Balancing Digital Reflection in the Classroom (new tools each week!)

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Reflection activities in the classroom have profound educational effects, fostering metacognitive development, critical thinking, and self-assessment skills among students.

What if we try adding digital tools to reflection activities in the classroom?
Through the use of various digital platforms, students can document their learning journey, collaborate with peers, and receive personalized feedback.
Using digital reflection tools enhance engagement, motivation, and transfer of learning.

These activities not only promote digital literacy but also cultivate lifelong learning habits, empowering students to take ownership of their learning.

I invite you to discuss the ideas on how to organize interactive, multimedia-rich reflection experiences for your students in the comments below. Please share your thoughts.

Please do not forget that replying, commenting or receiving likes for your posts increase your forum status and gives you a chance to get good prizes. More information HERE

Online Polls with Poll Everywhere
You can use Poll Everywhere to create polls or surveys related to reflection prompts. Students can anonymously respond to the prompts, and you can display the results in real-time to facilitate discussion and reflection.

Classroom Blog or Website

You can create a classroom blog or website using platforms like Blogger, WordPress, or Google Sites where students can publish their reflections on class activities, projects, or field trips. They can also incorporate multimedia elements to enhance their posts.

Virtual Collaboration with online whiteboards: ConceptBoard, Miro etc.
You can use the whiteboards as a virtual collaboration space for students to share their reflections visually.
They can create sticky notes, drawings, choose icons and annotations to express their thoughts and ideas collaboratively.

Unfortunately, I have heard that Google Jamboard will be shutting down soon. Do you know of any other online whiteboard platforms that you use or recommend?

@Ana_moderator said in Balancing Digital Reflection in the Classroom (new tools each week!):

Using digital reflection tools enhance engagement, motivation, and transfer of learning

Here are a few digital learning tools that I often use in class with my students:

1. Interactive Online Learning Platforms: Use platforms like Kahoot, Quizizz, or Socrative to create interactive quizzes and question games. These tools allow students to test their knowledge in a fun and competitive way.

2. Online Collaborative Whiteboards: Tools like Miro or Google Jamboard enable students to collaborate in real-time on projects, share ideas, and solve problems together, fostering engagement and creativity.

3. Interactive Videos: Create interactive videos using tools like Edpuzzle, where you can insert questions, polls, or comments throughout the video to check understanding and maintain students' attention.

4. Online Discussion Forums: Use discussion platforms like Padlet or Google Classroom to encourage peer discussions on topics covered in class. This allows students to exchange ideas, ask questions, and deepen their understanding.

5. Online Formative Assessments: Use tools such as Formative or Quizlet to create formative assessments that allow students to receive instant feedback on their understanding and self-assess.

6. Multimedia Projects: Encourage students to create multimedia projects (videos, presentations, podcasts, etc.) to demonstrate their understanding of taught concepts. Tools like Adobe Spark or Canva can be helpful for multimedia content creation

7. Educational Social Networks: Use educational social networks like Edmodo or Seesaw to create an online space where students can share their work, ask questions, and interact with peers and their teacher outside of class.
8. Digital Puzzles and Treasure Hunts: Design digital puzzles or treasure hunts to be solved as a team, using tools like Breakout EDU or GooseChase. This promotes collaboration, problem-solving, and teamwork.
9. Live Virtual Classes: Host live class sessions using platforms such as Zoom or Google Meet, where students can interact in real-time with their teacher and classmates, ask questions, and participate in discussions.
   By integrating these digital ideas and tools into our teaching, you can stimulate engagement, motivation, and transfer of learning among your students in an interactive and dynamic manner.

@Ana_moderator

Hi @Ana_moderator
Hello everyone. I took this post as an assignment, and I found some interesting apps to make polls for our students. Every app has a link to a tutorial from YouTube. Hope this helps us to find better ways to promote reflection. I used to use exit tickets, but this will be great to try to close each class.

A. Slides With Friends
Link: https://youtu.be/l6OXGVZg45M?si=-AGCxlKoDDAeu-JH
B. Mentimeter
Link: https://youtu.be/vGE8PyiNTv8?si=UfiUx_IQtIpvpMqm
C. Aha Slides
Link: https://youtu.be/d1NwuHPi_Yo?si=--4KBkaJN4ujyZvx
D. SurveyMonkey
Link: https://youtu.be/l-Vfhevy7g0?si=QrtObIx-wFWXjrKC
E. Typeform
Link: https://youtu.be/PrUKuLAqOCg?si=XC6ywjDjnFK-PJz9
F. Kahoot
Link: https://youtu.be/pAfnia7-rMk?si=C77tDUN20-tZRoC0

Best,
Mr. Bryan

It seems we are compiling a nice list of tools that could be used as part of reflective activities!

