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Students and teachers have either the most simplistic or the most complex systems at their disposal when it comes learning online. Case in point: simplistic video conference solutions and elaborate Learning Management Systems. Given that the subject matter is already hard for many, trying and spending time to understanding a new tool that helps them learn is an extra burden.

They could use a solution that is somewhere in the middle. Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Like always, I’m gonna take it for a test drive, would you like to join me?

Overview

Socrative is super simple to use, and all the teacher has to do is login through an Internet connected device and select an activity which controls the flow of questions and games. Students will simply have to login with their device and interact real time with the content.

Overview

Responses to questions posed at students are visually represented for multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. At the end of every planned activity, the teacher can view reports via an emailed Excel file.

Getting Started

With so much to offer and particularly when considering how over priced anything related education these days, it is hard to believe that this web app is available for free. Getting started is very easy, but is a bit weird. The sign up page says that the app is in private beta and you will have to submit your email id to join the queue. Now, immediately after hitting Submit, I got a welcome email detailing how to get access to the app.

Registering for an Account

Apparently, you don’t have to go through the step of registering your email for an invite at all. Head over to t.socrative.com, if you are a teacher and register for an account from a simplistic form. Don’t worry if the form and the rest of the app look huge and weird in your screen.

The developers in their endeavor to make the app mobile friendly, have embraced the same interface for desktop too. This user interface brings down user experience by quite a few notches.

Accessing the Room

Teacher's Zone from Resized Desktop Browser

After a few slides giving a head’s up about the app and its features, you should land on the teacher’s zone. Again, with a lot more options the user interface looks very ugly. Try resizing your browser from the maximized view till the interface is usable enough for you. At the top, you can see the room number. This is what you should circulate among your students. You can also get the count of the number active participants so far.

Students in turn should login at m.socrative.com by entering the virtual room number provided by the teacher. They will then see “Waiting for teacher to start an activity…” status message. Once you initiate an activity by selecting it on the main screen, the same will show up in their screens (more later).

Creating Quizzes

Creating a Quiz

As mentioned earlier Socrative allows teachers to create multiple quizzes of various formats. The steps to create a quiz from the app aren’t many and is an absolute breeze to create one.

Adding a Multiple Choice Question and Answers

In the case of a multiple choice question, add the question and the choices that go with it and voila! you have a quiz in your hand. I couldn’t find a way to bring down the number of choices from five to three though.

A Quiz in Progress

Joining a Room

If you are a student, follow the above mentioned steps to get into the room and wait for the teacher to start an activity.

Choosing the Pace of the Quiz

When all the students have joined the room, you as the teacher can start the quiz. Here, you get to choose the pace at which the quiz will progress. This could either be a preset interval of your choice or the student can take his/her own sweet time to complete them.

Taking a Quiz

If you happen to be a student, start answering the questions as they start showing up on the screen. Based on how the quiz has been set, you will either see live results or will get a report directly from teacher later.

At the end of each quiz, the teacher will get a detailed report compete the name of the students and the answers submitted by them. Use this to grade them or archive it for future use.

Final Thoughts

Socrative does one thing with gusto – minimizing the pain in learning and (teaching). This is evident from their choice of technology. Without making a native app for every desktop and mobile operating system, they have embraced the universal web app format. While this makes the app fit to run on any Internet connected device, it isn’t great to look at from a desktop browser.

It is evident that the developers have painstakingly worked to ensure that the app runs on mobiles as awesome as it will on a desktop. But I guess today’s web development technologies offer the ability to deduce from which browser the user is accessing the app and serve the appropriate version of the app’s user interface. Besides that, Socrative is golden!

Share Your Thoughts!

How much fun is it to learn and/or teach online? What apps do you normally use in your campus and classrooms for learning and teaching?

When it comes to web-based task and project management apps, the Web is literally overflowing with them. You’ve got the choice between a huge range of different ones all designed to promote greater integration within businesses and generally help towards a more productive workflow. I recently looked at yaM and Podio, which both boast a wide range of features and are pretty impressive tools to help businesses collaborate.

The only problem with these kinds of project managers is that they tend to be geared towards high-end business users and tend to over-complicate themselves with features that are wasted on the average Joe such as your author here. I’m a techie, so the more complicated things are the better they will stand out with me but for most people, these advanced features can be a bit overwhelming. Think of startup companies, who don’t want to blow their IT budget on one program and who want simple collaboration tools that lets everyone in the office know exactly what they are working on.

