WEBSITES• EDMODO•GROCKIT•WIKISPACES•PINTEREST•SCHOOLOGY

•ELTON JOHN B. EMBODO•THERESA CORDOVAN

•ANJIE YATOC•JACKIE LOU L. ABISO

JHAY DOLLETE

EDMODO  is a "social learning platform" website for

teachers, students, and parents. It is marketed as the Facebook for schools.

Logo

Appearance of Edmodo

FEATURES AND USES Does not require private information from the

students. Students join Edmodo at the invitation of their teachers using a unique code the teacher generates within their Edmodo account.

Once invited to join Edmodo, students can only access groups to which they have been invited by their teachers.

Students cannot be “friended” or contacted by anyone outside of their Edmodo group.

Students in Edmodo can post messages to their teachers, or to their entire Edmodo group, but students cannot send private messages to each other

Teachers maintain full control of their Edmodo groups and can delete posts, monitor all activity, review student posts before they go live, and even set individual students to “read-only” access.

STRENGTHS1.Ability to make assignments, links,etc.

2.Allows students to turn in assignments online.

3.Because it is a closed system, it is safe for use with young students.

4. Customer Service - Owner/Creator is easily accessible on twitter and in Edmodo to answer questions.

5.Different languages English, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Greek

6.Districts can have their own specific Edmodo community and collaborate specifically with teachers and co-workers across their county

7.Follow in Facebook

8. Follow in twitter

9. More than 4,000,000 users

10. No age limit for use

11. No email required for students to use

12. Student friendly interface makes it easy for students to use (i.e looks similar to Facebook which many students know how to use)

13. Teacher sees everything the students do so there is no possibility of backchannel between students. Teachers can reset student's password

14.Teachers can connect in Edmodo

15.Teachers can create a group for each period.

16.Teachers eliminate crossposting through the creation of sub-groups within a course. "Mailing lists guidelines". fedoraproject.org. 11 October 2010.

17.Three ways to receive notifications from Edmodo: email, text message, twitter

WEAKNESSES1.Not very user friendly for the lower grades.

2.Does not build teamwork in the classroom- learning is better when students make connections with others.

3.Cannot recover lost information about a student.

4.Cannot delete an account you made yourself, you have to send a request.

5.Not being able to share teacher created quizzes, surveys or polls with other teacher

6.Not friendly for math and science classes because they cannot use required software for the classroom within Edmodo’s group pages.

7.Doesn’t allow students to edit an assignment once turned in.

8.Students cannot create polls.

9.Does not have a blogging feature.

10. Edmodo doesn't authenticate if a person is a teacher. Students can create teacher accounts, invite their friends and use it as a way to communicate during school.

GROCKITis an online social learning game company.

Grockit prepares students for the SAT, ACT, GMAT, LSAT and GRE standardized exams. Students can take practice tests while collaborating online with other users.

Logo

APPEARANCE OF GROCKIT

FEATURES AND USES1. Meet and study with other students Grockit makes it easy to stay focused when you

study with other people, and you'll learn much faster, too.

Working together means you can trade short-cuts to help you breeze through questions, and stay energized and on task by making friends while you learn. Grockit members are a lot like you: motivated people studying hard to do their best.

2. Learn strategies for getting the right answer, faster Because standardized tests are formulaic, knowing

how to approach different types of questions can get you far in avoiding common pitfalls and finding the answer quickly. Every Grockit question has an in-depth explanation that covers strategies and tips for recognizing when to use them.

After you finish a Grockit practice session, we create a companion review where you can go over each question or just those you got wrong. Our reviews are specifically designed to cement your learning in your long-term memory, so you won't forget a concept or strategy later.

3. Track your performance across different skills

When you study with Grockit, you'll be able to see how you perform on all the specific skills and concepts on your test. Detailed reports show you're average time per question and percentage correct, so you know where you need to focus your attention and watch yourself improve over time.

This feedback helps you study smarter with Grockit, as well as with any books or classes you may be using.

