If you’re anything like me, you probably use the same two to three passwords for everything and that’s not a good thing. This is where LastPass comes in to save the day. LastPass creates different passwords for every site.

Stylish. Let’s be honest, not everyone is a designer. But everyone still has incredibly useful information to share. Enter Stylish. This extension gives unattractive web pages a new look.

Read Aloud. Read Aloud is an extension that uses text-to-speech technology to convert the website page into audio and it supports more than 40 languages! If you’re a multi-tasker like me, this is great so you can keep “reading” along while doing other things.

Must-Visit Websites

MapCrunch. Here’s your chance to go on an adventure without ever leaving your couch. The website will put you in a random location in the world and then it’s up to you do to the exploring.

2048. If you like puzzles or math games, you will thank me. It’s a bit of Suduko meets Tetris.

Freerice. For every correct answer you get, the cash equivalent of 10 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Programme. Your procrastination will have finally gone to a good cause!

This Is Sand. Remember making sand art as a kid? Now you can do it digitally.

What are your favorite extensions and websites I may not know about? I want to check it out! Let me know in the comments.

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March 25, 2021 0 comments

Online Tools and Apps

Eight More Electrifying Elementary Web 2.0 Tools

by Peggy Reimers March 22, 2021

written by Peggy Reimers

I am back with more electrifying resources for elementary teachers. Please check out the eight below; I am sure you will be able to equip your toolbelt with one or more of these little gems.

Celebrate with Confetti!

Inject a little fun in your day or celebrate with your class with this extension. If you use Google Chrome for your browser, add the Confetti extension. When you press command + B, confetti blasts out on your screen. You will lose the shortcut for bolding words by using this; but if you are like me and forget, the celebratory surprise is worth it.

Trigger your confetti with:

Windows: Ctrl + B
Chrome OS: Ctrl + B
Mac: Command + B

YouTube Audio Library screenshot. — Screenshot by author.

Free Music and Sounds for Elementary Projects

Looking for free music or sound effects? Audio Library from the YouTube Studio is my go to because no attribute is required. Check out my favorite sound effects: Muscle Car Rev and Cartoony Bounce to Ceiling. For the music, you can search by several genres. When creating my introductions for the TCEA online courses, I have used the beginning seconds of Calimba, Jigsaw Puzzle, and Good Morning. You will need to log in to your YouTube account and find the audio library.

Math and Emojis

Solvemoji is a free website that makes math puzzles using emojis. There are ten levels of difficulty in classic, grid, or word types. You can create an account to join the leaderboard or just solve puzzles on the website. Solvemoji puzzles are great for math warmups and bell ringers. You can also follow @slovemoji on Twitter. Note, there are ads throughout the website.

Remembering the Old Days

If you remember the MECC computer game The Oregon Trail, you probably recall the saying, “When I was a kid, I walked 12 miles to school in the snow?” Now the saying goes, “When I was a kid, I played computer games with big pixels and the return key.” Access this classic game from the Visit Oregon website. The fun is still here, along with the threat of dying from dysentery.

For Your Elementary ESL Students

Games to Learn English has 20+ free games to help students practice grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and more. A student can play the games from the website or the teacher can create an account. The website has detailed information about each game. The GTLE site also gives information on their updates. It’s a great site for your ELL or young beginners.

Get Busy Rhyming

If you are looking for rhyming words, this site is exactly what you need: Rhymer.com. (You just have to love the name.) Type in a word and the site generates word groupings in one, two, three, four, five, and six-or-more syllables. You can also find rhyming words by beginning and first-syllable rhymes. I did try a few BAD words to see what might happen; duck and spit are safe. But if a students keeps trying, he may succeed.

A Bitmoji Buddy

If you are a Bitmoji fan, you can now include a buddy on your Bitmoji. This only works on your phone and is based on your Contacts. In order to make this work, you might need to update your app. To get started, in the open right hand corner, tap on your settings gear and select “invite friends.”

Would You Rather Math

Would You Rather Math is so awesome! The two-statement scenario spurs debate, discussion, reasoning, and writing in the math classroom. The questions are separated into four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Did you figure out what gift you would rather receive?

Would you rather receive a gift with a piggy bank. — Screenshot by author

Featured image created in Canva by author.