Enter cohuman. It is, like many others in its category, a web-based task management app but there’s a spark of insight woven into the program that makes it easy to use yet still retaining some mighty features. Cohuman has recently being bought out by Mindjet, a company that develops visualisation solutions such as mind-mapping software for both Windows and Mac. You’d think that this is a marriage made in heaven, wouldn’t you?

Well, let’s take a look at cohuman to see whether this marriage is eternal, or if it is already on the rocks…

First Thoughts

cohuman is, unlike some other web-based task management apps, completely free forever for the basic version (no 30-day trial periods here, thank you very much). You can upgrade to a Pro account (which costs $19.95 a month) which gives you 2 GB of storage space and a couple of extra goodies.

The home page of cohuman

Signing up takes a few seconds and all you need to provide is your e-mail address and a password. You can also sign into cohuman using your Google account – if you do this it will integrate with your Google services such as Google Calendar and Google Docs. Once you’ve signed up and logged in, you are greeted with the dashboard, which gives you an overview of your recent activity (a bit like Facebook’s news feed) and any tasks you are working on (including ones that are overdue) .

The dashboard of cohuman

Features

Creating Tasks

Creating a task is really simple in cohuman. You simply enter the name of your task in the text box at the top of the page and click on the big green plus sign. A window pops up when you can enter some more information about the task in hand, such as who it should be assigned to, who should “follow” the task (meaning that they receive updates as well) and the due date. You can also enter comments on individual tasks and upload files.

If you have linked cohuman with your Google account then you can upload documents, spreadsheets and so on straight from Google Docs into cohuman onto a particular task, which can save a lot of time in the long run and is especially useful if your business uses Google Docs to share documents around the office.

Project Management

Projects allow members of your team to view all tasks and files related to that particular project, allowing them to keep a greater track on what is happening. cohuman has integrated a number of nifty little features into projects that make it easier to achieve this. You can add and remove members easily depending on who is working on the project, and any tasks can be organised in terms of priority and assigned to individual team members.

Managing a variety of projects in cohuman

Each project has a message board, allowing team members to post messages onto it which can be seen by all team members in that particular project (a bit like Facebook). So that you don’t forget what you have already in a project, cohuman includes a history of all activity within that particular project.

Notifications

Obviously, no task management would be complete if it didn’t notify you of any changes with your tasks. cohuman provides e-mail notifications to the default account you used when you signed up to it (although this can be changed) and allows you to keep up to date wherever you are, even when you’re not in the office.

The useful feature about these e-mail notifications is that you can alter them depending on how much information they want to convey. If you just want to get an overview of what’s happening on your tasks, then set it to low however if you want the Full Monty (say, for example, if you were the project leader) then you can set your notification level to High.

cohuman for iPhone

cohuman has another advantage over other web-based project management apps in that the developers have created a free iPhone app, meaning that you don’t have to rely on e-mail notifications and endless phone calls to the office to keep up to date. The iPhone app features pretty much the same as the web version of cohuman however the interface has been adapted for the smaller screen.

cohuman is also available in an iPhone app

Final Thoughts

cohuman definitely shines as a project management application owing to its simple interface yet powerful hidden features. It is very appealing to small businesses and startups owing to its low maintenance costs – the free account gives you 1 GB of storage, which is usually more than enough for most requirements.

At the start, I asked whether it was a marriage made in heaven between cohuman and Mindjet. The answer is: yes. When you compare the current version of cohuman to older versions, it seems that Mindjet has brought a few of its own ideas into the ring as well. The result is an easy-to-use, multi-functional project management app and one that is certainly worth having a look at.

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Cart2Cart. The developer describes Cart2Cart as an online shopping cart migration service, designed for moving data from your current shopping cart to a better one automatically. It provides users with:

– Quick and Clear Migration Process
– Very reasonable cost of service
– Demo Migration of 10 products/customers free of charge
– Migration tracking from your personal account
– Assisted Migration Service
– World-class support

Read on for more information and screenshots!

Screenshots

Setup your shopping cart software migration

See the live migration process

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in Cart2Cart:

1. Fully automated migration of products, product attributes, variants, images, orders, manufacturers, customers, currencies, etc.
2. Shopping Cart Migration Estimator for estimating the migration cost of a certain online store
3. Product import covers multiple (product gallery) images
4. Customer ID reservation
5. No Data Loss!

