Tag: activengage

3rd Grade ActivEngage2 Review with Padlet

padletThird graders in Ms. Eller’s class at Davis Elementary are getting ready for their upcoming SOL tests, and they have been reviewing the ancient civilizations from 2nd and 3rd grade: China, Egypt (SOL2.1), Greece, Rome (SOL3.1), and Mali (SOL3.2). Ms. Eller wanted to practice reviewing with ActivEngage2, a student response system by Promethean. So while the students created questions using Padlet I showed her how to set up her computer to access the ActivEngage2 hub. Padlet is a great way to generate lots of review questions because the students are motivated to write difficult questions to stump their friends. They also enjoy seeing all their classmate’s notes appear instantly (although it can get confusing). Another thing I like about Padlet is the students can only edit and move their own notes, the other notes are locked for them. Teachers, of course, and edit and move all the notes as they wish. I usually leave the layout as Freeform while the students are typing, but when it comes time to display the questions for review, I switch to the Stream layout and project them on the Promethean Board right from Padlet. You can take a look at their questions by clicking here. The students answered their questions using the ActivEngage2 format, giving instant feedback to their teacher, but if you don’t have that, you could do the same thing using an online tool like Socrative or Infuse Learning. You can see more examples of this lesson from other 3rd grade classes I’ve taught: Ms. Ford’s class from Laburnum and Ms. Middleton’s class from Holladay.




ActivEngage in 2nd Grade

activeRecently I have been training the staff at my schools how to use the ActivEngage software. It turns the cart laptops into a student responders so that teachers can get instant feedback. You can learn more about it here. I’m happy to do a demo lesson in your class if you’d like to see it in action. Today I showed 2nd graders at Laburnum how to use it. I asked them a few questions about the famous Americans they’ve been studying (SOL2.11) using a simple GoogleDoc but then I sent them to TodaysMeet to generate their own questions. You can see some of their questions here. Even though ActivEngage works with ActivInspire flipcharts, you can actually use anything (PDFs, Word documents, websites, etc) to display the questions you want to ask. You just need the ExpressPoll program to be open so that you can receive the students’ input. Another free option that’s available if you want to implement a student response system in your class is to try Socrative. You set up a quiz on the website, and then then your students log in with the link to your class. They can respond in many different ways and even play online competitions.