Thursday, May 17, 2018

PairPrep: A Great Tool for Teaching ELs!


Wouldn't it be great to make a handout or textbook page digital and interactive?  Quickly grade stacks of handwritten quizzes?  Tabulate and analyze results of paper-based assessments with lightning speed?

You can...using PairPrep!  PairPrep is an online application with a lot of really cool features, including the ability to "digitize" (make interactive) any paper document--worksheets, quizzes, textbook pages, etc.  It offers "speed grading", gaming, and analytics to measure individual student learning.  It even has science content pre-loaded!
PairPrep offers a lot of benefits for the ELs in your classrooms.  For example: 
  • It makes quick work of differentiation and personalized learning
  • ELs won't suffer embarrassment from being given work that looks different from their peers'
  • You can attach videos to your digitized documents to aid comprehension (ESL students can watch YouTube videos with subtitles turned on)
  • All kids love being on computers (big surprise, right?)
  • Useful as an adjunct to purposeful grouping and collaborative work
  • Teachers can provide individualized feedback more quickly, and using Google Translate, could even write their comments in the student's first language
  • Students can search for pictures to support their learning
  • Offers practice for students who have limited experience with technology
It's a real boon to busy teachers because assignments can be differentiated without having to create entirely different documents.  Anyone can quickly and easily digitize their paper materials by scanning them as a single PDF (can be done on most copiers, printers, or by smartphone), and uploading to the site.  The functionality is super-easy and intuitive. 
I'm still new to the program, but here are a few tips I learned the hard way (will update as I get more experienced):

  • I couldn't access the PairPrep website on my computer using Internet Explorer; Chrome worked fine. 
  • After digitizing your documents, check carefully to make sure you've included everything.  I couldn't find a way to edit my document after I clicked "Save".

Check out this 3-minute demo(Oh, c'mon...it's just 3 minutes!)


[This is not a paid advertisement.  The opinions expressed here are solely those of the blogger.  No homework assignments, exams, or exit tickets were harmed in the writing of this post.] 



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