4. Focus your studying where you need it most

Every student brings different strengths, weaknesses and experience to the table. Grockit will pinpoint the areas you need to improve upon, and give you the tools to do so. We will recommend the skills you should be working on, give you challenges that are geared to your ability level, and suggest what you should be doing next in your study plan.

Grockit is always adding new study planning features to help you use your time wisely and get the highest score possible.

5. Get help and learn strategy from expert tutors.

Grockit tutors are the best in the business. Every tutor is rocket-surgery smart and, more importantly, is good at listening to you and understanding exactly what you need to excel.

Grockit tutors are here to help. You can sign up for a scheduled group session or work one-on-one so all of the focus is on you.

STRENGTHS Grockit does a fantastic job of encouraging

interaction, and after adapting to the system I really enjoyed interacting with the few kids I joined in Multi-Player games. Of course, your mileage may vary, and I’m sure there are some trolls, but my interactions were nothing but positive. Multi-Player math practice was by far my favorite thing about Grockit, and while “playing” I actually lost track of time and stayed up far later than I had intended to. Students who aren’t shy will benefit from the locking-in of knowledge that occurs when they are able to explain it correctly to others.

The adaptive learning system seemed to assess my math ability level quickly and started feeding me only high difficulty questions when I was in a “Solo” game. That kept me engaged and appropriately challenged.

It was easy to view a summary of my performance, broken down nicely into different skill categories, each of which offered additional practice problems. This is an important part of the SAT prep process, and one of the hardest things for students to do by themselves.

Grockit’s use of badges and achievements that can be shared with friends isn’t exactly breaking new ground, but if it succeeds in keeping kids on the site a bit longer (and I suspect that it does), then that’s a good thing. Who doesn’t like scoring points and leveling up?

If you don’t want to be social on Grockit, you have the option to practice all by yourself. If you do want to be social, you’ll be able to find people to practice with quickly.

If you only want to practice for 10 minutes, that’s fine. If you want to practice for 2 hours, also fine.

The vocabulary in Grockit’s sentence completion questions was sufficiently challenging, but not ridiculous.

At $9.99 a month, Grockit is affordable.

WEAKNESSES While most of the math questions I saw were decent

approximations of the SAT’s style and some were quite faithful translations of questions I recognized from past exams, some of the questions were not carefully worded, and that frustrated me. 

Example: A group of five radio stations participate in a Rock

Concert ticket give away. The first two radio stations give away one ticket each hour on the hour, the third station gives away one ticket on the half hour, and the fourth and fifth radio stations give away n tickets on the nth hour (for example, 2 tickets will be given out at 2pm, 4 tickets at 4pm, 12 tickets at 12pm, and so on). How many total tickets will be given away by these five stations between the times of 2:45 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.?

This was a grid-in question, and it hinges on one’s interpretation of “on the half hour” — does it mean “every half hour,” or does it mean 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, etc.? There is a question with the same phrase in the College Board’s own Blue Book (page 598 #17), but the meaning of the phrase is clarified in that question with a table: it means 3:30, 4:30, etc. To get the Grockit question correct, one actually needs to interpret the phrase to mean “every half hour.” That really stuck in my craw. Careful, precise wording of questions is the hallmark of a good standardized test question, and that doesn’t seem to have always been a priority for Grockit’s writers.

After practicing for about an hour, I started to see algebra questions that looked very familiar. They had a few cosmetic changes, but were otherwise identical to questions I had already answered. That made me wonder how many total questions there were and how often I’d see repeats if I did it for a month. Repetition can be a good thing, but I’d prefer a little more variety.

It’s hard to answer math questions on a computer screen. This is also, I’m aware, a valid complaint about my own site. Bottom line: you’re going to want to have scratch paper handy if you want to get anything out of your time on Grockit’s, my, or any online math practice.

WIKISPACES is a web hosting service based in San

Francisco, California. Launched by Tangient LLC in March 2005, Wikispaces was purchased by TSL Education in March 2014. It competes with PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, and Google Sites.

Logo

APPEARANCE OF WIKISPACES

FEATURES AND USES1. Classroom Management Having a place to manage all the activity, resources,

conversations, and projects in your classroom is essential for keeping students, and teachers, organized and working together.

Wikispaces Classroom gives you the features you need to get your classroom organized. Our philosophy is to make managing the day-to-day work of your classroom easy, and to let you bring in the best resources, content, and tools from around the Internet under one roof.

We give you the tools to quickly and easily create assignments, share resources, make announcements, and foster discussion and community.

2. Project-Based Learning

Project-Based Learning is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying.

Wikispaces Classroom provides a simple structure that allows you to create projects, define teams, assign students and manage them all through successful completion of their projects. Starting from pre-built templates, or a blank slate, students can work in private groups until their work is due. At the end of the project you can share the results with the rest of the class or even parents and other participants.

Our formative assessment reporting let you track student progress on their projects in real-time. You'll know which students are succeeding, which are falling behind, and how much they are contributing to their projects so that you can help remediate, motivate, and challenge when you most need to.

3. Safe Social Networking Your classroom is no longer tied to your building and school-day

hours. Parents and students expect to work, communicate, and share at the times and places that make most sense for them.

With Wikispaces Classroom, you now have a safe social network for your classroom. You can decide who can participate and when. And since your newsfeed is built around the work your classroom is doing, all of the discussion and activity is tied directly to the goals and work of the class.

4. Knowledge Communities When you turn the individual pockets of information

in your class and school into collaborative knowledge communities, you build the capacity of every student and of your entire institution to contribute, learn, and achieve.

Professional Development resources, curriculum development groups, and student-built study guides are all examples of turning informal knowledge into formal resources.

Wikispaces Classroom makes collaboration and community building easy and encourages the use of a myriad of Internet resources, content, and tools.

5. Online and Remote Learning Face-to-face and in-class time is essential for effective teaching

and learning. Why not open the classroom so that each student can learn and work wherever and whenever they can? And why not enable the enthusiasm different students have for different kinds of engagement to broaden the reach and effectiveness of your class.

Wikispaces Classroom creates an online presence for your classroom, students groups, parent teacher association, faculty groups, and any other need you have so that people get the information they need and contribute their energy whenever they can.

And Wikispaces Classroom is great for connecting your class with people who can't be there in person. Collaborate privately with students in another country, remote family members, and members of the community to enhance your classroom.

STRENGTHS

1. Games can support collaboration, problem-solving and communication in learning communities.

2. Students are often engaged when learning through games. Games are designed to have the appropriate balance between success and frustration in order to keep players motivated to persevere (flow).

3. Digital games meet the needs of "digital natives", learners who have grown up with technology (Prensky, 2001).

4. Games often provide instant feedback and reward as students master activities or levels, and give students ownership and control of their own progress.

5. Develops a highly engaged environment where students can redefine, evaluate and enhance their skills by playing games that challenge them

6. Integrating game-based learning into the the curriculum allows for increasing computer literacy skills, problem solving skills and real world applications.

7. Games can inspire an alternative approach to learning and promote an increase in learning.

8. Tangential learning is possible through well-designed games (Daniel Floyd, 2008)

9. Some games require systems thinking whereby students no longer look at things in terms of discrete items.

10. "Griffiths refers to the merits associated with using digital games with special-needs children. For example, he cites a case where video or digital games had a calming effect on a seven-year-old child with autism. Griffiths also provides research data that suggests that adolescents with attention deficit disorder may experience improvements in “grades, sociability, and organizational skills” when using educational video games" (Griffiths, 2003).

11. Today's generation of learners “think and process information fundamentally differently than their predecessors.” (Prensky, 2001). Game based learning gives teacher the opportunity to speak their language.

WEAKNESS1. If instructors use game-based learning as a default activity

they may overlook opportunities to apply learning in real life. For example, why have students participate in Wii bowling when you could book at class trip to the bowling ally and do the actual activity.

