Today I am going to talk about the second part of the Spiral App - Discuss.
Discuss is an interesting way to generate discussions about a powerpoint slide and a great way to record student's thoughts while they view each slide. These thoughts can then be used to facilitate further discussion or to use as a basis for a writing task in response to the powerpoint slide.
The following images are taken from the Spiral website and help to explain how the app can be used.
The EAL/D teacher could use this app to work one to one with a student outside of the room and the student's responses could then be recorded with the rest of the class. So the teacher could be teaching the lesson to the whole class and the EAL/D teacher might have a small group or be one on one with a student, looking at the same slides, but recording their responses with the whole class. This would allow the EAL/D students to have extra, explicit input from the EAL/D student about the topic, but still be involved in the whole class activity.
I am yet to use Discuss, however I have spoken to a teacher who has used it once in their classroom and asked their opinion of it. They were very excited about the possibilities this app presented for generating discussion and could see a lot of potential for future use.
I am very keen to give this app a go and would love to hear from anyone who tries it to see how it went (good or bad).
***Please note: I have not been paid to review these apps and I am in no way affiliated with Spiral, the makers of these apps. I am simply reviewing them because they seem like really interesting and useful tools to encourage greater student engagement and discussion.