Continuing my exploration with tools suggested by different edtechers (check PART 1 and PART 2 for more ideas), this time I've decided to try https://edji.it/#/dashboard
With EDJI. IT, as the website says, you can ensure your students have a voice when reading.
Basically what it does is to invite readers to highlight parts of the text which call their attention and leave comments. With the free version students cannot interact with each other, but everyone can read all the comments. It could be a great starting point for a class. Another plus is that the more students select the same part of the text, it becomes red and the teacher can start face-to-face discussions from these parts.
HANDS ON MOMENT 1
Click the image below to take part in the activity and experience the website. I've selected a text from Edutopia about Teachers.
THE CODE IS qgvf
HANDS ON MOMENT 2
Another idea I found in the website is to ask students to react to the text by selecting a gif and then explain their reactions as a comment. Click HERE to participate.
THE CODE IS zpcf
What I liked about it
It's free.
It's very user-friendly.
You can see how students are interacting with the text.
Students can collaborate on the same reading with their classmates.
The activity is less guided by the teacher so students have more voice.
What I didn't like about it
It would be great to have some feature which would allow students to reply to other comments (in the free version, of course lol).
My previous post explained the reasons for writing this post and also brought the results of my exploration with a tool called ACTIVE TEXTBOOK suggested by Shelly Terrell.
This time, I focus on a website called NOWCOMMENT recommended to me by Nik Peachey.
At first glance, NowComment was exactly what I was looking for: a tool which allows teachers to turn documents into conversations and is appropriate for a large number of students.
It's free and you can upload different sorts of files.
Once you upload the document you want your students to read and discuss about, the site will alert you to possible overlays it may find on the document you've uploaded. I had problems with pdf files with images, graphs and also a pdf in two columns. I advise you to check the preview on the website to see if the formatting of the text is ok or not.
Check what happened to the PDF file I tried to upload.
Now, if the same thing happens to you, you can edit the document right there or try a different document with text only. And that's exactly what I decided to do next.
I copied and pasted the text into a Word file and also decided to try out something else, to embed a video to my word file. Following the instructions found in the website, I selected a video about the same topic and grabbed the embed code. Next, I pasted the code directly into the Word file I was going to upload to the NowComment website.
I clicked the blue button SAVE AND CONTINUE and Voilá, the video "magically" appeared.
You can use different color schemes to highlight parts of the text.
And you can also select specific paragraphs around which you can start a conversation by clicking on the speech bubble with a plus sign.
The conversation can be viewed by students in two ways: 2 panes or combined.
If you select the 2-pane view, the text is on the left and the conversations appear on the right side of the screen.
The other possibility is the combined view, with the text interspersed with conversations.
The conversation can be started by the teacher or the students themselves. And to interact with a previous comment, all you have to do is click REPLY.
Another plus is the possibility to develop discussions around videos. If you add a Youtube video embed code to the Word file you upload to the website, it's fairly easy to propose a discussion.
Above the video player, when you click ADD COMMENT, you can add a comment/question to a certain point of the video or to the video as a whole. The image I've added below shows a question I add at a certain time in the video.
HANDS ON MOMENT
Would you like to try it out with us?
If so, click HERE and feel free to leave comments, highlight parts you find important and play with the website. Be aware the text is not complete as I just wanted to test the website.
WHAT I LIKED ABOUT IT
It's free.
It works well with Word files.
You can easily create Word files + embed code to different videos to create conversations around videos or flipped assignments around videos.
You can create great conversations around images you add to a Word File you prepare beforehand.
Using the COMBINE page view, you can create reading tasks which ask students to pause reading, discuss and then continue the reading.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT IT
PDF files are easily deconfigured once uploaded to the website and it's really time consuming to edit the whole text.
The documents are private as default so it takes some time to locate where to edit the document properties so that large groups of people can participate (especially if you don't have everyone's emails)
I'm back. After almost 2 years away from the blog, here I am again. I'd like to share a few tools you can use to make a reading text INTERACTIVE. This post started with a genuine need. When I work with small groups (up to 30 people), I like creating reading activities on Google Docs and use the comments feature to have students answer questions and/or add their reflections (Click HERE for an example in Portuguese). However, this last year, I had to work with teachers all over Brazil and instead of 30 people interacting, I had more than 500 teachers in one asynchronous reading activity. The result was that despite instructing teacher/students to click on the comment in order to see the RESPONDER/REPLY box, more often than not they clicked RESOLVER/SOLVE deleting the original comment or question I had posted. Having said that, you can imagine the hassle to restore everything that had been deleted daily.
This is an example of technology that works perfectly in one context, but not necessarily in another. As I didn't know other alternatives that could solve my problem, I asked my PLN (via Facebook) for help and they promptly came to my aid.
So far, it's my favourite one for what I needed. Apart from COMMENT THREADS, you can add several features to your text, such as highlights, videos, songs, text, images and quizzes. With the free plan, you get 50 MB storage and unlimited access to library.
FEATURES I'VE ADDED TO THE TEXT: comment threads, image, highlights and a video.
HANDS ON MOMENT
Would you like to try it out with us?
Click HERE to go to this activity on Active Textbook and feel free to leave your contributions (look for the speech bubbles which I've added to the text). Then, I'd love to hear what you thought about the tool.
Before I finish, let me thank all teachers who have kindly contributed to this post with their wonderful ideas.
I'm truly happy to be see Life Feast come to life again and hope you are too.
