Guest post from Mote Ambassador Leader - Alex Isaacs, EdTech Specialist in the Long Branch Public Schools District.
In the ever-evolving world of assessment within education, it can be challenging to find and implement meaningful and engaging ways to let students show what they know. As a math teacher, I quickly realized that giving students a choice, even on assessments, while incorporating easy-to-use edtech tools impacted their engagement and willingness to share their thoughts. Over time, I discovered that leveraging student choice with diversified evaluation methods empowered learners to showcase their understanding in a way they preferred.
Since stepping out of the classroom, I’ve been excited to have more opportunities to plan ideas and create activities across additional content areas and grade levels, many involving appsmashing different edtech platforms. I previously wrote a blog for Mote’s Learning Zone on appsmashing Mote with some of my other favorite apps, and you can click here for more context and ideas if you’d like. For this post, I’m excited to explore an activity with you that integrates both Mote and Wakelet while letting learners create an interactive timeline of events!
What You’ll Need
Rationale and Sample Timeline
Combining Mote and Wakelet in an interactive timeline activity offers an exciting opportunity for students to take ownership of their learning while they engage in meaningful collaboration with their peers. At the same time, learners are building their critical thinking skills by performing historical research and differentiating between important details to include in their timelines and non-relevant information that is unnecessary to reference. Furthermore, by incorporating Mote messages into specific points on the timeline, diverse learners can be more creative and articulate their understanding of key historical moments and figures, fostering a deeper connection to the subject matter with the easy-to-navigate tools Mote and Wakelet.
Click here to check out my John F. Kennedy sample interactive timeline (cover image below) that appsmashes Mote and Wakelet together to help students provide in-depth perspectives through the power of voice and curation!
Timeline Template and Video Walkthrough
To participate in this activity, create your free Mote and Wakelet accounts. Then, copy this template and share the copied collection link with your students. With Mote, recording an audio message and pasting the share link within a Wakelet collection is simple. After adding Mote links to your collection, a player will appear for viewers to interact with. Check out this quick how-to video walkthrough below for more in-depth, step-by-step instructions.
Integrating Mote and Wakelet is one of my favorite appsmashes because it opens many accessibility options and boosts student engagement. I have witnessed first-hand how these platforms elevate pride in work, build agency, and offer teachers a more holistic view of student understanding and growth. As educators, let’s treat the new year as a prime opportunity to provide more immersive and creative opportunities for our diverse learners to share their voices, perspectives, and knowledge. I’m keeping the mantra “Mote more in 2024” in mind as I (and many others) approach the middle of this school year!
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