Help Create Student Engagement with ClassKick

Student engagement is a highly debated issue in education today. Brain research has revealed that we can engage students through recruiting interest, sustaining effort and persistence, and helping develop self-regulation skills (CAST, 2017).

Providing timely feedback is one way to create engagement and help sustain student effort and persistence. ClassKick is an excellent tool to provide students with engaging assignment, monitor progress, and provide timely feedback. ClassKick is free and is available for students to use on an iPad, Chromebook, laptop, or desktop.

Features

There is a paid version of ClassKick; however, the free version offers many great tools and resources for both teachers and students in the classroom.

• View "live" student work and write real-time feedback. You can watch your students as they progress through a lesson without any expensive monitoring software. 

• Share content through text, written instructions, audio recordings, text, links, and images. 

• Students can "raise their hand" if they have any questions. Teachers can see who has a question and offer timely help. 

• Real-time feedback is enhanced with the ability to add teacher comments, pre-made feedback stickers, annotate student's work, and grade assignments. 

• You can enable student helpers, who provide feedback to other students. 

Want to know more? Check out the ClassKick in 1 Minute video below:

How do I get started?

First, visit the ClassKick website or open the App to to create a free account. 

Next, you will want to create your first assignment. Add content in the form of text, audio, images, and recordings. 

Finally, open your assignment and share with your students by using the ClassKick App and entering your class code. 

Create Amazing Videos with Toontastic 3D

Toontastic is even more amazing than before with Toontastic 3D. The company is now owned by Google and offers engaging ways to tell your stories on iOS and Android devices.

How does it Work? 

First, you will want to design your 3D character by using your photo or drawing your own. The animations are absolutely animation.


Next, you will begin plotting your story. How will it begin? Where is the climax? How will it end? Toontastic gives you the tools to create an amazing story!


Then, the fun begins! You can bring your characters to life through animations, narration, and creating a soundtrack.

Finally, you can easily export your video without the need for an account.

Conclusion:

Toontasic 3D is a great tool for creating innovative and engaging videos on any device. Whether you have WiFi or none at all, you have the ability to work offline and easily export your videos. The App is free and available to download with no advertisements or in-app purchases!

14 Things Siri Can Do

Siri is a powerful tool that often gets overlooked; however, it has the power to help you stay organized, increase efficiency, quickly find information, and perform tasks with very little effort. Just when you learn one trick, there are new things added each day!

Here are 14 things that you can do with Siri to increase your productivity inside and outside of the classroom:



Click here to download the PDF version of the 14 Things Siri Can Do Cheat Sheet.

If you are interested in seeing the full list of Siri commands, here is an excellent article from CNET that has even more!

NEW! Quizlet Learn Adapts to Your Student's Needs

How do you typically prepare your students to take a quiz? Do you help them create a study plan? Does your approach customize and adapt to your student's individual needs? Quizlet launched a new tool called Quizlet Learn, which does exactly that.

How Does it Work? 

Tell Quizlet what materials you need to master and when you need to learn them by. Quizlet Learn develops an individual study plan that adapts to your needs.

The program identifies patterns and makes adjustments to increase or decrease difficulty while you are studying. Quizlet Learn provides you with up-to-date information on your progress to keep you focused and motivated. Quizlet Learn is currently available on iOS, but an Android version will be coming soon.

Conclusion:

Quizlet Learn is an excellent tool to increase student engagement and motivation. Students have the ability to set due dates and measure their progress to see how close they are to reaching their goal. Quizlet customizes review materials to provide the appropriate rigor and relevance to challenge students to learn material more effectively.

Want to learn more? Check out this brief video:

How Do You Recap? A Great Way to Use Formative Assessment in the Classroom

Formative assessments are a great way of helping gauge student understanding and there are a variety of tools available to help teachers. I was recently made aware of a really great tool while in a Twitter chat with Karen (@Teach4SpclNeeds). She told me about Recap, a video formative assessment tool that can be used on a multitude of devices.

Getting Started 

To begin, teachers have to sign up for a Recap account and create a class. When you create a class, you will have to enter in the names of students much like SeeSaw.

Once you have your roster set up, students can access your class by going to the following link. You can choose how you want your students to sign into the App, whether using a PIN or email account (for older students). When students login to the course, they will need to choose their name from the list of students.