2. Most current games involve sitting at a computer or console rather than being active. A study by He, Piche, Beynon and Harris (2010) reported that Canadian children spend an average of 3.3 hours per day in screen-related activities, which may contribute to the growing problem of childhood obesity.

3. There may be a significant front-end time commitment involved in familiarizing students with programs and technology involved with a particular game.

4. How are learning outcomes of game play assessed and measured for effectiveness? O’Neil et al. (2005)

PINTERESTis a free website that requires registration

to use. Users can upload, save, sort, and manage images—known as pins—and other media content (e.g., videos and images) through collections known as pinboards.

Logo

APPEARANCE OF PINTEREST

FEATURES AND USES

1. Collaborate with other teachers using PinterestPinterest boards can be a great way to collaborate with other teachers. You can share ideas, resources, videos, news articles, infographics and images. You don’t have to be working in the same school, or even the same country, to be able to work on the same collection of resources.

2. Share resources with studentsPinterest boards can be used to provide a structured list of resources for students writing about a certain topic. Instructing your students to research on the web can lead them to distraction.

The web is too wide and there are many unreliable sources.

Sometimes it would be good to restrict what you want them to look at: you can create a board with all the information they need so they can concentrate on writing, rather than searching through masses of information.

3. Using Pinterest for group workStudents can work together on a group project, putting together a board of ideas and resources, working independently and pinning ideas onto the board to create a group collage. The teacher can then visit the board, leaving comments and feedback on the resources put together

STRENGTHS

1. Strong social media tool for companies/brands.

2. Easy and simple to use, especially with the “pin it” button that allows you to pin an item on any website without having toA strength of Pinterest its simple & visual grid layout.

3. It has one focused function.

4. You can immerse yourself into an enormous visual community.

5. It’s personal and interactive.

6. There is equality among all users (whether it is a brand or a person) in that both have access to the same features.

7. A pin can take you back to the original website if you want to learn more about the item that was pinned.

8. It has a simple grid layout, where items keep appearing in a never-ending manner as you scroll down a page, giving a user no reason to stop.

WEAKNESSES1. Users feel a lack of personal touch in their boards

since pins are usually already been pinned by others.

2. Links of pins are follow able by google, creating spam.

3. Debate whether photos taken from websites are compliant legal rights of the original owner of that photo (then again, each pin links back to the original website, giving the original poster of the photo credibility)

SCHOOLOGYis an online learning, classroom management,

and social networking platform that improves learning through better communication, collaboration, and increased access to curriculum and supplemental content.

Logo

APPEARANCE OF SCHOOLOGY

FEATURES AND USES1. Web Hosting/Cloud ServiceManaging education is tough enough without

also having to host your own website. Schoology hosts your website, your content, and your files. Best of all, it connects you with your students to help improve outcomes.

2. Unique Course WebpagesAcademic and technological agility have

become necessary characteristics of 21st-century educational institutions. Schoology gives you an edge by simplifying the process of building unique webpages with dynamic content creation tools and a user-centric interface.

3. Aggregated Calendars

Staying on top of every event in an institution is tough enough without adding multiple calendar interfaces to the mix. Schoology aggregates your personal, course, school, and district calendars into a single interface to simplify and centralize your organizational efforts.

Schoology’s calendars are color coded, provide automatic updating, and can synchronize with other web-based calendars such as Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar.

4. Web Pages, Documents, and Text BlocksThere's no longer a need to learn HTML or CSS in

order to create custom pages and text blocks. Schoology's Page feature provides a rich text editor for easy and intuitive page customization. For the growing number of code users, there is also an option to use HTML and CSS at any time.

5. Workload PlanningWith the ability to view all of the work assigned

to a particular student from every course and even set color-coded workload thresholds, you can ensure your students are never overloaded at any given time.

6. Secure & Configurable Messaging/Email

In addition to basic messaging, Schoology’s enhanced communication provides extensive options for different message types. From systemwide announcements to personalized messaging that corresponds to configurable roles and permissions, Schoology provides a safe and effective alternative to email. Comprehensive word filters also allow administrators the ability to regulate all messaging content to ensure a constructive, academic environment.

