Matt Miller has taught for more than a decade, integrating technology to engage students and create unique learning experiences. He created the Ditch That Textbook blog and is a Google Certified Innovator and was named one of the 2016 top 10 influencers in educational technology/elearning by Onalytica.
Matt’s book, Ditch That Textbook, is all about upgrading your classroom with powerful technology and innovative mindsets to meet students in the 21st-century world where they live.
Buy a copy of Ditch That Textbook on Amazon, or don’t wait — get a copy from Matt for $20, cheaper than the retail price. He’ll sign it and throw in a Ditch That Textbook laptop sticker for free!
Matt is available to present at schools, workshops, conferences or any other professional development event. Ask him about it in person or email him at matt@DitchThatTextbook.com.
Shared presentations. Create a presentation with one slide per student and give students permission to edit it. Then assign an activity — some quick Internet research, a writing prompt, an image search to find an example, etc. When they’re done, show the presentation on a projector. It’s student work instantly on display. (Looking for images your students can use legally and ethically (i.e. Creative Commons or public domain)? Click here and scroll to the bottom for a big list of sites!)
Animation: This is a great hack (i.e. non-traditional use) of Google Slides that could take some time to complete but yield amazing results. Check out this video, where the creators made an impressive animation with 450 slides in a Google Slides presentation just by clicking through the slides quickly.
Interactive posters. Google Drawings are great for bringing images, text and shapes together. Those elements combine for a great digital poster. But these digital posters are way better than a regular one made of poster board. Various elements in the poster can be clicked, delivering webpages and other online content to viewers.
Photo comic strips. Take photos of students using a webcam and add them to a Google Drawing. Add speech bubbles to the photos. Then save those images and add each one to a different slide in a Google Slides presentation. Here’s a Google Site about Comics with Google Tools and Creativity Games for examples and more details.
Google Maps Street View —Street View makes it possible to drop your classroom virtually onto almost any street in the world and walk around. It uses panoramic imagesthat let you turn around, zoom in and walk down roads to check out the scenery. Just grab the little yellow “peg man” and drop him where you’d like to go. (See animation at right.) For practice, try dropping yourself at your doorstep of your school if you’ve never used it before.
Street View includes tons of “Indoor Maps” where you can “walk around” inside buildings. (Click for the full list.) They include:
More: 20 locations to tour virtually with Google Maps Street View
Street View Treks — Once you’ve seen your school from the curb on Google Maps Street View, take it to the next level with Street View Treks. These custom-produced exploration experiences are awesome for students. They provide information about the location and videos that pair nicely with the panoramic views. Locations include Nepal, Gombe National Park, the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Barrier Reef (a Street View Trek underwater!) and more.
Google Cardboard — With a Google Cardboard viewer and a smartphone, you have access to virtual reality at a relatively inexpensive price. (Viewers start around $15.) Google Cardboard turns your phone into VR goggles. Using various Carboard-compatible apps, you can tour the globe, ride roller coasters, journey through the brain, get an interactive look at the solar system, and more.
— Street View app (iTunes / Android)
— http://google.com/cardboard
— http://www.wareable.com/google/the-best-google-cardboard-apps
Kahoot! is the granddaddy of the game show review games. That’s a funny title for a site that was only launched in August of 2013 … a three-year-old (as of publication of this post) hardly counts as a granddaddy! That goes to show how fast technology is changing in classrooms.
Source: Screenshot from getkahoot.com
Pros: It’s a shared experience. Everyone sees the question on the projector at the same time and everyone answers at the same time. That by itself creates an electric environment. Also, there are millions(no exaggeration) of pre-created Kahoot! games under “Public Kahoot!s”. If you want to teach it, there’s likely a Kahoot! game already created by a teacher, student or someone else that you can use. Kahoot! also features a team mode for classes that don’t have devices for each student (or want a more group-based option).
Cons: Your score is based on your reaction time from seeing the question (often displayed on the projector screen) and answering on your device. If the device you’re answering on takes too long to load, you may know the answer but can’t answer it (often because of slow or overloaded Internet) and you’re left in the dust. Some teachers say they don’t like that you can’t see the answers on the device you use to answer (i.e. student laptop or tablet), but my students never complained about that.
What makes it different: Ghost mode. It makes the same game different the second time you play it. (Or third. Or fourth.) Kahoot! remembers how each student scored on each question, and when you play ghost mode, it displays former attempts as “ghosts”. Students can compare their current attempt to previous attempts to see how they’ve progressed. (If your students have played Mario Kart or another racing video game and have raced against their personal best, they’re familiar with racing against a ghost.)