Creating Your First Assignment

Assignments are known as Recaps. You can create your first Recap by signing into your account and accessing your class. Once you are in your class, you can develop a Recap with a question (or questions) and / or a video explanation.

There are also ways to customize the way your students respond. For instance, you can choose the maximum recording time (15 seconds to 2 minutes), due date, and adding an assess yourself poll question.

Student Responses

Students can access the assignment by using the following link to log into their accounts and entering the PIN (or email address) associated with the class.

Students choose their name from the class roster and open up the Recap assignment in their dashboard. Once they access the question, they can record their video response.

Increasing Engagement

Once a video has been posted to Recap, teachers can use a variety of tools and features to check understanding, showcase learning to parents, or automatically combine all Recaps into a class video called the Daily Review Reel.  Videos can easily be shared with parents or other educators through a link or Twitter.

Conclusion

When I think of formative assessment, I am sometimes reminded of an episode of The Office. The main character, Michael and his sidekick Dwight, drives into a lake while using a GPS. Why? They did not have an understanding of where they were going.  I am a firm believe that when we don't understand where our students are going, we can end up with a sinking lesson or unit.

Our students can end up in a similar predicament if we are unsure where instruction is headed. Are students understanding material? What misconceptions do they have? What are they struggling with? This is why formative assessment is a great tool for gauging student understanding.

Recap is an excellent tool to help students develop a deeper understanding of content, so that can articulate where they are going and where they have been.

Video Tutorial on Using Numbers to Create Interactive Worksheets and Timelines

Thanks for the great feedback that I received about one of my latest posts titled More Than a Speadsheet: 3 Ways to Use Numbers in the Classroom. You spoke and I listened!

Here is a video clip describing how to create an interactive worksheet and interactive timeline. Enjoy!

More Than a Spreadsheet: 3 Ways to Use Numbers in the Classroom

I recently sat down to learn about how to use Numbers in student learning. If you are not familiar with Numbers, this is Apple's spreadsheet software, similar to Excel and Google Sheets, which comes with your Macbook or iPad.

Here are three ideas to use Numbers in your classroom.

1. Manipulatives 

Vocabulary is an important component of any class regardless of your content area. Numbers can be used to create a variety of interactive vocabulary exercises to allow hands-on learners to interact with content.

The activity on the right is something that I developed for a teacher in my school to allow students to drag and drop vocabulary (blue boxes) words into the right positions.


***BONUS IDEA!

Because you can add video clips into your spreadsheet, why not record yourself giving instructions, doing a sample problem, or sharing resources? This helpful strategy provides students with the scaffolds and supports that may be necessary to complete the task successfully. 




2. Create a Timeline

Timelines are useful tools to visualize the order of historical events, understand the parts of a story, or understand a process.

Numbers is a great tool to create an interactive timeline with text boxes, hyperlinks, images, and video files.

As an example, I created a sample timeline of important events in my life.










3.  The Perfect PBL, STEM, or Design Thinking Tool 

PBL, STEM and Design Thinking have become an important part of today's classrooms. Instead of using separate programs to compose your project, Numbers gives you the ability to create, store, and showcase various types of media in one place.

During my time exploring Numbers, I saw an example of how students used an iPad to complete a Circuit Training lesson.  To complete the activity, students were asked to do the following:

• STEP 1:  Access a Numbers spreadsheet, containing a map and detailed instructions of the circuit tasks they needed to complete. 

• STEP 2:  Students were asked to use an iPad to record themselves doing each circuit exercise. As they completed each exercise, they were asked to embed the video from their iPad into the spreadsheet. I love the fact that you can watch the video in Numbers! 

• STEP 3: Students were asked to use an App called Cardiio to analyze their pulse after each activity. Students input the data into Numbers to see the impact of each activity on their body. 

• STEP 4: Students used Numbers to create a chart to analyze and visualize their data.

• STEP 5: Students used the "selfie cam" on their iPads to record a video analysis explaining the results. 

Conclusion:

Do you use Numbers? If you are a Mac or iOS user, you may want to seriously consider learning how to use this valuable and under utilized program. Why? This amazing spreadsheet tool can offer so many possibilities and modalities for students to learn more effectively. 

4 Ways to Unleash the Power of Audio with Clyp

I love finding new tools to record audio! I just came across an excellent post by the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog called Clyp.

