The Three Educational Applications - Interactivity and Engagement Blog
The advantages and challenges of using educational technology tools in the classroom for interactivity and engagement.
- Education has changed over the years. When it comes to educational applications there have been various advantages and challenges amongst them all. Within this Blog, three educational application will be discussed. The three educational applications are Blooket, AnswerGarden and Funbrain. Blooket is an online trivia game that class sizes of 60 students can compete at various levels in their learning. Blooket enhances behaviorism for the learning theory, and it also empowers learners. AnswerGarden is an tool to give online feedback and can be used for elicit brief answers. It can serve unlimited students at a time. AnswerGarden promotes constructivism learning theory. Funbrain offers various games up to the 8th grade. It offers various games for students to enhance their skils on various subjects.
Blooket is an online competitive trivia review tool that allows teachers to “level up classroom engagement (Blooket, 2021). According to the article Blooket is a gamified learning platform where teachers can host games for children to learn on their own device. Students over the age of 13 can create their own account and create gamified learning games for themselves. Within Blooket, there are various skills that can be tested for all subject areas. On Blooket, the teacher can create their own trivia game, or use previously made sets by former or current teachers that have shared them online. Blooket is a great tool for formative and summative assessments. Formative assignment is for the Blooket Plus or Blooket Plus Flex members (Henning, 2021).
Connectivity: For connectivity and the use of Blooket, there are no cables needed in order to play this game or create an account for this application. In order to use this application, you will need wifi.
Any integration and operating system will work for this game. As long as you have wifi, and a device such as a tablet, computer, chromebook, or phone you will be able to play. Also in order to play Blooket, you will need to have a gmail email.
When it comes to pricing of Blooket, you can make a free account where you have a great bit of access to all games and various sets of pre-made games which is called Blooket Starter which is free forever, or you can join as Blooket Plus and pay $2.99/month or sign up as Blooket Plus Flex: $4.99/month.
Blooket is extremely user friendly. The only problem is that you are not able to use blooket solely through a key-board, you must have some type of mouse to navigate through Blooket and play the various trivia games. There are various youtube, and tutorials throughout the website to help navigate and make it easy for one to access. A tutorial is provided below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhn7dAP6BF8 In the midst of a tutorial being given, you could also go under settings and find a Q&A for most frequent ask questions and if you cannot find the answer, you can send the support team an email at contact-us@blooket.com. If the teacher does not have the answer to how to help a student, the teacher can go to tutorial to figure out how to correct an error if it occurs.
This interactive application can be used for Asynchronous or synchronous. The teacher could be home and students can be in the classroom and it will still work, they will just need to type in the code that the teacher provides for them. There is no specific work to display from the students as they are working. I could display who's in the lead for the specific game on the board or on my screen, but not the students' work. At this moment they are the only ones who can see their work. When the game is completed, the teacher can go in and see the students work and their progress from that game. The teacher is able to determine if the student understands the content or specific skill or if they didn't.
Funbrain: Offers various games up to the 8th grade. Funbrain is free to play. It has games listed for each grade level, the type, skills that are addressed within each game and the subject. Within Funbrain, the students can learn various math, reading, spelling, and writing skills.
For connectivity and the use of Funbrain, there are no cables needed in order to play this game. For Funbrain.com, you do not need to create an account for this application. In order to use this application, you will need Wi-Fi, and flash programmed to your device.
Any integration and operating system will work for this game as long as the flash program again is downloaded on the device. It is a little harder to do and navigate on a phone, tablet or iPad if flash cannot be downloaded.
When it comes to pricing, Funbrain.com is completely free. There are ads throughout the website, and when you click on the games, but you can bypass that.
Funbrain can be extremely user friendly for some but challenging for the younger ones. The only problem is that you are not able to use Funbrain, it is not solely through a key-board, you must have some type of mouse to navigate through as well. There are various YouTube, and tutorials throughout YouTube itself but not on the actual site. If you scroll to the bottom of the website, there is a sub title that says, “About.” If you click on that, it gives you an email where you could reach them if you have any questions about the program. If the teacher does not have the answer to how to help a student, the teacher can go to a tutorial on YouTube to figure out how to correct an error if it occurs.
This interactive application can be used for Asynchronous. The teacher will not be connected to the student. The student will automatically login themselves. The teacher has no way of checking the students' work, they can just walk around and monitor them. There is no specific work to display from the students as they are working. The challenging part is the teacher will not be able to monitor students progress or monitor students who understand the skill or not. The teacher could do observations, however he or she cannot pull the data.
AnswerGarden: Offers easy to use online feedback app. Students and teachers can design, create, share and answer topic questions.For connectivity and the use of AnswerGarden, there are no cables needed in to use this application. You do not need an account to signup. You will just need WiFi.
Any integration and operating system will work for this application. As long as you have wifi, and a device such as a tablet, computer, chromebook, or phone you will be able to interact.
AnswerGarden is completely free.
AsnswerGarden is user friendly and can be easy to navigate.
This interactive application can be used for Asynchronous and synchronous. The teacher or student can be anywhere to access this.
- Blooket serves as a formative and summative assessment tool to help students further their understanding of key skills while playing games. Within implementing this game-based learning, it focus on behaviorism and allows students to compete amongst each other. This also helps with social and emotional skills.
- All in all, Blooket a competitive, yet rewarding game based application. It not only help children have a different intake on education and their learning but it also help teachers form lessons based on the students progress. It really focus on behaviorism and how that the idea that all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment (Western Governors University, 2021).
- Here is an interactive assets that you can try: https://www.blooket.com/set/6149ec1f116681002c6a3558
Henning, A. M. (2021, June 2). Teachers first - thinking teachers teaching thinkers. TeachersFirst Blog. Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://teachersfirst.com/blog/2021/06/tech-tool-of-the-month-blooket-part-1/
Western Governors University. (2021, March 23). What is the behavioral learning theory? Western Governors University. Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://www.wgu.edu/blog/what-behavioral-learning-theory2005.html
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