Spiral UPDATES!

I know I have done a review on Spiral already; however, they have made some changes that I must talk about. I want to make sure my readers know all of the things I have learned so here are some of the new things going on with Spiral.

Let’s start with the Quickfires:
First, they have added the ability to create planned Quickfires where you can pre-write the questions in (which they had before) but now you can also opt for quick. Quick Quickfires are where your students are still able to answer your questions, but you DO NOT have to pre-plan them. You can verbally state them and the students can type their answers just as with a traditional Quickfire. The program does require you still title your Quickfire (which is not bad) but gives you the ability to get students to answer questions ACTIVELY in class without having to stop the class to create this. Yeay!

Second, the Quickfire now offers a canvas answer feature! I really didn’t know how to use these Quickfires for math and now I can! The drawing features are the same as Paint or Google Drawing just in smaller and not as many bells and whistles. All you need to as the teacher is change the answer format next to your question! Great update for Spiral!

If these changes weren’t good enough then let me introduce you to Clip.

Clip is a different type of discussion or quickfire (whichever you wish to use). With clip you just start the clip and you are taken to a screen where you can automatically search Youtube videos to show your students to spark debates or discussions. Now I do know as teachers we will still need to pre-watch these videos to make sure they are school appropriate, but it does produce a still of the video so you can go directly to the one you want. You can add multiple videos to your clip as well. Once you have set this up you will be given the option of an open-ended question or a multiple choice question. While in the actual Clip you can choose to hide or show answers. My students preferred to have the answers hidden because it made the clip take up the whole screen and easier for them to see it. Clip does have an extension you can add to chrome. I have not tried it because I prefer to access this from their website it does sound promising.

Finally, they have added a teacher only buying option! You no longer have to try to convince your admin to purchase this product! You can buy it for your classroom for $29 a year! While this is still in the beginning stages it is exciting!

As a teacher, I am really happy with these changes and additions. I can now use Spiral in numerous new ways in my classroom. While I do know some of you teachers do not have a 1-to-1 classroom, but please remember the students can use their phones or tablets as well. I have used this product whole class as well as in small groups with the same benefits.

If you have any comments or ideas please feel free to leave them in the comments below! Enjoy!

Spiral Extension/Website

Product Description:
This website is designed to allow teachers real-time information from the students. There are 3 different ways provided to allow teachers access to the information. Students access spiral by downloading the app and entering the code. The product has team up abilities, sharing of anything you or other teachers make, and automatic save of information from the students.

Glitchy Review:
This product has some great parts and not so great parts. I will just start with the good parts. The product can be easy to use. The layout of the website is incredibly user friendly. Students are able to log in using a computer generated code, just like Kahoot and FrontRow, so no confusion there. Students are able to respond easily with little computer experience or from their smartphone or tablet.

Positives-
Quickfires: These are simple to set up. It is perfect for KWL charts. The Quickfire allows teachers to either prepare questions before hand and add questions as you go. Perfect if you want to gain more information from students as you go. This allows teachers to really gain knowledge from the students in a quick efficient manner and saves the answers for teachers to reference through the unit or lesson series. In addition, student answers are posted on the board and done anonymously (as the teacher you will know individual student answers) which allows all students to feel more comfortable sharing their answers.

Discussions: Again these are easy to set up. This is a digital version of classroom discussions; however with students being able to answer without speaking in front of the class allows teachers to hear from those students who are not keen on speaking in front of the class. The discussion is set up as a power point where you can either create one or upload one you have already created. I would suggest making one in Power Point or Google Slides before hand because you will not be able to move the slides around as you are making it. In addition, it has limited things to do. You will not be able to alter text size, font, or color. You are limited to what the program has. However, if you pre-create one using the tools previously mentioned ALL of your customization will upload and remain. (NOTE: animations will not load.) Again, this allows answers from students to be posted anonymously and as the teacher you will know individual student answers.

Negatives:
Team up:This part of the product seems to lacking. While it is great to show students what teams they will be in what they will need to do in their teams, even create specific objectives for each team; it can be difficult to set up. Again, this is basic in it's abilities. There is no real way for the students to digitally turn in their finished product. While it is great to keep up on the board for reference for students; that is really all this can be used for. If you are looking for something to create digital assignments I would use Hapara or Google Classroom. While it does has potential, it does not seem beneficial for teachers beyond a reference for students.

Extension: This product is found in Google Extension, but it really is not like an extension. There is no button added to the omni bar of Google. You still need to go to the website to access the product without a shortcut added. I don't really know if this can be called an extension if there is no shortcut added to Google Chrome. Please click here for direct access to the website.

Glitchy Rating;
I would give this product a 3 out of 5 because of lack of real classroom use for one of the key parts of the product and it not really being an extension of Chrome like it says it is.

User Rating:
This is a level 1 product (when you eliminate the Team Up part) because it is so user friendly for both teacher and students.

Here is a walk through video I made to aid in creating Quickfires and Discussions.:

Below are some videos for you to watch to see if Spiral will work for you.: