ChitCh.at, a website that allows teachers to create interactive assignment pages, came to my attention today and I’m very impressed! I admit I’m also a little jealous because here at the university we use Blackboard, and I think Blackboard could learn some lessons from ChitCh.at (why is Blackboard so very 90’s in appearance?).

The target audiences for ChitCh.at are students and teachers in Middle School and High School classrooms; however, I can see lots of potential applications for undergraduates, graduates, and professional development (take a look at a little sample I created: http://chitch.at/klass/626 the enroll code is XCHESFC). Using ChitCh.at teachers can create online flashcards and post assignments and students can respond to assignments and each others work (if you want them to) and hand in assignments.

Still in its infancy, ChitCh.at is headed in the right direction. Take a look at these useful tutorials.

How does ChitCh.at make money? According to their website: “We’re a company, so let’s face it: there has to be a business model here somewhere. Fortunately for you, our business model does not include: 1) Showing ads to your students when they’re logged in; and 2) Charging teachers for using ChitChat. So where’s the business model? For starters, we sell classroom software that interacts with our educational network to schools with ubiquitous or near-ubiquitous computing.”