I also thought about Miro online whiteboard.

It provides ready-made templates for classroom activities, so teachers can spend minimal time preparing.

For example, they have a reflection template that can be used to create a space for students to evaluate the main takeaways of the lesson.

@Ana_moderator

I will definitely use one of them. I'm traying to play all of them to choose my favorite according to my students' necessities

@Ana_moderator

Hi, I found some resources to create classroom websites and blogs from scratch. Each one has a tutorial link from YouTube for our benefit. It seems interesting and challenging so I think could be great to work with small groups. Hope to be useful...

Codemoji

• Emoji-based coding tool demystifies web design and animation
• Emoji-based lessons engage and empower kids to explore web design and animation, with instant website creation.
• Grades: 2–8
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjl3V2SMImA

Lucidchart

• Intuitive editor helps users create and share dynamic visual diagrams
• Students and teachers can use this tool alone or collaboratively to build and share stunning, effective visuals that stretch thinking.
• Grades: 4–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QcYZ2ggvyA

Weebly

• Easy-to-use website design tool lets teachers monitor kids' creations
• Teacher-monitored sites and drag-and-drop elements make attractive website design safe and accessible for students.
• Grades: 6–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLJvniZrSp4

CodeHS

• Computer science curriculum offers great feedback, fun challenges
• Effective tools and clear lessons teach real programming, but you'll have to spend some cash to help kids master it.
• Grades: 6–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9nh-Qdpvgc

Google Sites

• Make your own website with easy, intuitive drag-and-drop features
• With a few clicks, students can design a basic but custom, responsive website that allows for easy collaboration with their peers.
• Grades: 6–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woNTtlcxgM

Treehouse

• Fun, self-paced web development and coding lessons offer high value
• A solid learning solution for self-starting students who want to grasp the wide array of programming topics.
• Grades: 9–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiZTfbpmy7I

WordPress.com

• Solid blogging tool and content management system offers DIY blogs
• This is a great tool to get kids blogging and creating online content.
• Grades: 9–12
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEJLoXipdL0

Best,
Mr. Bryan

@Ana_moderator

Hello everyone,
I found some online whiteboards platforms useful for us as educators and easy for our students and I took time to find tutorials for our benefit. Hope these resources are helpful and Userfriendly.

Miro
Miro is a visual workspace for innovation where teams of any size can dream, design, and build their future together. Simply put, we're here to help you create the next big thing by providing a powerful space where your team can collaborate seamlessly — even if you aren't in the same room.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpV5gQaPxYE

Microsoft Whiteboard
Microsoft Whiteboard in Microsoft 365 is a collaborative digital canvas that can be leveraged for effective meetings and engaging collaboration sessions among colleagues from brainstorming and planning to learning and workshops.
Link: https://youtu.be/EIcsIEYICVU?si=UKrA4PGOUfW0OpFv

Stormboard
Stormboard is a shared digital workspace designed to help high-performing teams generate more ideas, and then prioritize, organize, and refine those ideas. Making your meetings, brainstorms, and projects more productive and effective.
Link: https://youtu.be/Y1wIpZwRAxw?si=7YgG05-l0r6G8WNG

Explain Everything Whiteboard
Explain Everything Whiteboard is a feature-rich digital whiteboard app for tablets and web browsers. Draw, write, add images and video, annotate and animate content. Share your whiteboard presentation either on-site or at a distance. Collaborate in real time. Record and narrate as you work to create video for sharing.
Link: https://youtu.be/sGRmtf-PzD0?si=a9FBJ009eJIbIbu6

Jamboard
Jamboard is a digital whiteboard that lets you collaborate in real time using either the Jamboard device (a 55-inch digital whiteboard that works with G Suite services), web browser or mobile app.
Link: https://youtu.be/eRG8MiLPUxk?si=DJ-0Vq7QIuLFHzKy

Limnu
Limnu is a collaborative online whiteboard made to be fast and simple enough to use for online meetings and video conferences. With Limnu, you can draw, plan, and think at the same time with other people.
Link: https://youtu.be/CA7x66bu8lE?si=4LEubqFNEJWIdS7l

Conceptboard
Conceptboard's collaborative whiteboard allows teams of all sizes to centralize projects and communication on infinite visual boards. Add Conceptboard to your tabs and jump onto a board along with your colleagues to follow live cursors and brainstorm, present ideas, or co-create in real time.
Link: https://youtu.be/uuFtBYxZ22g?si=wSuk5gOTrYdH3wBZ