Attend the Elementary Technology Conference for professional development that is hands-on, engaging, and just for elementary educators.

March 22, 2021 0 comments

Chromebooks Content Areas Google Tips and Tricks iOS Tips and Tricks Online Tools and Apps

Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Elementary Resources

by Lori Gracey March 9, 2021

written by Lori Gracey

I’m back sharing more great resources and ideas I’ve found around the web. And today, I’ll be sharing tips specifically for elementary educators and their students. Let’s get started!

Elementary Google/PowerPoint Templates

Eric Curts offers this great Google Slides template for short and long vowel sounds. What makes it wonderful is that it includes audio.

SlidesMania is back with another great template for PowerPoint or Google Slides. This one is an elementary weekly agenda, and I love it because it is so colorful and pretty. They also have a very nice True or False template that you can use with any content area.

elementary

These elementary worksheets for math and vocabulary are from the Noun Project, a great and free site to also find lots of graphics to use with younger learners.

For older elementary students (and on into middle school), this is a Google Slides template for becoming a vocabulary expert. I think the activities included here are excellent for authentic vocabulary growth and development.

And finally, Jessica Twomey has several great templates for working with words for primary students. She has 42 different Playing with Words slides for centers and they are fantastic!

Ask Me Two Questions

Sometimes, the questions we ask our students may actually keep them from thinking and responding. As educator Andre Sasser shares in the graphic below, it may be time to rethink what we are asking. (For more on this topic, check out Who’s Doing the Talking in Our Classrooms?)

elementary

For Elementary Reading

One of the best resources I have found to help students improve their reading comprehension is ReadWorks. This site leverages “cognitive-science research to create high-impact instructional materials and tools that are designed for immediate use within the practical realities of current U.S. classrooms.” What makes it even more astonishing is that it is completely FREE. Students can access their reading online to highlight, annotate, and complete assignments or they can be printed out. Teachers can access progress reports and automatic grading. And again, it is all FREE with a simple teacher registration! ReadWorks has content and resources for grades K-12, so it is a must-have tool in your arsenal.

Making Music Together

Keep your students’ creativity flowing by having your elementary folks create music together with Shared Piano from the Chrome Music Lab. Accessed from any web browser, players can play together regardless of where they are simply by sharing a link. They can select from seven different instruments and have the notes appear on the keys. They can also record and playback their creations. Challenge them to create music that goes along with a story they are reading or a song for a favorite character. This would make a great brain break!

Turn Your iPhone into a Document Camera during Remote Teaching

The free Overviewer app will “turn your iOS device into a document camera for sharing on video conference apps. Perfect for teachers and educators doing virtual learning that need to show what’s on their desk during a video call.”

Organizing Your Gmail

If you’re like me, the number of emails you are receiving daily is ridiculous. The good news is that Gmail can help by sorting the emails coming in for you. John R. Sowash created this great graphic below to explain how. Try it out and take back at least a little of your time!

elementary

Jamboard Templates

If you are a fan of Jamboard, you will definitely want to access this Ultimate Collection of Jamboard Templates from Holly Clark. The Wakelet has TONS of resources and will take you a while just to look through. But it’s well worth your time.

The Best Elementary Resource of All

You can learn even more tips, tricks, and tech tidbits for elementary educators at TCEA’s annual Elementary Technology Conference.

March 9, 2021 1 comment

Android iOS Tips and Tricks Online Tools and Apps

Zigazoo: Classroom Safe Video Learning and Creation

by Miguel Guhlin March 2, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

zigazoo When I first started working with video, I remember the joy of the old Flip camera. It was so easy to record a video and then save it to a computer. Prior to that, video recording was so difficult as to be impractical. But that didn’t stop enterprising educators from making student-created videos available. Now, video creation tools abound, but the question has become one of, “Now that we can record videos and share them, should we?” Student safety has become a critical consideration. A new tool promises to close the gap between student-created videos and student safety.

Did You Know?

TikTok has one billion monthly active users, has been downloaded over 2.6 billion times worldwide, and enjoys 100 million active users in the United States where 32.5% of users are 10 to 19 years old. See the chart below for other age groups (source: Wallroom Media).

Zigazoo

Introducing Zigazoo

Zigazoo, available at no-cost for both Android and iOS devices, encourages “short-form video” creations from children. Billed as the “Tik Tok for kids,” Zigazoo offers a variety of creative options and enables children to create video responses to educational content in a safe environment.

