Using technology for formative assessment in the classroom

I've done some brief trainings earlier this year on quick-response apps for BYOD classrooms, such as GetKahoot and PollEverywhere (check out the training materials here). Here is one great one that offers a little more flexibility in how students are able to respond, with options like open-ended text and free draw.

(This one, like the two above, work with students using phones as well as other devices, like laptops or Chromebooks.)

Infuse Learning

Teacher View

This web-based free tool allows you to create questions that can receive a variety of answers (draw responses, true/false, multiple choice, sort in order, open-ended text, numeric, and scale). You can even create a problem or a prompt, or upload an image and have the students annotate what you provide.

Students go to student.infuselearning.com through a Chrome or Safari browser and enter the Room ID to participate.

Teachers can make questions or quizzes ahead of time or can create questions on the fly. You can save results for grades or just use the results to determine your lesson targets.
I like this tool because of its flexibility and high engagement, and because I can save the responses or results if needed. The drawing response can be challenging on a small device (I probably wouldn't ask students to label a map, for instance) but for larger annotations it works well and setting up a teacher account is very easy.

Give it a shot! Go to http://www.infuselearning.com, click on "teacher login" in the upper right, and play around with it.

A different way to present

As teachers, we do a lot of presenting and sometimes the same old PowerPoint or Google Slides gets old. Haiku Deck tries to break the cycle of bullet points and clip art with a simple (think "haiku") image-heavy design. Haiku Deck offers thousands of beautiful, well-categorized images to choose from (or use your own, of course). It's free, web-based, and can be installed as a Chrome app.


10 Tips to Transform Your Presentations - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

If it's not a full presentation, but just an image or infographic you need, check out Canva, which even offers "design school" for the less aesthetically capable among us.