7. Systemwide ManagementLarge-scale management is a tough job,

especially when your technologies are complicated, disparate, and scattered. Schoology helps streamline large-scale management with customizable webpages, enhanced communication, seamless third-party software integration, API access, and a simple, highly intuitive and configurable interface.

8. User ManagementSchoology enables you to create, import, and

export user data and course enrollments easily. You can set custom roles and permissions and easily manage large groups of people.

9. Application and Integration ManagementSchoology helps streamline large-scale

management with seamless third-party software integration, open API access, and a configurable interface.

10. SIS Integration PlatformUsing advanced integration capabilities,

such as a next-generation API, Schoology can integrate your SIS (and other critical technologies) directly into the platform. The result is one seamless network where data transfers automatically to save you time and make your whole institution more effective

11. Student Mastery ReportingWith Schoology, instructors have the tools they

need for mastery learning in one comprehensive solution, including student mastery reporting.

Instructors can easily track student performance over time on an individual and course basis and then use this valuable insight to make better, more impactful decisions.

12. Systemwide Grading Scale SetupMaking sure that your instructors grade and assess

students consistently is simple with Schoology’s systemwide grading scale setup. Percentage and point-based grading scales created at the system level will instantly appear in all live courses throughout your institution.

13. Third-Party Content SupportSchoology supports a wide variety of

content formats including LTI and QTI-compliant content, Web Content, Common Cartridge, and SCORM packages (SCORM 2004 and higher). This way you can easily integrate new and existing content created in-house or by a growing list of vendors.

14. Audio/Video RecordingSchoology allows you to record audio and

video files right in the platform and embed them in assignments, discussions, and any other content.

15. Custom Branding & DomainsA custom domain allows the branding of

Schoology to match your institution. For instance, you might use http://learning.myschool.edu instead of http://www.schoology.com.

16. Increased StorageUpload larger files and increase your

institution's overall storage limit.17. Priority SupportGet access to our priority support ticketing

system, ensuring that a Schoology representative will always be there to answer your questions.

18. Remote Authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO)

Single Sign-On (SSO) makes it easy to manage login credentials so your students only need to remember one username and password.

19. Advanced AnalyticsSchoology enables you to track in-depth

statistics on user activity (assignment and assessments logins, page views, posts, submissions, etc.) at the individual, course, school, and system level to better understand how Schoology is being utilized. You can also switch views between users, user types, and schools for comparative analyses.

20. System Log and Event ReportingEver wondered why something broke or

changed? Schoology keeps a system log and audit trail that makes it easy to identify changes.

21. System Log and Event ReportingEver wondered why something broke or

changed? Schoology keeps a system log and audit trail that makes it easy to identify changes.

22. Premium API AccessThe Premium API allows you to make

larger numbers of API calls, as well as Bulk API calls. This makes it easier to import and synchronize Schoology with existing systems.

23. Professional DevelopmentSchoology representatives can provide

onsite and web-delivered training for professional development.

STRENGTHS

1.Has a more ‘Facebook’ feel (you can ‘like’ people’s posts and comments) which makes it instantly more popular with teens. It has been popular even with my very selective students.

2.It is very easy for students to upload their work from their iPad. None of my students’ have ever had a problem uploading their work, and it is a breeze to return the work with comments.

3.You can individually assign work/assignments to help differentiate your class. This is easier than giving every group an individual code to access it.

4.You can create ‘discussions’ that are separate to the ‘updates’ section. While updates are good, they get lost in the stream of information. The discussion boards provide a place where your class can collaborate on a topic/task and can easily refer back to it.

WEAKNESSES1.It is still difficult to upload any

student work that is video or image based.

2.It connects your class as a ‘course’ not a ‘class’. This makes it easier for high school teachers, but for my single class, students became confused as to where they needed to go for their assignments, discussion boards etc.