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Review by Caryn Lix, Common Sense Education | Updated November 2015

Three Ring

Name: Three Ring
Item: Three Ring
Rating: 4
Author: Caryn Lix

Smooth design and a solid interface make a great organizational system

Subjects & skills

Grades This grade range is based on learning appropriateness and doesn't take into account privacy. It's determined by Common Sense Education, not the product's publisher.

2–12

Great for:

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Pros: Multiple ways to capture student content and share information, including video, audio, and short notes.

Cons: Some information can be confusing or difficult to find.

Bottom Line: Excellent tool for teachers who want to document and organize student work.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

You can use Three Ring to organize student work and to provide students with important documents and other information. Instead of keeping track of binders full of papers and jump drives full of files, you can quickly take photos and videos of student work or make notes about students and save them to their profiles. Parents can access the information to keep track of their kids' progress, and students can access the information to help them take ownership of their learning.

What Is It?

Editor's Note: The Three Ring website is no longer available.

Three Ring is a student work-flow tool -- available on the Web as well as in app form for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire -- that gives teachers a way to document and organize student work as well as share information with students and parents. When they first open the app, teachers are prompted to create an account. From there, they create classes, add students, and include tags to help improve organization. Recent changes have made it quick and easy to upload students in a single group. When students go to complete an account, the app prompts them to receive their login and password from the teacher. Once they have a class and students set up, teachers can begin to record videos, take photos, and post notes. They can then assign them to specific students, get the work back, provide feedback, and share with students and parents.

Is It Good for Learning?

It's incredibly useful to teachers and students to take photos, record videos, and write notes and then immediately organize them into portfolios. This wider range of documentation helps to update learning and assessment, supporting multimodal activities and project-based learning. Since its launch, Three Ring has made a number of improvements that have refined and improved this system. It's quick and easy to access students both from the app and the website, and teachers can comment on work, keep it cataloged in a variety of categories, and send private messages to students. Parents can also access the site to keep tabs on how their kids are doing, making this a solid option to boost parent and teacher communication.

Rating Details

Overall Rating

Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

Though it won't necessarily grab students, it's thoughtfully designed, and teachers will find it a very useful method of organization.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Offers multiple ways to demonstrate learning, including video, sound, and short notes.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

Reasonably useful tutorials provide easily accessible help.

Common Sense Reviewer

Caryn Lix Classroom teacher

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