Site #4 - Flisti

Flisti

Flisti is a website that allows you to quickly create poll questions that you can embed on a website or blog to allow students to answer them. They can also comment on the poll question, as well as see the results of the polls that they have taken. You can allow the students to select multiple answer or only one answer.

This site is extremely quick and easy to use and provides valuable feedback to both students and teachers. After students have taken a poll, a visually representation of the answers appears and could be used in the classroom to spark discussion. By commenting on the polls, students can collaboratively talk about the question being asked. As an educator, using these polls in a classroom setting will allow the teacher to check the understanding and comprehension of the students for a particular unit. I usually use Google Forms for a similar activity and am required to login to Google Docs and find the form to analyze the responses. However, this website allows the teacher to just go to the website where he or she posted the poll and click "view results" to see what the students are thinking.

Below is a quick poll that I created on the parts of a cell. Good luck!

What is the "brain" of a cell?

Mitochondria

Vacuole

Nucleus

Chloroplast

or View Results

Create your own poll at Flisti.com

Site #3 - AnswerGarden

AnswerGarden

AnswerGarden is a website that allows you to create a question and then embed it on a website or blog and allow people to answer it. What is really cool about this Web 2.0 tool is that when a student answers the question, their answer will appear in a box underneath the question. The more times that a like phrase or answer is used, the larger the answer will appear in the area below the question. This site could be used for quick feedback after an activity. Also, a really quick, few word answer could be used on this application. The downside is that you can only type 20-25 characters in your answer, which limits what kind of questions that you will use.

I could see AnswerGarden being used by educators to establish the knowledge level of a class on a certain topic. It could be used in a faculty meeting or professional development setting to break the ice in an interactive way. You can also export the tags that are created and put them in Wordle or Tagxedo to create a poster.

Below is an example of an AnswerGarden that I created for this class. I hope more people answer the question!

What do you think of the Advanced Web 2.0 class?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Site #2 - Jux

Jux

Jux is a site that allows you to create block quotes, articles, photo pages, slideshows and countdowns with pictures that you either upload or supply the url links to. This site is very easy to use and I feel that students would pick up on it very easily. You can add captions to the pictures if you want to or delete them out and have just the picture. Once your project is completed, it can either be emailed, embedded, or shared with Facebook or Twitter. This makes this site very powerful if you want to share your creations in a very easy way. One of the downsides that I noticed was, when uploading or linking to a picture, you cannot move the actually picture around on the screen. However big it is, it will load just that size, sometimes cutting out important parts of the photo. I could see this website used in the classroom in a few ways. First, you could use this website to introduce yourself to your students at the beginning of the year. Second, you could use the countdown feature and post pictures with the most important concepts at the end of a unit. Third, you could give the students a selection of curriculum related photos and have them explain what they have learned about these photos during a unit.

Below are three creations that I made using this site - a slideshow of my son, a top ten list of things that I like, and just a random photo with words on it.

Site #1 - Mokk.me

Mokk.me

This site allows users to make a "mock" of an iPhone like app with their own buttons and information. The site is free and easy to use, but I got the feeling like it was in the beginning stages. Many of the buttons that you can pick from were hard to actually get to do what you wanted them to do. For instance, there is a map button that you can put into your project. I could not get the map to start at the location I wanted it to be in. Also, some of the Internet search buttons and the drop-down menus were hard to use. The other downside is I was hoping that once the "app" was created you could download it and put it directly on and iPod Touch or iPhone. This was unfortunately not possible. The site creates a link with your app in a website that appears on a mobile on your device. I think that this site would be perfect for students to create short mini-projects on certain topics. They could add text, pictures, and buttons to scroll through a project. The added incentive for the students is that their final product would look like an iPhone app and be accessible on the Internet.

Below is a link of the quick project I created about myself on this site. Click the test button in the upper right-hand corner to see the whole project. For the added effect, scan the QR code on your Smart phone.

My Project