Apps and Programs used to create a Project

 Hiii Again

It seems like we are meeting everyday through these blog posts.

This week topic is almost the same as that of the last week, apps or programs that we can use to create a project.

I am going to start with BookWidget.com.

I found this website very fantastic regarding the creation of WebQuest and different exercises. 

With BookWidgets, we can make over 40 different types of exercises, right inside the familiar Google Classroom environment or stand-alone. Whether it's small exercises to supplement a textbook, complete lessons or elaborate WebQuests, with BookWidgets we finally have the tools you need to provide a tailored learning experience. Combine sources, text, video, quizzes and interactive widgets to let students learn and practice at their own pace. Track the work and evolution of your students over time. Student work is automatically graded, but we can, of course, override where needed, for instance, to account for dyslexic students. When you're done, you return the graded work, including your feedback with a click. The grades automatically make their way into the grade book.

How does it actually work?

When you first log in to BookWidgets you’ll be taken to your home page where you can quickly access any of the widgets (aka pieces of interactive content) you’ve created to send out to your students.  One of the things I love about BookWidgets is that you’ll find well-crafted support videos built into every section of the app, so if you run into any trouble with anything, there’s always a short video to help you along.

After you select the widget you want to use you’ll be walked through a series of prompts that will help you construct the widget.  Everything is incredibly straightforward and easy to understand.  There’s no coding or programming of any kind, which is often the case for the creation of interactive content.  It’s nice to see how simple the BookWidgets team has made this process so that any teacher, regardless of their comfort level, could create widgets in a relatively short amount of time for their students.

Once you’ve finished creating your Widget, you can send it out to your students with a link (similar to a YouTube video) which you can also share through an LMS or social media.

Students who receive the link will be able to complete the activity, regardless of the type of device they’re using.  You can also choose to share the link with other teachers so that they can customize or reuse the widget that you’ve created, which is an excellent feature.

On one side, I really like that students don’t have to have accounts to submit anything.  On the other side, I think this style of submission opens the door for some classroom management issues to consider.  One nice thing is that the teacher can “hardwire” their email into the widget, so students won’t have to worry about typing it in every time. Teachers can also “hardwire” student information so students can select their information from a dropdown list. Coming later this year, BookWidgets will also be adding the option for student accounts as well, just in case you would like to go with that option.

After students submit their work, you’ll be able to see a breakdown of everything they’ve done.  If it’s an activity where you’ve defined correct answers (e.g. a quiz) you’ll be able to see detailed analytics on student performance as well.

 In the end, BookWidgets is an excellent service for any teacher or curriculum developer that wants to create interactive content in an enormous variety of formats.  The system is easy to use, the widgets can be completed on tablet, Chromebook, or PC, and you can get detailed analytics on student performance.

Knomadix is another interactive platform that teachers can use.

Knomadix can be used for all core content delivery or as a supplement for specific grade levels and subject areas.

The Knomadix platform offers teachers the following features: 

• design and develop custom, interactive content that models smart worksheets, a geometry tool box, smart flashcards, smart diagramming and mapping exercises, interactive language aids and learning activities, and smart multimedia assessments.  
• gives teachers the ability to distribute a learning activity to a group of students or individual students. 
• provides multiple mobile apps that allow students to receive the content distributed by the teacher and consume the content inside Knomadix mobile apps. 
• captures several pieces of data from the student interaction, which includes both final assessment data as well as intermediate process steps, and stores it for further aggregation and reporting. 
• provides teachers with easy-to-use reports and tools to provide an evaluation of student progress and early intervention. 
  

Bookry

Bookry is a complimentary service for iBooks Author that lets you add amazing widgets to your books and interact with readers.

As an author you can benefit from other great features like free templates, widget analytics and push updates. As a reader, you have easy access to all the data you’ve entered into your multi-touch interactive books.

You must create an account to use their widgets. You can use all of their widgets for free but the widgets will be branded with the Bookry logo. If you want to remove it there is a cost to do so. They also are an educational option too.

They have a number of nice widgets in their collection and promise to add more regularly. There are a few that I know will be useful for educators.

For example the Interactive Timeline, a Scientific and BMI Calculator, YouTube and Vimeo video embedders, Word Search, Google Maps, Sketchpad, Match and Slider Puzzle games and more.

The widgets are pretty simple to download and use. You must create a book on their site to hold your widgets. The widgets will be downloaded to that book.  If you want to use the widget a number of times. You will have to download that widget and format for each occurrence in the book. All your widgets for your project will be stored there.  If you change/update something in your widget, it will make that change in your book where ever it is.  

To sum up,all these are pretty cool platforms. However, BookWidgets is what I like most. 

Thankssss