Other Ed-Tech Apps

The tools in this section are not centrally managed or supported by Baylor College of Medicine. If you need to use a tool that BCM doesn't have an enterprise solution for, Ed-Tech staff recommends exploring the pedagogical use of instructor purchase or free tools to help reduce the extra fees that students may experience with a required student purchase/vendor-based system. BCM staff recommends also that instructors test the technologies before using them with their students in order to get comfortable with the type of technical challenges that they may bring.

The list below is not a comprehensive educational technology list, but a list of instructors' most popular and well-rated tools. The Instructional Design Team can help you decide what tool is best for you.

If there is a tool that you'd like to include in this list for other instructors to know about, email Ed-Tech at ed-tech@bcm.edu.

For Wifi issues, send an email to: wi-fiissues@bcm.edu.

Available to: Anyone can create a personal account on the company site

Funding: Not centrally funded

Loom allows you to easily record both your screen and webcam (we recommend leaving your webcam on for recorded lectures). They also provide a lot of options for editing and sharing your video once you're done recording, including the ability to generate an embed code. The best part… in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Loom is offering their “Pro” platform for free to all educators! 

To embed videos from Loom, click on the share icon, and choose the embed option.

RefWorks is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases and other various sources.. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.  RefWorks is available through the TMC Library. Contact the TMC Library for login assistance.

EndNote Desktop is a multiplatform software tool that helps you manage the process of creating, storing and managing your references/citations. EndNote can save your selected references/citations from online resources (e.g. LibrarySearch, library databases and Google Scholar) and export them into your EndNote Desktop library. EndNote inserts references/citations from your EndNote Desktop library into your Microsoft Word document, and automatically creates a bibliography, so you do not have to manually do so yourself. Bibliographies are created in your chosen referencing style (e.g. APA 7th ed., RMIT Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, AGLC4, Chicago, etc.).  EndNote has a student license and full version able to be downloaded for a one time cost.

Baylor College of Medicine sells Clarivate Endnote licenses on https://bcm.onthehub.com for $75. The licenses are available to Students, Faculty and Staff of Baylor College of Medicine. The licenses (renewed on a yearly basis) are single user, 1-year licenses that expire at the end of the fiscal year. 

The Endnote licenses will continue to be fully functional even after the license expiration date, but users will not be entitled to any major version upgrades nor support from Clarivate if they are not renewed after the license expiration date.

Questions may be sent to the following email: DL-BCM-OIT-Research-Software@bcm.edu.

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.  ZoteroBib helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. It’s brought to you by the team behind Zotero, the powerful open-source research tool recommended by thousands of universities worldwide, so you can trust it to help you seamlessly add sources and produce perfect bibliographies. If you need to reuse sources across multiple projects or build a shared research library, we recommend using Zotero instead.

Padlet is a virtual bulletin board, perfect for collaborative discussions, that allows for creative collaboration using a range of different mixed media sources.

Instructors start by posing an open-ended question. Students respond with words, images, audio, or video. All responses appear on the original “wall” in real-time, and students can comment on one another’s posts, in real-time. Students can comment or reply to the work of another student or add a new strand on the topic that is introduced.

The free version of Padlet allows for a limited number of padlets. There is a trial version available for a week to test a Pro plan.

Kahoot! is a polling tool that allows to create game-like learning activities. You can create a kahoot from scratch, use their question bank to mix and match existing questions, edit a template, or customize existing kahoots created by other users.

Questions and answers are displayed on a shared screen while students answer on their devices but you can choose to display questions on their devices, too. Challenges, questions and answers can be timed or not, creating a fun and dynamic activity to help students learn concepts.

The free version of Kahoot allows you to create kahoots with quiz questions, host and play kahoots, and assign student-paced challenges to up to 100 players per game.

SignUp Genius is used to sign up for events and opportunities via online sign ups and post to digital calendars. Creators can send messages to group participants and view reports. SignUpGenius is the most popular online sign up service to organize group events. Sign up for events, message group participants and view event statistics from the app. Use SignUpGenius to simplify the process of coordinating events and people with sign ups for nonprofits, schools, sports, churches, families, colleges, businesses and organizations.

The free version of SignUp Genius allows you to create events, message group participants, and much more.

REDCap is a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. While REDCap can be used to collect virtually any type of data in any environment (including compliance with 21 CFR Part 11, FISMA, HIPAA, and GDPR), it is specifically geared to support online and offline data capture for research studies and operations. The REDCap Consortium, a vast support network of collaborators, is composed of thousands of active institutional partners in over one hundred countries who utilize and support their own individual REDCap systems.  For access, users need to send an email to redcap-support@bcm.edu.

Qualtrics Research Core is a web-based survey platform for creating, publishing, and analyzing survey data available to support teaching and academic research. The Qualtrics survey platform is highly customizable and offers advanced questions and the ability to collaborate with others. Qualtrics is not funded by the college. A line item must be added to your department budget in order to purchase a license.

Nearpod allows you to build presentations (you can import slides directly from PowerPoint or Google Slides), and your students can enter a code to follow along with your presentation and will see only whichever slide the instructor is currently presenting. They also offer options to add interactive slides where students answer questions, or even draw their response - think of how you could ask students to identify certain elements of a diagram or an anomaly on a patient image! Keep in mind though, if you haven’t used a tool like this before, we definitely recommend taking some time to get familiar with it before using it the first time. 

Peardeck is similar to Nearpod in that students view the presentation at the pace of the instructor. They do offer a few more features in their freemium version before they ask you to upgrade, though. One nice feature of PearDeck is that it integrates really nicely with PowerPoint Online and Google Slides, so there is no uploading your PowerPoint slideshow - just add the interactive slides where you want in your presentation. I especially like the “draggable” questions that allow you to have students drag and drop icons in the correct location. With either Nearpod or Peardeck, you should definitely play around with all of the options and test the software before going “live” with a class. But this is a great way to augment a live video lecture - and because students see your slides, you don’t have to share your screen! 

InteDashboard is cloud-based online team-based learning platform that helps educators digitize and streamline individual and team readiness assurance tests with immediate feedback, application case exercises, and 360-degree peer evaluations.  When administering IRATs and TRATs using InteDashboard, you’re able to see real-time data on how students and teams are performing. This enables you to see straight away which questionsthe class struggled with which may need further clarification. Having this information right at your fingertips allows you to move from the TRAT to Clarification Session with minimal delay, so you can make the most of your available class time.  For pricing and support, contact InteDashboard.

Microsoft Whiteboard is an infinite, collaborative canvas for effective meetings and engaging learning. You can use Whiteboard to collaborate with other people and accomplish many activities, from brainstorming and planning to learning and workshops.

Microsoft Whiteboard is available to all BCM instructors and students using their Microsoft Office 365 account. Microsoft Whiteboard Help.

Coggle is a mind-mapping tool that allows the user to connect similar concepts or create workflows. This could be extremely helpful when putting together differential diagnoses or determining steps for treatment. For each concept, you can add images and/or links to aid in visualization or linking out more content. 

NOTE: To embed a coggle mind map, just click on “public diagram” and copy the embed code. Note that the embedded coggle is not able to be edited.

The free version of Coogle allows you to create three private diagrams, unlimited public diagrams, PDF and image download, and many more options.