Technology Connoisseurship and Criticism on Class Flow Ed 521 Integrating Technology into teaching and learning Mavis Druse

Class Flow is a Web based program Create lessons or use ready made lessons (similar to Smart Notebook or Elite Panaboard Book) Deliver Lessons to class using a code or create your classroom (Similar to Socrates or Nearpod) Collaborate with students or teachers for lessons before, during, and after a lesson Reward students with badges that you can include notes to the student or just chat with a student or the whole class Manage classrooms, Assign homework, Post messages and/or videos to a class (similar to google classroom) Reports of student assessments, polls you can give the class, assignments turned in, and student badges

Class Flow Free web based program Able to use with any device Interactive with the classroom and other teachers Can diversify assignments for students or break students into groups Able to poll students on the fly or within lessons and see results as anonymous or with student names Student results presented on your screen and changed into tables or graphs if you would like

Parents can access Assignments, Schedules, and Badges Parents can access Assignments, Schedules, and Badges assigned to their child when given the class code. This program is very versatile for every classroom or student and could easily be used for a flipped classroom. Class Flow offers free interactive webinars and videos to demonstrate how to use all the features. Class Flow is Award Winning for the Last 3 Years. It is used world wide.

Poll Feature You can decide if students will be anonymous or have names. You can poll your students using creative, word seed, true/false, yes/no, multiple choice, scale, text, and number. The results can be seen by response or as a graph.

Badges Badges can be awarded To individual students, groups, or classes. You can also include your own message to the students with the badge.

Teacher Class Flow page for classes: Easy to add classes and students by a code for the class. Students version will show assignments, my resources, and badges as options under tab. On the teacher version, you can view the delivered lessons and polls for the class. You can change picture for home page but limited.

I did like this newest feature of sending a picture of what is on my screen to the students. The problem was the students could not respond on the screen and send it back. So this feature would work well for sending a problem to the students quickly or for notes. I have not experimented a lot with this feature yet.

Class Flow Videos of Class Flow in Action You tube Video – Class flow at a Glance You Tube Video – Class flow in action

Critique The program can be very time consuming at first because it is so diversified. It would take time and practice in class to become proficient. The whiteboard and lesson plan has a limited selection of tools for the text, backgrounds, themes, and manipulatives. The gallery was very limited especially for math. This would take time to load my sources. You were unable to drag and drop pictures forcing you to either use Bing images, save to google photo drive, and Bing web. It is very difficult to upload previous material used in class. The poll feature for creative is very difficult to do on a laptop because it only offers the drawing feature and you cannot type text. I was not able to find a way to keep my lessons private.

Student Responses Enjoyed the badges and comments. Found it difficult and frustrating to bring in pictures especially in our restricted google photos and no Bing images on chrome books. Liked being able to see every ones responses and drawings on the polls which we could then discuss. Found the chat option with the teacher very easy to use and efficient. Enjoyed being able to blog on posts within our classroom.

Thematics This program offers ample opportunities to use the Constructivism approach and has been adapted into the Ron Clark Academy very effectively. It offers creativity and independent learning. This program also allows for the Behavorist approach with the badges as rewards. Class Flow also provides an affinity space that Gee addresses. It allows for students to post thoughts, questions, share, and discuss ideas. It also offers the chat option to talk privately with the teacher during or after class.