Part sticky note, part class newsletter, Remind allows teachers to send messages — via email, cellphone, iPad or Android device — to an entire class with the push of a button. Use it to notify parents and students about homework, highlight upcoming school events, or let parents know what's going on in class.
Kahoot is a game-based classroom response system that allows teachers and students to create and play quizzes, discussions, or surveys using any device in a web browser. You can ask thought-provoking questions and motive participation through game-based learning and rewards. Students answer questions in real time and play against each other to top the on-screen leaderboard. Educators can easily get an overview of the current knowledge levels of everyone in the room for formative assessment and can adapt their teaching accordingly.
Class Dojo lets teachers recognize both positive and negative behavior in real time during class. Good behavior — like working hard, helping others, asking a good question — earns points and a high-pitched game-show chime for all to hear. Poor behavior — like disrupting class, being off task or wasting time — results in a loss of points and a sad, out-of-tune bass sound. The kids choose fun avatars and parents who sign up for notifications receive updates on how their children are doing.
Engagement and assessment is easy with Socrative, a free website that lets teachers create and deliver quizzes, quick questions, exit tickets, and even space races and deliver them in real time on laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Questions can be multiple choice, true or false, or short answer and quizzes can be delivered so that they are student or teacher-paced. Results are instantly aggregated and displayed. Quizzes can be saved and shared with your colleagues and reports in Excel or PDF formats can be emailed, downloaded, sent to Google Drive, or saved for viewing later.
A free, web-based platform, PlayPosit allows you to build formative assessments right on top of any YouTube or Vimeo video. You can create unlimited lessons that ask students questions in a variety of formats, such as multiple choice, reflective, fill-in-the-blank, and free response and see your students' learning needs in real time as they watch the video and complete the questions. Questions can be embedded at specific points in the video and teachers receive instant feedback on each question, helping teachers to understand which students are having difficulty with the material and what content needs to be retaught. You can build your own library of lessons and ask students to create their own, perfect for flipping the traditional classroom.
Adobe Spark Page is a great free iPad app for quickly creating text and photo-based scrolling narratives and grid-based photo galleries. The app allows you to add titles, subtitles, icons, photos, and different themes to create magazine-style layouts. Adobe Spark Page could be used for journaling, digital student portfolio creation, documenting events, digital biographies, book reviews, and even virtual field trips. Completed projects can be shared via social media or email, instant message, hyperlink, or embedded on a blog or website.