Design, Science and Technology

As schools are coming to the end of the year in my part of the world, many of us will begin to think about changes we might make next year in our classroom...and chances are for some that will include the concept of gamification.

This post from Edudemic provides descriptions of three edtech tools that may help you in this process.

* Socrative is a free program that allows you to create questions and students may answer using a wide variety of platforms.

* Kahoot is also a response system, but is designed gaming mechanics to provide motivation and engagement. There are many unique features to this tool and it worth checking out their website at https://getkahoot.com/

* FlipQuiz is similar to Jeopardy. It "makes it easy to design game-show style activities in the classroom that transform learning into an engaging and entertaining experience."

The post includes an introductory video for each tool.

Thx Beth Dichter!

Building Engagement In

There are ways to BUILD engagement into a website's design. Here are three secrets to promote engagement not included in this excellent Slideshare:

* Place Email Subscription High Up and Prominent. 
* Include curated User Generated Content on every page.

* Create CTAs with CONTRAST.

Email Subscriptions
When your "Subscribe To Our Email List" Call to Action is high on the page in a Can't Miss It spot you communicate a clear "we want YOU" signal. 

UGC Everywhere
When you curate User Generated Content to your site you communicate how well you listen and care for community members. The website isn't all about YOU and what you think the inclusion of UGC says.

CTAs
I see to very common mistakes in websites I'm asked to review as Director of Marketing for Atlantic BT in Raleigh (http://www.atlanticbt.com ): NO CTAs or poorly contrasted CTAs. I PREFER CTAs to be buttons and usually test red, orange or green (depending on the background color). I'm convinced there is no ONE magic CTA color but the contrast is what makes a Call To Action helpful or not, clicked on or not, converting or not.  

Engaging and experience should always go hand-in-hand, regardless of the implementation.