Student feedback through the Dropthought LTI

dejonghed07 · ‎05-02-2017

September 2018 Update: I was informed by the sales rep that there is no longer a free version of dropthought.

Since that stops me from using it, I thought it might prevent others from trying it out.

Teachers are always looking for ways to obtain feedback from students. After the CanvasLIVE presentation Inte-GREAT-ions: The Wide (Wild) World of Apps @tdelillo provided a list of LTI integrations that they installed at the account level. Her list included the Dropthought LTI, that allows individual students to provide feedback to an instructor. Feedback can be obtained wherever an instructor places Dropthought throughout a Canvas course.

I found out that Dropthought is a free LTI, so I tried it out. This video (from the Dropthought website) provides an overview of how to use the tool to obtain individual student feedback:

DropThought Instant Feedback for Higher Education from Dropthought on Vimeo.

Setup

The most time-consuming part of set up was when I requested a free account through their website: For Education - www.dropthought.com They were having a server issue at the time and I couldn’t log in. However, I located the customer service rep’s email on their website and after sending him an email, he quickly fixed the issue.

:smileyinfo: After you create an account, you'll receive an email that contains a username and password for the website. You'll also receive a URL, Consumer Key and Shared Secret for the App.

Dropthought App

After that, setup is simple/easy.

Install the Dropthought App in your course using the information in the email
Create an assignment
Type your question as the assignment title
Select External Tool and Dropthought as the external tool.

All that is required within the assignment is the question placed as the assignment title, the point value, and selecting Dropthought as the external tool:

Instructor view of successful feedback question placed in an assignment:

Instructor View of feedback question

Student view of the feedback form (once they click on the assignment)

Student View of the Form

The form is always the same, just the instructor question changes.

Student Responses

If there is a point value for the assignment, the points enter into the gradebook. The responses collect into an visual dashboard http://dashboard.dropthought.com/live/ that can also be viewed/responded to through the mobile app. The instructor mobile app is called DT Manager: iPhone and Android.

Advantages:

Free
Easy to use
Visual Dashboard on the website
Quickly View/Respond through the App

Disadvantages:

Only obtain feedback for individual students (not groups)
Points enter in the grade book, but not the responses
You can only ask one question

I'd be interested in hearing how others are using this tool!

tdelillo · ‎05-03-2017

What a great synopsis of Dropthought, @dejonghed07 ! To be honest, I had never actually used it because one of our other admins set it up. But that's a cool little tool!

Of course, now that I see how it functions, I am very much re-thinking our account-level integration, seem it seems like all results will go to the single dashboard (and no one but the person who set it up will have the login credentials for that dashboard). I think it would be much better as a course-level integration, or at most a subaccount-level integration.

dejonghed07 · ‎05-03-2017

Thanks @tdelillo ! It would be interesting to see what happens when individual instructors enable it when installed at the account level. The dashboard login information was emailed to me along with a consumer key/shared secret. It functions fine when installed within my individual courses.

dnoud · ‎02-22-2018

This is a super helpful recommendation, @dejonghed07 . I discovered your post after watching a recording of the awesome Inte-GREAT-ions: The Wide (Wild) World of Apps CanvasLIVE presentation by Tracey.

I have installed DropThought at our account level and it is working great for the first course where we have let it loose to trial, except for naming our institution incorrectly when we send our feedback responses. I cannot find a setting where I can modify this ourselves. @dejonghed07 , do you still have the customer service rep’s email address by any chance?

Stay awesome!

dejonghed07 · ‎02-23-2018

Hi @dnoud ,

The faculty feedback we received in our online workshops using dropthought was very worthwhile, but it stopped working for a week during a faculty online workshop last semester. Now, I'm leery of using it again. Their support email is cloversupport@dropthought.com

We really like Flipgrid - if you haven't tried that, I recommend testing it out!