Zigazoo

Hailed as “a smarter screen-time activity” by TechCrunch and lauded by children’s media advocacy organizations for its safety, Zigazoo enables kids to share video responses to challenges built by leading museums, zoos, educators, and media stars. (source: Zigazoo).

According to Protect Young Eyes, the Zigazoo creation process is straightforward and includes three types of activities:

You can select learning prompts and then respond with videos up to thirty seconds in length
Share videos with friends (and only with friends you have approved)
Watch videos your friends and favorite characters have created

Since child safety is a priority for Zigazoo, the video response platform includes several protocols.

Ensuring Student Safety

One of the ways that Zigazoo safeguards student video creations is through a verified and secure sign-up process. They rely on single sign-on through verified Facebook, Google, or Apple accounts.

To create an account, you must be over 18 years of age. Furthermore, Zigazoo has eliminated private messaging, commenting, and negative emojis. This means that creators and viewers only see videos that survive a “stringent human moderation process.” All videos must undergo content review and be aligned to Zigazoo’s video review policy:

On topic: users must respond to the prompt and not be off-topic
No personal information: no last names, addresses, birth dates, or personal identifiers
Positive, school-friendly behavior: no shoving, throwing, anger, yelling, sarcasm, or sulking
Classroom-safe language: no swears or “potty” talk
Classroom-safe clothing: every person in the video needs school-appropriate clothes on, including shirts
Clear sound and visuals: we want to make sure we can hear and see you clearly

That moderation process makes sure all videos are relevant to the prompt (from museums, zoos, educators, etc.) and that language and visual media is kid friendly. Personally identifiable information (PII) is also locked out. Some of the restrictions Zigazoo has in place include:

Only your friends on Zigazoo can see your videos, and friends have to be approved prior.
You create videos in response to a question you select.
Children must make videos with an “adult presence,” so you avoid the issues (that pop up in YouTube and Tik Tok) that you have with unauthorized individuals viewing child-created videos.

Some of the videos you will see come from Bings & Potts, which will leave you laughing and learning like this one on Gobble Like a Turkey:

There are many other content providers you can assign content from in Zigazoo, as you can see from the photo slideshow below:

Zigazoo

Zigazoo also offers a classroom component known as Zigazoo Classrooms. Let’s take a closer look at that.

In the Classroom

With Zigazoo Classrooms, teachers can create their own private classroom communities that gives them content moderation authority. You can watch a video about Zigazoo Classroom.

Zigazoo

Once you get the app, you can choose to create a classroom or pod, registering as a teacher. This process will give you a code you can share with students.

You’ll be prompted to create a welcome video or explore existing projects that you can assign to students. Of course, you have the option to create on your own.

Zigazoo

Here is a seven-minute walkthrough of Zigazoo and projects available from LaShundra Wigfall:

Creating with the App

You can start your students creating with Zigazoo easily as a teacher. Simply find and assign a challenge that is relevant. The interface is straightforward and you can use the HOME or DISCOVER buttons in the app to find challenges. You can see what that looks like below:

Zigazoo

Give it a try. Here’s another example, this one from Laura Steinbrink, “Can you say hello and goodbye in Spanish?”

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

March 2, 2021 0 comments

Educational Research Online Tools and Apps

Use This Puzzle Maker Tool for Retrieval Practice

by Miguel Guhlin February 26, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Ready to dig into game-based learning? While you’re waiting for a new TCEA Game-Based Learning course, I have a treat for you. This a tool that many educators are relying on in the midst of hybrid teaching and learning. It’s like other quiz show type programs.

Introducing Vimboard

A modern puzzle-making tool, Vimboard (@vimboard1) creates an interactive learning experience by combining puzzle making with a multiple choice question set. As students respond with correct answers, an image appears. Vimboard is free and you can use any of its pre-existing puzzles and content to get started. Here’s one example:

This example game focuses on students responding to physical/chemical change questions. As they respond, they get to see the image shown above. You will explore this in more detail in a moment. Before you do that, let’s revisit the importance of retrieval practice, also known as practice testing.

