Monday, November 16, 2015

Make Something That Might Be Boring Exciting With Wizer.Me

Wizer.Me

@Lisa Berghoff       @Joe_EdTech

Make Something That Might Be Boring Exciting With Wizer.Me 

As kids, we all did lots and lots of worksheets in school.  I can remember all of the purple carbon paper residue coating my teacher's fingers as she handed stacks of papers to the first student in each row.  I can also remember a voice screaming in my head saying "these worksheets are SO boring!"  The worksheets of the past seemed a necessary yet extremely dull way for us students to practice our basic skills and turn in piles of pages to be graded.  As educators of the technology age, we really should set the bar higher for both our students and ourselves.

I'm happy to say that those old boring worksheets are a thing of the past.  If you find yourself in a situation where you feel that worksheets are still the best tool for the job, I'm happy to introduce you to Wizer.Me.  Wizer.Me is a free, simple and quick tool for teachers to create their own interactive online worksheets, use easy to find relevant materials, and customize them to their needs.

That's right, Wizer.Me helps you create interactive worksheets.  These allow you to give your students a blended learning experience without a lot of legwork in advance.

You can quickly create an account by signing in with Google.  The website is incredibly simple to use and offers you so many fantastic options.  There are several backgrounds to choose from or you can always upload your own image.   You can create your "worksheet" by choosing from  the basic options such as multiple choice, open question, or matching.  However, you can also add an image for your students to label, include a video for them to watch, a chart to fill in, a link to an article to read, fill in the blanks, embed a vimeo, thinglink, Google maps, and much more!  Of course, there are lots of Wizer.Me assignments already created by your fellow connected educators and they are happy to share.   If you click on the "featured worksheets" button, you will be taken to a webpage filled with assignments ready to be used.  At first glance, I noticed several interesting looking assignments for math, science, and social studies.  Some of the titles that I saw were: "parallel lines and angles", "atomic numbers and mass numbers",  "world religions" "solving special systems of linear equations", and "common life processes of living organisms". In addition, there were several pre-made assignments in Spanish.  These are there for you to use as inspiration or you can copy and edit them to suit your needs.

Once you have created your assignment, you can get the link, automatically assign it in Google Classroom, or give the students a special pin code to access the worksheet.  You can choose which method you want to use to send it to your students.  After students complete the worksheet, you can assess their work and opt to have feedback sent directly to them.

I know I say this about many new tech tools but Wizer.Me is an outstanding tool and I highly encourage you to check it out.  I couldn't resist creating a worksheet for you all to complete:
Click This Link

What are your favorite tools for blended learning?  Go ahead and post in the comments section below.



No comments:

Post a Comment