Quizizz takes the excitement of a gameshow-style review game and puts the whole experience in the students’ hands. With Kahoot!, everyone sees the question and possible answers on the projector and answer simultaneously. Quizizz is different because the questions and possible answers are displayed individually on student devices.
Pros: Student-paced. No one gets upset because their device didn’t load the game fast enough to compete. Quizizz games can also be assigned as homework, extending its fun experience to out-of-class work. Teachers can display their screen on the projector to see progress of each student and instantly see how many questions the class answered right/wrong.
Source: Screenshot from Quizizz.com
Cons: Quizizz is definitely fun. But when everyone is answering different questions at different times, you lose a bit of the excitement. With Kahoot!, when my class answers one question all together, it isolates that piece of content so we can all talk about it. When a Quizizz game is over, you can review all the questions all at once, and you lose that isolation.
What makes it different: Memes. These pictures with fun/funny messages are a treat. They’re displayed after a question is answered to show whether it’s right or wrong. Quizizz even lets you create your own (see image at right). You can use their pre-loaded images or upload your own.
Quizlet’s foray into the game show-style review adds its own unique spin. Instead of students answering individual questions on their individual devices, Quizlet puts students in groups. All possible answers are divided amongst the devices of all students participating. Think of three students with 12 possible answers … they’re divided up with four on each devices, so the answer may or may not be on your device.
Source: Screenshot from Quizlet.com
Pros: Teamwork and communication. With traditional flashcards, students may study them in isolation quietly. This brings students together in a game where they must depend on each other. If you use Quizlet and already have flashcards, you don’t have to create anything new. The questions and possible answers are all pulled from your existing Quizlet study sets. That means that each new Quizlet Live game is different, with different possible questions and answers pulled from your existing sets.
Cons: You need at least six students to play a game (at least two teams of three students). If you’re looking for something more individual to play as a group, Quizlet Live may not be your game.
What makes it different: True team play. It’s a different model of review game when many of these game show-style games feel the same.
The gameplay experience in Quizalize isn’t what makes it stand out. Like the others, you can create questions and answers and deliver them to your class. Like the others, there are existing games you can search and use. (Quizalize uses a marketplace model where you can offer your Quizalize games to others for a fee a la Teachers Pay Teachers.) Quizalize stands out with the data that it offers on how students are doing.
Source: Screenshot from Quizalize.com
Pros: The interface is simple. Students get how to play it quickly and easily, and teachers can jump right in, too. The team game lets students work together and see their results in real time on the projector screen. When students are finished, Quizalize breaks the data on their work down in many ways (by question, by type of question, etc.) to provide great insights for the teacher.
Cons: It lacks some of the flash and fun of the other platforms. Quizalize hasn’t been around as long, so the database of pre-built Quizalize games won’t be as deep and robust. The option to offer your Quizalize games for a fee to others isn’t ideal to cash-strapped teachers.
What makes it different: Data on student performance. Quizalize really excels here. You can create tags for questions (i.e. subtopics to distinguish questions from each other) and sort student results by subtopic. You can also see which subtopics and questions were hardest for students. Student results can also be sorted by “stronger,” “almost there” and “weaker”. If you want to use a game show-style game to generate student performance data and offer extra help to struggling students, Quizalize is the choice for you.
The Blood Typing Game — Give students a simulation of how the parts of blood interact. The Blood Typing Game tests students’ understanding of blood types and educates them on how it all works. Hosted by the official website of the Nobel Prize.
— http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/bloodtypinggame/
GeoGuessr — How good are you at using context clues to make an educated guess? GeoGuessr drops you in a randomly-selected place using Google Earth’s street-level view. Look around and make your best guess as to where you are.
Code.org — Computer coding becomes hotter and hotter in the job field and is considered by some to be the next big language to master. Code.org lets students learn about coding without the need for a teacher who is fluent in it. It connects students with fun games and challenges that improve their understanding of logic and the basics of several coding languages.
— http://code.org
— https://hourofcode.com/
Noisli — A silent classroom can be as distracting to some students as a noisy one. White noise — noise in the background that doesn’t distract — can provide a different flavor of work atmosphere. Noisli lets you play productive and relaxing background noises to help students focus, like rain, water, leaves, a crackling fireplace, a coffee shop and more.
Physics Toolbox — This suite of Android apps lets users take data from the world around them using sensors in their devices — some of which they didn’t know existed! Use G-force meter, linear accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, light meter, sound meter and more!
— https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chrystianvieyra.physicstoolboxsuite&hl=en