A Low-Stress Retrieval Practice Activity

Contrary to popular belief, multiple choice questions can enhance learning. Consider the research on their use:

Multiple-choice retrieval can be just as effective, or more effective, than short answer retrieval (McDermott et al., 2014).
Providing students with feedback decreases or eliminates students’ learning of misinformation (Butler & Roediger, 2008).
While they’re are quick to administer and grade, you should take some time to create multiple-choice questions and alternatives carefully for a larger retrieval benefit (Little et al., 2012).
Multiple-choice questions enhance learning for related information that wasn’t even on the quiz (Bjork et al., 2014) (source: Retrieval Practice).

Vimboard offers a simple way to quiz students on any topic. Successful answers yield access to a picture. Vimboard will also keep track of how well your students, did, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Vimboard offers an easy-to-use, simple quiz tool. This can be useful for retrieval practice or practice testing, both low-risk assessments that assist students. Some recommendations for using Vimboard for practice testing include:

Use quizzes often. This provides students with feedback on whether they are right or wrong in their grasp of concepts and vocabulary. These strategies can lead to deeper understanding, not only memorization of facts.
Keep it low stakes. Avoid grading the use of Vimboard. The goal is to spread out assessments over time, as you can see in the figure below.
Revisit old content. Don’t be afraid to make quiz questions about content you have already covered. In this way, students are able to better learn and retain content they have been introduced to before.

As you can see in the image below, which represents practice testing (a.k.a. retrieval practice), spreading out short assessments over time can yield great results for long-term retention.

Explore Vimboard Educational Puzzles

The heart of Vimboard is its interactive search for existing educational puzzles. From K-12 through a wide variety of subjects (shown below), you can find many pre-created puzzles to use.

When you view an existing puzzle, you see both the puzzle image and questions. The answer choices to each question appear below each. For example, the questions and answers for the chemical/physical change puzzle are:

You can add any educational puzzle you find to your collection. This makes it possible for you to edit the collection. Or, if you prefer, you can use the share icon to make it available to others online, such as your students or colleagues.

Once shared, students enter their names and work through the questions. A nice feature is that the questions are read aloud to students if they tap on the sound icon beneath the question. You can see a walkthrough of the process below.

Puzzle Game Creation

Want to take a stab at creating your own game? This is a three step process:

Introduction: In this step, you provide a title for the game, write a description, and select subject and grade level.
Image: In this next area, you provide a picture and decide on the number of tiles that will cover the picture. As students respond to questions correctly, they will remove the tiles that cover the image. Ten tiles means you can have ten questions. You are not required to match one for one (question:tiles). You could provide less questions and Vimboard will remove a portion of the tiles.
Quiz: This is where you enter the actual questions and responses. These are in multiple choice format.

How do you imagine you will use Vimboard to support retrieval practice in your classroom?

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

February 26, 2021 2 comments

Educational Research Online Tools and Apps

Assessment-Based Feedback Tool: Blooket

by Miguel Guhlin February 15, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

By now, most of you have tried Kahoot!, Quizlet, Quizziz, and many others. These tools work as game-based student response systems that provide you with formative assessment options. The teacher creates a free account and then can design quizzes with embedded images and video or use one of the many pre-created assessments. Students rely on an internet-connected device to respond, earning points as they score.

All of these assessment tools and many others such as Knowt offer teachers and students a way to engage in practice testing. They also provide pre-assessment and post-assessment data for instructional coaching. In this blog entry, I’ll introduce you to yet another formative assessment tool you may be unaware of.

First, though, let’s review some of the scientifically-based research around two key concepts: practice testing and assessment-based feedback.

Digging into the Research

As you already know, “formative assessment [serves] as a way to improve the caliber of still-underway instructional activities.” Contrast formative assessment with summative assessment. The latter is “a way to determine the effectiveness of already-completed instructional activities” (source: ASCD). A deeper definition of formative assessment appears below:

Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.

Formative assessment has distinguishing features that include it being:

A process rather than a single event
A tool useful to both teachers and students
A source of assessment-based feedback to both teachers and students

As you may already know from TCEA TechNotes blog entries on feedback (d=0.64), assessment-based feedback must do the following:

Focus on the task or product, identifying whether it is correct/incorrect or provide suggestions for improvement
Provide information about processes students go through to perform a task or develop a product
Give insight into students’ ability to self-monitor and direct their learning through goal setting, self-assessments, and identifying next steps

What are some digital tools that can provide feedback insights to task or product? In addition to formative assessments, what are some ways student learning can be improved? Practice testing (d=0.46) is one approach. Practice testing is also known as retrieval practice or test-enhanced learning.

That video will give you an overview of practice testing and Knowt. Allow me to introduce you to a new tool you can use for retrieval practice.

Introducing Blooket

Another exciting digital tool, Blooket, supports teacher and student accounts. With a free account, teachers can use Blooket to host a question set with a specific game mode. This game is displayed via screen/projector, then students compete on their own devices. Blooket tracks student progress, keeping a record of student responses. In turn, students are able to track their statistics via global a leaderboard ranking. They can also buy and sell “blooks” and avail themselves of community-wide events.

Here are some observations from teachers:

“In Blooket, you’re given 8+ different possible game modes that use the same question set. Kids can gain points in different ways in each game mode. Blooket enjoys a ‘classic’ mode that is like regular Kahoot. Kids love it because they can play a different game mode to keep it interesting.”
“Many of the games are fun and encourage classroom engagement.”
“You can play it live or assign it as homework. It has made this year so much more fun for my classes since it works with distance, hybrid, and in person students.”

As you might imagine, Blooket’s game modes offer variety. “It offers power ups and random sabotage things you can do to other players,” says another teacher. You can follow these steps to get started:

Start with a question set. You can make your own, import one, or find one.
Decide on a game mode. There are several game mode choices. Find one you like.
Host a game and allow students to play. Students use a game identification number to join the game.
Play the game. As students play the game, they answer questions that target content that has been taught in class.
Review results. Students and teachers can review the performance data to identify areas of growth.

Don’t let the blocks turn you off from using Blooket with secondary students. One high school Spanish teacher (@SenoraCMT) raves about her use of Blooket in this way:

We were reading a chapter in Kristy Placido’s Noche de oro eBook and I wanted to pre-teach some of the vocabulary. Not pre-teach… more like pre-expose! So I made a Blooket.

After playing our first Blooket, I wanted to add one for ALLLLLL the things my students were studying so I made one for my book Bianca Nieves from Fluency Matters, I made one for my Huellas 1 Future and Conditional level 3-AP unit Atrévete, and Kristy Placido made one for my Huellas 1 ART based level 3-AP unit Bajo la mesa! When my Spanish 4 group finishes reading, I’ll make one for our next Huellas 2 unit, Orangután en mi habitación. (Find out more about the Huellas Curriculum here.)

Now that we know how it works, let’s take a look at some of the available features.

A Few of Blooket’s More Recent Features

Blooket has an amazing amount of features that enhance game mode learning. Some new free features include the following:

Extend/Reopen Homework
Discover Tab Filters
Automated Group Subscriptions
Button to Set Time Limit for All Questions
Remove Students from Homework

More features are available at a cost. Those include:

Removing the 60-player limit (+ Only)
Merging Question Sets (+ Only)

Curious about what Blooket looks like? Let’s take a look at pricing before I turn you loose to watch a few videos.

Blooket’s Cost

“I do pay for Blooket premium because it allows me to duplicate sets and have more in-depth reports,” reports one teacher. Wondering how much Blooket costs? Remember, you get free access to many features such as creating and hosting question sets in a variety of game modes. The free version also comes with unlimited question sets and the ability to edit those. In the table below, you will see what else you can get if you decide to pay for it:

Look Before Leaping

Ready to see what Blooket looks like in action? Here is a quick two-minute video you can watch to get an overview. Below this video, you will find even more walkthrough videos you can take advantage of. Check out this fantastic video from Master Heebs:

Some additional videos you can look at before leaping into Blooket:

Please let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

February 15, 2021 9 comments

Digital Breakout Educational Trends Online Tools and Apps STEM/STEAM

Valentine’s Day Digital Breakout

by Peggy Reimers February 8, 2021

written by Peggy Reimers

Are you looking for Valentine’s Day themed digital breakout? Well, you’re in luck! This particular breakout has five digital locks: 7 Letter, 3 Word, 5 Direction, 3 Number, and 4 Color. Educators, remember just email me at preimers@tcea.org and I will send you the answers.

So before you let your students enjoy all the goodness this holiday brings, give them 45 minutes to solve the breakout!