BUBBLESHEET APP FOR EDUCATION SAVES TEACHERS TIME WITH DIGITAL TEST SCORING

The educational technology (#edtech) industry is booming, but how do you know what technologies are good and which are subpar? Once a month we feature a piece of technology from an outside company that is making life easier for teachers. This month we are focusing on an app that makes scoring multiple choice exams easier, using any smart device with a camera.

About the App:

The bubblesheet app from MasteryConnect allows you to scan in and score your multiple choice bubble sheets using your tablet, smartphone or webcam. First take a blank answer sheet and create a key. Then enter your answer key into the app by either scanning it or uploading it as a document (word, pdf, etc.). Continue scanning your students answer sheets until the entire pile has been captured. After you’ve done that, you can either enter the information into your gradebook manually, or export it if you have the paid version of the app, which creates a much cleaner, organized work area. 

DEMONSTRATING QUADRATIC EQUATIONS IN THE REAL WORLD

Quadratic Equations are one of the more abstract mathematical concepts for high school students. Even if you can remember and solve the formulas, it’s hard for teens to think about how quadratic equations could ever help them in their future job, or even how they could save a life. It is the main goal of the RobotsLAB BOX to help bridge the gap between concepts and what they truly mean in a world that doesn’t revolve around white boards and exams.

LESSON PLAN IDEAS FOR TEACHING VECTORS

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR TEACHING USING NEW TECHNOLOGY

Did you ever as a student have the pleasure of a teacher assigning a Power Point presentation, only to watch in embarrassing agony as they struggled to figure out how to connect their laptop to the projector? If you’re a teacher reading this, you’ve probably been in this predicament (hint: use a dvi/HDMI cable). 

ELIMINATING BOREDOM IN THE CLASSROOM

Fact: bored students don’t learn. I doubt you’re blown away by this but in case you need some reassuring, a new study from the University of Pittsburgh, coauthored by the University of Michigan looked at student engagement, and the key to helping students stay focused in the classroom.

WHY ARE WE TEACHING MATH THE SAME WAY WE DID 10 YEARS AGO?

If you were to buy a cell phone 10 years from now, do you think that it will be the same phone you bought a year ago? Probably not. If you buy a car 10 years from now you’d want it made with better technologies, right? The same thing should be applied to education. But rather than 10 years from now, we need to have that sort of change within 1 year.

FOCUS ON PEOPLE NOT JUST TECHNOLOGY

I’m sure you’ve seen YouTube videos of young kids picking up iPads and operating them like it was second nature (if not here’s your chance). There’s also a chance that either you or someone you know has sat at a PC wondering how to make a table in Excel. Powerful and useful technology is useless if the design of it is convoluted.