Requirements: One of the supported shopping carts on your site
Price: Starting at $49
Developer: MagneticOne

If you read Techcrunch’s Deadpool articles, it would seem that most of the apps that come out are destined to become parked domains and distant memories in the Internet Archive. Time and again, an exciting new app comes out, but without a business model or a sufficient user base, it soon falls on the wrong side of the Survival of the Fittest. Or, perhaps, the company gets bought out, only the purchasing company saw it as a talent acquisition and didn’t care the least bit about the app they purchased. Worse yet, the app you’ve come to rely on could decide to “pivot” and change their product or business model, breaking the very thing you liked about it.

We love how many new web apps are always coming out, but sometimes it can be hard to fall in love with an app when so many disappear. The rapid iteration can both be beneficial and harmful at the same time. It means new features and exciting new apps, but it also means that the odds of an app sticking around for the long term are worse than ever. With native apps, you’ll at worst lose support and updates if you purchased an app from a company that later died. But, with web apps, the app and your data are gone along with the company.

Have you ever had trouble from an app getting shut down? Are you excited when new apps come out and quick to try them, or would you be more likely to wait and see if the company’s going to be around for the long haul? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Reading is an enjoyable experience irrespective of whether you read a book or an article online. It’s the quality of content that counts and not the mode of consumption. You can always read an article from a magazine at a later time, but it’s hard to do so online. Sure, you can use the bookmarking apps to store the links to read later, but isn’t the most elegant solution. That’s what Instapaper and Read It Later are for.

Instapaper recently released a massive and impressive update for iOS devices, while Read It Later has also recently announced a major revamp. Read It Later is an amazing app across all platforms, but when compared to Instapaper, the buzz it gets is far less. It isn’t like one app is less feature rich than the other. Both of them are used by hundreds of thousands, but Instapaper has an influential and vocal fan base.

After the break, let us take a sneak peek at the first batch of changes about to come to the Read It Later web app.

A Brand New Interface

Old User Interface

When I said it’s a major revamp to the user interface, I really meant it. From a sleek, minimal design, developers have made the transition to a flamboyant and colorful one. The original, stripping out images to make way for the content idea has been done away in favor a brand new view that comes alive with pictures and excerpts from the articles you’ve saved to your queue.

New User Interface – Thumbnail View

The new tile view allows news items to stand out and speak for themselves. I do agree that it’s now easier and more enjoyable to find the right content when you want it. It’s particluarly helpful when you are a voracious reader with a ton of links in queue.

New User Interface – List View

However, fans of the classic list view have a toggle button, if they aren’t into this whole, new imagery concept.

Article, Image and Video Filters

Filtered Video Posts

Filters to see only articles, videos or images make a cool new addition. I don’t use Read It Later as an offline video playlist, but going forward, I sure will. You can now see all of the videos you have saved in your queue with a single click. Nice, but this feature makes me think Read It Later is heading towards becoming a full blown bookmarking app. I really hope not, there are way too bookmarking apps out there, but there are no Read It Laters.

Favorites and Bulk Edit

Favorite Articles

The Gmail-esque star icon helps you mark articles that you like as favorites. Use the drop down to change the view from the regular queue to favorites only.

Bulk Edit

Bulk Edit mode is another thoughtful addition. Archive, delete, favorite, or tag multiple items with just a few clicks in the new bulk edit mode.

Do I Like It?

In a single word, No. The new Read It Later looks a lot like every other bookmarking app around the block. The minimal reading experience without any distractions is now gone. Isn’t that the very foundation of its existence?

Article View – Old

Just look at how different the article reading views are, before and after the UI refresh. Which one do you think offers a better reading experience?

Article View – New

It’s unbelievable how many new elements have been added to the new interface and the worst part is that I can’t get rid of them. The old interface had most of these new features (now placed in the forefront prominently), except that they were all organized neatly under one.

Make no mistake, I’m not complaining about the features and the Read It Later team can add as many they as they please. But it’s this new UI with so many useless frills that worries me. At the very least, I want the clutter free reading view back.

I have a confession to make; I am a huge Harry Potter fan. This may not be too surprising if you know I’m a pretty big nerd. What may be more surprising is I just got into it within the last two years, so I had some catching up to do. But once I read all of the books and saw all of the movies, I wanted more. I started reading interviews with JK Rowling and other websites and came to find that the Harry Potter World is a very well thought out and immersive one with endless depth to the characters. Fans (myself included) wanted a resource where we could tap into that world.

