Plagiarism Checkers

I've been asked about catching plagiarism several times recently so here are some tools that could help out with this. 

One of the easiest things you can do is to copy and paste a small section of the text in question into Google and put quotes around it.  If the work is plagiarized, Google will often return a search with the page(s) that contain the exact phrase you searched for.  From there, it's usually easy enough to spot the rest of the plagiarized text on the webpage.

There are free tools that can make this even easier.  The Plagiarism Checker is a tool that allows you to copy and paste a section of text into a field on their website and search for plagiarism.  In my tests it worked better than some of the alternatives.

The one free tool for detecting plagiarism that I thought detected plagiarism the best was Plag Tracker.  I liked this tool because it gave a percentage of plagiarized work in its report and reported multiple sites where the identical work appeared.  One thing I didn't like about this site as much is that it doesn't consistently seem to be as fast as Plagiarism Checker.  One of the times I attempted to use it, the service delayed my results and emailed a report to me later in the day.  I still appreciated the detailed report, but I found having to wait a bit of a turn off.

There are other services out there, but I found both of these to be better than the others I tested.  Feel free to recommend you favorite resource for catching plagiarism and I'll be sure to pass it along.

 

Fun, Teacher Approved Resources

The following three resources have earned a great deal of positive feedback from teachers.  They're easy to set up and easy to use. 

1.  Jeopardy Labs allows you to create Jeopardy games very easily.  Forget setting up hyperlinks in a notebook file, or PowerPoint presentation.  Jeopardy labs makes it so easy with their template based creation tool.  They store the game online for you and you can easily modify it after it's been created.  They give you a direct link to your game, so playing it in class is a snap.  It was a huge hit this summer and I highly recommend it.

2.  Bingo Baker is great for creating Bingo style review games.  This online tools is easy to use and creates .pdf files that can be printed and distributed to your students.  Teachers who came to our summer training loved this tool.

3.  Crosswordlabs is another great tool.  It allows you to make crossword puzzles that can easily be printed.  Teachers loved how easy it was to use.

I'd be happy to help out if you have any questions with these or any other resources recommended on this blog.

Remind 101

     Remind 101 is a service that we blogged about last year and we encourage anyone who has not used it to take a look at what it can do for you.  Basically, it provides a way for you to send messages and reminders (via texting) to parents and students with-out either party having access to phone numbers.  The one minute video below should give you lots of ideas on how you can use this free and easy-to-use service. 

Use it first because it will help your students and parents, but also realize the impact it could have on your APPR. 




Want to try it?  Send a text to:  415-418-7433  In the message type:  @dud 
I'll send you a text at 8:00 tonight.