Whiteboard Fi
Whiteboard fi is an instant formative assessment tool for your classroom, providing you with live feedback and an immediate overview of your students. Whiteboard fi is a simple tool that can be used instantly. Create a class and let your students join.
Link: https://youtu.be/_JtRxnVJdN0?si=Jx-zy7w2s7YPx-3A

Mural
Mural is a painting applied to and made integral with the surface of a wall or ceiling. The term may properly include painting on fired tiles but ordinarily does not refer to mosaic decoration unless the mosaic forms part of the overall scheme of the painting.
Link: https://youtu.be/99DCEjOa_MM?si=IWPI6d8k6L9uSkpg

ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform that works as an ideal place for teams to come together, brainstorm, plan, and collaborate on everything from process docs to product designs. While relying on a single tool for so many use cases might sound like a stretch—ClickUp was built for this.
Link: https://youtu.be/JmcVjP8m02k?si=uDnD90q1yW5UvhU1

Ziteboard
Ziteboard is a zoomable online whiteboard. Virtual whiteboards can extend your communication. Use it while having Skype or Zoom calls, when you are tutoring students online. This zoomable shared virtual whiteboard enables you to use ad-hoc visuals in your explanations.
Link: https://youtu.be/p_uv5Hw_Plc?si=iq5ePL8Nf-_5j7ce

Educreations, Inc.
Educreations is a unique interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool that's simple, powerful, and fun to use. Annotate, animate, and narrate nearly any type of content as you explain any concept.
Link: https://youtu.be/G9l7bhK4fDs?si=-oiTjG0PbZL65Cl2

Best,
Mr. Bryan

Dear friends i hope to share with you my reflection on Web Quests have been around since the mid-1990s and they aren't exactly a Web 2.0 tool, but more of a collaborative, inquiry-based lesson plan design philosophy. However, it is a philosophy that covers the full picture of the flipped classroom model and takes advantage of Web 2.0 tools and web-based content. WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which students get all information from the web. Teachers provide their students with the documents that include links to websites to use the information, according to the activity. The purpose of using WebQuest is to encourage students to use information rather than gathering it and participate in meaningful classroom discussions. WebQuest supports critical thinking through analyzing, creating, and evaluating. Also, it integrates technology into learning and foster cooperative learning.
During experiencing the Web Quest journey, I read the introduction; a hook that captures my interest. In my group, find a song that i like. Then write new lyrics for it that fit the tune. After agreeing on the song, i need to record it on video together so we made a zoom meeting and record the song where the highlight moments. Resources: identifies web content that will facilitate getting the steps done. Evaluation: includes a rubric that students and teachers can use to evaluate their work. Conclusion; classroom reflection of the quest.
Jean Piaget dealt with cognitive development and developed a theory of the different cognitive stages whereby children come to know the world. He believed that children construct knowledge based on their experiences through interaction with the social and physical environment. He claimed that mind has mental structures, which he called schemata, by which individuals organize and adapt to the environment. These schemata are used to process and identify information. They change, enlarge and become more sophisticated with mental development through the processes of assimilation and accommodation (Wadsworth, 1989). With Lev Vygotsky, we are moving from the Piagetian individual constructing knowledge through actions on the world to the Vygotskian understanding as social in origin (Cole & Wertsch, 1996).
Constructivist epistemology (the nature of knowledge) assumes that learners construct their own knowledge through interaction with their social and physical environment. Constructivists believe that, although there is a real world out there, there is no meaning inherent in it but it is imposed by people and cultures. People construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiencing and reflecting on these experiences. Since knowledge construction depends on how humans perceive the world in relation to their social and physical experiences, learning is seen as a result of mental constructions where learners fit new with prior knowledge. In that view, learning is an active constructive process in which the learner is building an internal representation of the world and adjusts his understandings to fit his experiential world. Therefore, in constructivism the focus is on the learner and his mental constructions while learning.
In order to achieve these results, it is important to understand the kind of knowledge being learned, how memory works, how best to teach for creativity, and how people learn. Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Math STEM is a new reform in education which helps to develop students’ 21 century skills and creative thinking. A new framework is being proposed, to develop students’ skills through teaching them an interdisciplinary STEM curriculum using authentic tasks (problem-based learning) that leads them to higher-order thinking skills.

@Ana_moderator I like your thoughts about it.
Yes, Miro is an online collaborative whiteboard platform designed for teamwork and brainstorming. It allows users to create, share, and edit diagrams, mind maps, and other visual content in real-time. Miro supports integrations with various tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Jira, enhancing its utility for project management. The platform is accessible from multiple devices, making it versatile for remote teams. Its intuitive interface and extensive templates make it easy for users of all skill levels to contribute effectively. (Googled)