LearnLab – CoLab

LearnLab is an online presentation and collaboration platform that enables teachers and lecturers to make their lectures more interactive. LearnLab has five different modules. The module CoLab is free. CoLab combines the functionality of PowerPoint presentations with interactive questions. You can easily upload your PowerPoint slides, and organize them. You can add slides with interactive questions that you would otherwise  have created with a Student Response System such as; Socrative, Mentimeter, Smart Notebook Response System, or Kahoot.

The advantage of LearnLab’s CoLab is that you do not have to switch between programs for content and interactive questions while presenting.

CoLab offers nine types of content. The basic content is uploaded from PowerPoint presentations, the other eight are shown below.

Advantages of CoLab over Socrative and Mentimeter

• Combines PowerPoint (1) content, and (2) interaction, through questions and responses in one program.
• CoLab combines the variety of questions, and visualisations of the responses that can be found in Socrative and Mentimeter.
• CoLab offers the possibility to work with a two-step interaction, namely first the question and thereafter participants can cast their votes or ‘like’.
• Some new multi-media features are available, such as upload of a picture by the participants which can thereafter be rated.

Disadvantages of CoLab

• Editing of content, such as font and layout, is limited.
• You cannot present a picture with the question.
• The videos in your uploaded PowerPoint presentation do not work any longer, so you have to create new slides for them in CoLab.
• You lose all animations, hyperlinks, actions that were built in the PowerPoint.
• You have no control over how to stop and close a CoLab session. You can activate a new lab session, but it remains unclear which lab session you have activated and how to deactivate it.
• Participants cannot delete sessions themselves. They remain visible.
• Participants have to open a browser, there is no App available for answering the questions like with Socrative.
• CoLab does not provide the option to let participants work through questions at their own pace.

Conclusion:

CoLab is a nice and useful tool for presenters and lecturers, because it can enhance interaction and participation. For use in a classroom it is important to realize that the tool is likely to support teacher-centered learning, not student-centered learning.

Responseware: Socrative

Socrative is one of the best known responseware programs. We wrote about another responseware program Kahoot earlier.  The teacher or presenter designs and starts a quiz on his/her computer. The students can access the quiz on their PC, tablet, iPad or smartphone.  The students see the question and can answer. The results are presented graphically can be viewed and shown by the teacher.

Socrative is suitable from primary school level up to university. You can use Socrative to assess knowledge and skills, but you can also use it to engage students using open questions, using it as a tool to gauge prior knowledge, or to vote in a poll.

Presentation of a multiple-choice question to student

DiScoro offers workshops in the use of Responseware, such as Kahoot, Socrative, and in how to create various types of questions.

Functionality and review

• Socrative has several options: Quiz, one single question, and Space Race (competition).
• Socrative is user-friendly.
• It takes very little time to start and use Socrative with students.
• Socrative offers Multiple-choice questions with the possibility to indicate more than one correct answer.
• Socrative offers the option to enter open questions where the student writes down his/her own answer.
• You as a teacher can select a student-paced or teacher-paced quiz.
• You can add feedback or hints that will be shown to the students after they have sent in their answer.
• You can upload a picture/graphic with a question, but this is optional.
• Students do not have to be present at the samen location as the teacher, because the students view the questions as well as the answer options as soon as they open the quiz.
• The graphics do not always work well when students use the program on a smartphone.

Overview of results

Results on an open question

You will find additional functionality and options, which you should check out for yourself.

Purchase	Free
Hardware	PC, tablet, iPad, SmartPhone
Requirements	browser on teachers’ computer

Responseware: Kahoot

Kahoot is a well known responseware program in Primary and Secondary schools. The teacher starts a ‘Quiz’ on his own PC and shows the questions one by one on a large screen, using a projector or a interactive board. The students answer using any digital device: PC, tablet, smartphone. The results are  displayed graphically on the teachers’ PC and can thus be viewed on the large screen. The answers are anonymous to other students, but the teacher can download a file and analyse the results later.
A Kahoot Quiz can be used to check students’ knowledge, but can also be used to check what students know before instruction on a new topic takes off.

DiScoro offers training and workshops in the use of Responseware, such as Kahoot, Socrative, and in how to create various types of questions.

Example of a question

Functionality and Review

• Kahoot offers two quiz options: Quiz and Survey. A question in a Quiz requires one correct answer. In a Survey all answers are correct.
• Students think that Kahoot is fun.
• Kahoot is easy to use.
• The use of Kahoot during your lessons does not take much time. After the first time you can use Kahoot within 10 minutes.
• Kahoot offers only Multiple-choice questions. It is not possible to use an open question where students write in their own answer.
• Students must respond under time pressure. The maximum time you can allow for answering one question is 3 minutes. We think this is rather short and unfortunately does not allow for discussion or more difficult questions.
• Kahoot uses a picture or a video with every question. If you do not upload a picture, then Kahoot will use its own picture. It is therfore wise to always upload a picture that matches the question.
• You might experience that if you do not turn down volume completely that the program come along with quite a loud tune all the time.

Purchase	Free
Hardware	iPad, Android tablet,, Smartphone, PC
Requirements	PC for the teacher with browser

SMART Board training EOSØR Kristiansand

EOSØR Kristiansand uses interactive whiteboards. EOSØR provides vocational education in the area of electronics.

The teachers at EOSØR received their first training in the use of SMARTBoard. They have already many ideas and inspiration for the next school year. The new students can expect lessons from teachers who will use this new technology in the classroom. In July the second training session will be held in which they will be indtroduced in the use of  responseware in the classroom.