APP ALERT!! MOBILE ATTENDANCE!

Mobile Attendance - Android Apps on Google Play

 Well, it's bee n a minute, but we (me) are back with another app that must be brought to the attentnion of every tech savvy teacher, and it's called Mobile Attendance by INNOVA Apps.    A few months back I was struggling to find an attendance app for my classroom. After a few trial apps, I settled with Eval Safety Attendance in The Google Play Store. I loved the idea of using QR Codes to take attendance from my smartphone and so did my students.  It was easy to use, but the reports didn't produce the spreadsheet format in Google that I wanted.  All that is different with Mobile Attendance. The spreadsheets are easy to set up, report in real time, and are shareable like any other Google document. The app creates QR Codes in Google Docs for print out. Perfect, everything stays in Google. The best part of the whole process is that students love to use their phones, tablets, or laptops to check in. I had my students take a photo of their personal QR code and save it to their phone or tablet homescreen for easy pull up.  If they forget their device at home, they should keep the original copy on them somewhere, but worst case scenerio, you can print up a back up copy of all your students' codes and  keep it on you as well.  The olny downside to this app is that the free trial only lasts for only two weeks, after that it's at least $6.85 a month (yikes!). Check the video below or click the link under the photo above to check out Moblie Attendance for yourself and see if you want to try it! Best, #mrford#techsavvyteacher

Top 10 uses for the smartphone in the ESL Classroom for an ESL Instructor

Top 10 uses for the smartphone in the ESL Classroom for an ESL Instructor

1. Dictionary/Thesaurus- This is so obvious, but necessary for anyone working with international students. Apps like Dictionary.com and Oxford Dictionary of English are among the most commonly used.
2. Attendance- Apps like Foursquare an even FB are awesome for check in.  My favorite app however is Eval Safety Attendance which creates a specific QR Code for each student as you scan their phone to take attendance.
3. Quizzes- Using Google Forms is a great way to deliver quizzes to your students on their devices. Use a script/extension like Flubaroo to grade them and email scores to students.
4. Platforms for sharing-Whatsapp, Viber, Line, and even FB Messenger. These platforms are a great way to share pages, videos, photos, documents, etc.
5. Video conferences-Google Hangouts can be installed on both Android and Apple devices and is the best video conference sharing app on the market. Have up to 10 people in one conference.
6. Paper scanner- This is great not only for scanning pages of school books with very limited supply, but I can't tell you how many times students have asked to use the facility scanning machines to send something to their embassy.
7. ESL Podcasts-Podcasts are a great way to help lower level learners increase their vocabulary and listening comprehension skills.
8. Gradebooks- Engrade is a great way to enter grades while you are on the go and not in front of a laptop or desktop. Other apps like QuickGrader are just as good.
9. Scorative- Socrative is a killer app that makes your classroom more interactive for learning.  Assign  your quizzes as a team race game and watch how students get excited as their team scores and their rockets move forward in a 'Space Race".
10. Note Card Maker- There are several versions of note card makers available on the Android and Apple market. Have your students make note cards of their vocabulary words to help them study for their tests. Just remember to have them put away their phones during a test to ensure no cheating.

Best,

#mrford#techsavvyteacher

In Search of the Perfect Attendance App for My Smartphone...

As a paperless teacher, one of the things I look forward to is eliminating the need for those annoying attendance sheets. I can't tell you how many times I've misplaced one or two of them, or found one lying at the bottom of my car floor with a muddy footprints all over the front. One of my major hangups with traditional attendance taking is that there is no transparency between teacher and student; it's almost like the attendance is hidden from the students after the role is called. I believe if students (some, not all) are given the option to actually see their attendance as often as they like, as well as have the option to check in themselves by not having to scream 'here' or 'present', than their attendance will increase by at least 20%.  So earlier this year, I set out to find the perfect attendance app for my smart phone and my students. The Google Play Store has a large amount of these particular apps available, and I've only just started to test them; but so far, my first three have helped me to determine exactly what I want in the perfect attendance app!

Foursquare was very exciting to use. I really liked the social aspect of it. My students and I even enjoyed the badges for rewards, but it ended up being more a social app because students started checking in and having conversations EVERYWHERE they went. Not only that, but I soon found that students were checking themselves in class even when they weren't there.  Just like FB, you don't have to physically be in a location to check in and that was definitely a deal breaker for me.

Attendance Tracker by PETERMAN was my second attempt at finding the perfect attendance taking app.  What I really liked about this particular app was that it easily imported students from my contacts/Google contacts list -making it super easy to set up.  Other than that, I felt like I was just calling out the role and the students weren't actively involved in their attendance taking. There was no way for students to check themselves in and take ownership of their attendance. And this was another deal breaker for me.

  Recently, I have been using Safety Attendance by FORSAFETYSOLUTIONS from Google Play Store. It was easy to integrate my contacts from my phone or Google and the app also lets me email the students their attendance. What caught my eye about this app was the option to take attendance via QR Codes.   I had  to figure out on my own that I had to personally create a QR Code for my students and email it to them via QR Droid; this is something that I felt the creator failed to inform app users about and should definitely integrate into the app or at least provide a tutorial for app users to understand how to set up QR Codes for this specific app. I can say, however, that my students LOVE the scan in option because they get to use their phones to scan in with me and many of them have no idea what a QR Code is or how they work.  I also like the seating chart options and the customization options. So far, this app is my favorite among the three I have tried.  Unfortunately, the free version of this app only allows you one class of up to 15 students. Though I have only been using it for a couple of weeks, I really think this app is a great way to help convert those teachers who are against using smart phones in the classroom by introducing them to the simplest functions that smart phones offer in education.  Feel free to down load and try these apps for yourself.

#mr.ford#techsavvyteacher