REVIEW: Gimkit might be one of my favorite discoveries at the moment because it has brought gaming to learning and intertwined them. Students love games  and this is one way to get their attention and a way to decrease distractions. the written choice answers help us create higher DOK level questions through multiple choice options, but I do not really like the fact that they have to answer it word for word as how I saved it. I can create open-ended questions, but not really because it will mark it wrong if it is not the answer I had saved. I also really like how you can add audio to the question. As a student is answering the question, they can listen to me say it. I can also add images instead of words in my multiple-choice questions which is helpful for visual learners. I really like that Gimkit rewards students with access to the games as they progress with the questions that I have in place. I also like the variety of games that it lets students play because students tend to get bored if they play the same game repeatedly and then they are back to square one.

Another thing that I like is how you can find other educators' questions that they have created. A limitation that I see with this is how you can see the leaderboard in the class. It can cause a student who did not really get any points for answering the questions correctly to be exposed on the leaderboard. This can make a student feel targeted and maybe even embarrassed. This activity can show up as a formative assessment at the beginning of the class so you can get an idea of where students are at in terms of background knowledge. It can also be used near the end of the course as some sort of fun test to see what they learned that day.

REVIEW: This online resource helps students break down a reading by giving them tools as they read. An example of this can be that students can highlight and take notes of whatever they want to keep track of or what they have questions on. This helps with metacognitive reading. Students are also able to highlight a word or phrase and can have it read out loud to them. It can also be translated into another language if it is better for them to understand it another way. I love the variety of options that this offers students because it hits on multiple means of representation. It allows students to have these types of scaffolds to help them be represented and accommodated. As the teacher, you can add comments to specific highlighted parts of the text which a further explanation. This can be planned ahead of time so that you can help students with a little background information. This is crucial and a very helpful part when reading sources. You can add questions in the text as they read and if they get it wrong, they are provided with an explanation of why it is wrong. You can also add a short answer, multiple choice, polls, and drawing questions. This also lets you organize your thinking as an educator and it lets you label each of your questions as a DOK 1-4 level. This can be seen during your independent activity because it can be seen as a test to see how well they use their resources and use each other. It can also be used during the early part of the class to help build background knowledge of the topic you will be going over. I feel like this is an almost perfect 9/10 online resource for students, but it could be better. Some parts of this resource are locked because it requires a subscription. The stuff it comes with is so good it can be used on students, but there is so much more that they offer. I recommend anyone to use this, especially ELA teachers. Can reading get boring sometimes, yes. I would make sure students who need some time to move around, should be allowed to move around or given a break of some sort. Work it in with your assignment and let them have a group discussion about what they read.

REVIEW: Other than it being slightly more convenient than having the lessons done on google docs then it is not much different. I feel like if you had a snow day and or another pandemic hits, then this will be very useful because the lesson and the quiz or short assignments can all be in the same spot. It walks them through the quiz and you can include spots in between questions to recap and or prepare them for the next one. I think that the variety of questions helps with how students can express their knowledge. Everyone has different learning styles and variety is key. A downside to this, in my opinion, is that it is not much different from something like Kahoot and I do not really like Kahoot because for one it's timed so it puts unnecessary pressure on students and B the names that students put are always something extraordinary. I look in the humor of immaturity, but when you can not start the class because inappropriate names keep popping up on the screen then it eats your valuable class time. A good way in which this can be seen however is as an exit ticket. The leaderboard shows how many points the students accumulated during the quiz and tells you who still needs help and who needs a challenge. This can also be used at the beginning of the class as a way to show students new knowledge and allows them to showcase their own background knowledge. Overall, I would not use this unless you really have to in the case of a pandemic or if you just do not like Kahoot and if you want to include written responses and or multiple choice. I like that the slides with links and sections with questions are included and it is what separates this from other websites, but if this website did not exist then it really would not affect me at all.