Pottermore gives us that.

So what is Pottermore? From the website:

Pottermore is an exciting new website from J.K. Rowling that can be enjoyed alongside the Harry Potter books. You can explore the stories like never before and discover exclusive new writing from the author.

The site went into private beta on July 31st (Harry’s birthday) and will launch to the public at the end of the month.

Pottermore Homepage

Luckily, Yours Truly managed to get into the private beta and play around with what they have so far. Here’s what I’ve found.

Learn About the Wizarding World

The premise of the site is that you’re experiencing each chapter by clicking through, reading about some important people, places, and things, collecting items, and more.

Hogwarts Express

Each chapter is broken up into sections and each section has 3 depths to it; so double-clicking on one of the sections will take you one layer “deeper.” Moving your mouse to different items will reveal information about that particular item. As you go through each chapter, everything you do is done in real time relative to the chapter; so things you know happen in Book 4 might not apply at that moment if your in Book 1.

Some of this information you will already know, like Dumbledore is the headmaster at Hogwarts. Some of the information will be brand new from JK Rowling’s notes and archive. An example is a story about how the Vernon and Petunia Dursley met, and how JK came up with their names.

New Information from JK Rowling

At the moment, only Book 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, is available to go through. I’m guessing this is so people in the beta don’t experience every book before it’s open to the public. There are also concerns about overloading the server.

Become a Student at Hogwarts

As you move through the chapters in Book 1, you will get to experience everything that Harry first experienced, including shopping in Diagon Ally, choosing a wand (or having the wand choose you), and getting sorted into a Hogwarts house (I was very excited when I was sorted into Gryffindor).

Diagon Ally

You also get to learn spells, brew potions, and (eventually) compete in Wizarding Duals with other users.

Wizarding Duals have been undergoing maintenance since I got on the site in late August, so I haven’t been able to try that part out yet.

These sections are pretty well done as there’s more to it than just clicking the right areas of the screen.

Spell Casting

You actually have to learn how to cast spells and brew potions properly and demonstrate a certain level of skill. I like this because it gives the site more of an RPG-esq feel: you get to pick something to become good at.

These are also the things that you gain house points for; successfully brew a potion or win a dual to earn points for your house, edging you closer to winning the House Cup!

Friends, Your Profile, and Other Social Aspects

On top of the site being a game and library of Harry Potter information, Pottermore is also a social network. You have a profile, collect items, friend people, and more.

The Gateway

From the homepage (once you login), you’ll see a progress map with each book, each chapter, where you are, and where you friends are. Each avatar on the map is derived from that person’s house colors and the pet that they chose. When you friend someone you can see their progress, their activities, and the items they collect. You can also send them gifts and challenge them to duals.

You can also visit the Great Hall to see how each House is doing in the competition for the House Cup, see recent Hogwarts activity, and read about the school, the headmaster, and the founders. The same goes for your House’s Common Room. You can see recent house activity, see who’s earning your house the most points, and more.

The Great Hall

As far as your profile goes, you’re able to see your House, your wand, your notifications (delivered via owl), your trunk, and your favorite people, places, and things.

Your trunk includes anything you’ve collected throughout each chapter; items you can use for spells, gifts, and even chocolate frog cards. While it does have your “school” books in it, I do wish you could read from them, even if it’s just a small blurb.

Your Trunk

Your favorites are pretty much your bookmarks on the site. You can favorite anything you read or even entire chapters to easily access them later. I think this was a really nice touch since there is sure to be a ton of new information that will be released.

Safety First

One interesting feature of the site is that you don’t get to choose your username- the site gives you a few options to choose from. This is due to the fact that they expect a lot of younger kids (not 26 year old men) to use the site and they wanted to keep their users safe. Nicely done!

Conclusion

Obviously, the site is incredibly in-depth and I’ve just scratched the surface, but I did cover what I thought were the important parts. I’m really excited to see what else unfolds on the site. While it does have some kinks to work out (more than once I’ve gone to the site and it was down because of too much traffic), overall they did a really great job in combining this website into a social network, game, and wealth of information for any Harry Potter fan. It’s an interesting extension of the book series, and an example of ways authors can broaden their horizons into the world of web apps. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, this site is a must.