Comments on: Classkick Defeats The Mind-Reading Math Robots

By: BP

BP — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 17:23:34 +0000

I have been using ClassKick for about a year, and it has been beneficial to learning in several ways. I see student annotations in real time, so I can easily spot when they are ‘stuck’ and offer real-time prompts to assist. I add hyperlinks to brief instructional videos to support learning. Shy students who NEVER speak up in class are willing to ask me questions electronically. Maybe it is the novelty and maybe it is the extra support, but the average learner is simply more persistent in completing tasks in ClassKick than they are with paper/pencil. I have, however, found it quite challenging to keep up with students’ electronic requests for me to check their work. I have limited the number of slides to four in most cases to lessen this challenge. I also find it easier to manage the teacher workload if students work in pairs.

By: Chett Garcia

Chett Garcia — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 16:07:29 +0000

Dan,

I definitely agree that captcha isn’t the exact way. I am thinking more like wikipedia where we can recruit 100k engineers to collaborate somehow to create handwriting recognition combined with assessment of the math. It would have to be a cultural movement in order to make it happen, thousands of teachers sharing their students work and how they’d provide feedback.

Laura,

I think your app is fantastic, I was merely suggesting the next evolution. I am trying to get more carts of iPads for our school so I can use them more often. Once I can import my PDF worksheets and upload great problems, then I am excited to see the usage increase too.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 14:42:11 +0000

Jonah,

We are currently working on releasing an option to import PDFs directly into Classkick – it should be available in a few weeks. We will continue working on our writing so that it responds the way you would like – thanks for the suggestion! If you’d like to provide us with more feedback, I’d love to chat! Please reach out to me at laura@classkick.com.

And Dan, your suggestion to Chester is EXACTLY what our hope is – that all students would be able to get the help they need from ANY interested influence in their life – be that a coach, a teacher, a tutor, an aunt or uncle in another country… and the awesome people you listed as examples.

Naomi,

If you try out this option with a group of students, please let me know how it goes! We do have several teachers that are utilizing Classkick in this way – providing Saturday morning tutoring in their pajamas from home :-D

By: Naomi

Naomi — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 01:30:17 +0000

This app would be a great tool for differentiation as well. Instead of using this for the whole class, you could use for a subset of students who need additional tutorials outside of class (ex. Coach Class or at Saturday school). Since it is difficult to give feedback to a whole class of students at once, it would be good to test this out with a smaller group first.

By: Chester Draws

Chester Draws — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 19:45:55 +0000

Why not?

Because the government pays me to be their Maths teacher.

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 14:56:14 +0000

With the best will in the world, I can’t be a personal tutor for over 100 kids.

You're assuming it has to be you. Why not a set of people at the district office? Or a division at your textbook's publisher?

By: Chester Draws

Chester Draws — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 21:58:53 +0000

It is to allow more flexibility in the timing of student learning. I already answer student questions via email at home, where they send me scanned images, iphone pictures, or poorly-typed math expressions.

Teaching isn’t an “on call” job, so don’t be surprised if this use doesn’t exactly get an enthusiastic response.

I teach my daily load, do voluntary after-school tutorials three days a week, coach some sports teams and do more preparation than the average Maths teacher on top of that. So I’m not a shirker. But there’s no way in H*ll I’m going to be answering questions in the hours I have off.

With the best will in the world, I can’t be a personal tutor for over 100 kids.

By: Ruth Eichholtz

Ruth Eichholtz — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 22:54:48 +0000

What made this app useful is that I already have the relationships with my students that are fundamental to working together. In this case, we extended our workspace to a virtual whiteboard, which was easy after countless hours on a real whiteboard in the real classroom.

I searched for a few years for a virtual whiteboard my students could access in order to discuss homework problems, and get help with solutions while they are working on them (as opposed to taking up class time in the next lesson). Classkick can be that virtual whiteboard.

The goal for me with this tool is not to replace class time, or student-teacher interaction. It is to allow more flexibility in the timing of student learning. I already answer student questions via email at home, where they send me scanned images, iphone pictures, or poorly-typed math expressions. Classkick eases this process by allowing hand-written work to be shared with ease!

By: Jonah

Jonah — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 22:53:10 +0000

Aaaaand after playing around with the features a little more I am not super impressed. Perhaps I’ve spent too much time being spoiled by GoodNotes, but I find this impossible to write on.

I’ll come back to it in a few months, though. Maybe things will improve.

By: Jonah

Jonah — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 22:15:59 +0000

Classkick seems pretty cool. I teach enormous lectures at a large university, and even when my office hours are popular, I’m still only meeting with about 10% of my students each week. An online forum helps, but plenty of students seem too embarrassed to use it.

So what I’d really enjoy is the ability to upload practice problems on Classkick and tell my students to work there, where I can give feedback. It doesn’t seem like PDF importing is an option yet, but maybe it will be soon.