Wednesday, April 30, 2014

TEI Tip: The Answer Pads Steps Up to Capture Student Data in Go Interactive!

How many of you like to "try before you buy"? My husband used to wonder what I would come home with each time I ventured to "the teacher store". I was like a kid in a candy store, browsing up and down the aisles of colorful bulletin board trims, new resource kits, posters, workbooks etc. Now that we can shop for much more on the Internet, I like to consider the benefits before I buy, even if it's just a few dollars.

I've spent this year "trying out" The Answer Pad as a way to help teachers engage students, support BYOD and use it for technology enhanced items.  I believe I have found one feature that makes this worth trying and perhaps buying. I'd like to give a big shout out to Anna Sturrock, Managing Director of the The Answer Pad. Her interest and responsiveness to email is refreshing. To be honest, I am quite amazed at how these developers appreciate constructive feedback.

The Answer Pad now has a very cool "Capture" feature. When used in Go Interactive mode, you can now manually capture or auto-capture student responses. Once captured, visit Portfolio to see all the data. Search by class, individual students, by tag or date. The data is saved as PDF files and can be exported. While this is in beta testing, you must try it out.

What this means for the classroom teacher is that you can send out a question, chart, picture, diagram or virtually any template and get instant feedback, as well as have the data to go back and revisit. This is especially helpful for those "hot spot" questions that require students to select multiple responses.  While I prefer to think of more creative and engaging ways to use this tool, this is a huge benefit for testing grades that have the rigor of answering TEI question types.

If I haven't given you enough reasons to try The Answer Pad, when you sign up, you are now given a 30 day upgrade trial. This allows you to upload any image or graphic and then launch it as a template in Go Interactive. Our school division doesn't have iPads, which has limited my use to PCs and laptops, but there is the accompanying iPad app, TAPit Free.

The end of the school year testing is just around the corner.  The Answer Pad Go Interactive enables you to dialogue with your students, assess their understanding as well as retain their data. There you have it, my answer to why I love The Answer Pad Go Interactive!

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