Ponder

Ponder is the first “micro-reading response” tool. It gives teachers a view into the "invisible" process of learning through reading. Traditional reading response assignments are used by teachers to roughly gauge student progress, but are low fidelity and can take hours to review. Micro-reading responses distill student critical reading to its bare essentials, and are aggregate-able, which means teachers can review dozens of responses per student each day in preparation for class. Ponder is a lightweight browser extension (and iOS app) that adds an interactive, intellectual and pedagogical layer to internet content. Using the tool, students react to and share excerpts with their classmates. Their reading responses appear on a Class Feed, which students use to discuss their classmates’ ideas and teachers use to seed discussion in class. Meanwhile, Ponder’s powerful data-collecting functionality enables a teacher to quantify how much and how deeply each student is reading.