Clyp is an audio recording application that is available on iOS, Android, and as a web app. Users can use Clyp to upload or record up to 100 MB worth of audio content for free! Once your content is uploaded, Clyp creates a URL that you can share or embed on a website.

This is an excellent tool for younger students because there is no sign in required. It reminds me very much of Vocaroo.

How could I use this? 

• Thinking Prompts - Instead of a writing prompt, why not give students a thinking prompt? Give students the option of typing text OR using Clyp to record a 30-second response to a question.  Once students publish their response, they can share the link in the commenting section of Google Classroom, Schoology, or Edmodo. You could even have them add the link to a Padlet note. 

• Book Trailers - Movie trailers get movie goers excited to watch films, why not do the same with books? Have your students create a 1-minute clip summarizing their favorite book. Publish your audio file to Clyp to generate a URL. Use the URL to create a QR Code that you could place on the back of the book, a poster, or flyer. 

• Blogger of the Day - Students are constantly in and out of our classrooms for a variety of reasons, such as illness, appointments, and other absences. Why not assign 1 student per day to be the "blogger" of the day? Instead of actually writing a blog post, why not have the student share the three things you should know from class today? Post this audio clip to your class website, blog, or use social media. 

• Weekly Update - Parents want to be connected to our classrooms, but often do not have much time. Why not create a 1 - 2-minute weekly update of what happened in your class this week? Share news, events, and information about assignments. Want to get more parents involved? Why not have your students help you create a weekly update. Parents love to hear their kids. Publish your audio file to Clip and share it via email or social media. 

NOVEMBER IS CLICKS FOR A CAUSE MONTH! 

Addison Jacobs was born on 1/13/15, one month prematurely with unknown underlying medical issues. At nine months old, she was diagnosed with Shwachman-Diamond syndrome (SDS), a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, bone marrow dysfunction, leukemia predisposition, and skeletal abnormalities. Addison requires a lot of care with all of her complex medical issues. All of her medical necessities trips to Philly for her care and time off work creates an enormous financial strain on her family.  

During the month of November, I need your help to make a difference for Addison and her family! Here is how!

• Visit and share blog posts - I will be personally donating 1 cent to her family’s medical fund for every blog visit for the entire month of November.

• Make a donation - for the price of coffee or lunch, make a donation to Addison’s fund via credit card, debit card, check, or cash. Sign up to make a donation using this Google Form. I will send you an invoice via PayPal. At the end of the month, I will make a donation directly to the family.

• Contribute to Addison’s GoFundMe page

• Show your support with a Like - ​  “Like” Addison’s Facebook page and share words of encouragement!

Clicks for a Cause has been helping children in need since 2013! For more information, check out my Clicks for a Cause Page!

Cut Past the Baloney with BaloneyMeter App

Critical thinking is an important part of learning and involves the ability to reason effectively, utilize systems thinking, make judgements, and solve problems. Although it is an important component of learning, how do you help your students to think beyond the obvious?

You may want to consider using a simple tool called the Baloney Meter. This free iOS App leads you through several questions to consider the relevance of a claim, website, and even political candidate!

Students (even teachers) can use a sliding scale to answer several different questions to determine the claim's relevance:

• Is the claim baloney? 
• Is its source reliable? 
• Can it be tested?
• Is there confirmation for it?
• Can there be another explanation? 

As you use the sliding scale, your screen changes color to determine its relevance or irrelevance. 

Although it is not a perfect tool, it is a great tool to help your students to begin thinking critically about the information, claims, and websites they come in contact with on a regular basis. 

Long Live Flashcards! How Tiny Cards is Changing the Way Students Learn Vocabulary

Vocabulary tends to be one of the biggest barriers all educators face in our classrooms, regardless of subject area. Even though our students come to our classrooms with diverse background experiences and learning needs, they still need options for how language, vocabulary and symbols are represented.

Tiny Cards iOS App:

Tiny Cards is a free iOS App designed for students to quickly learn new vocabulary terms in effective and efficient ways. Students can find user-created flashcards on a plethora of topics such as foreign languages, geography, history, and science.  You also have the option of creating and publishing your own flashcards with a free account.

Options for Learning:

I like the fact that Tiny Cards represents vocabulary terms in different ways for students through text, images, and spoken text. I also like the fact that Tiny Cards provides users with different ways of learning terms through interacting with flashcards, multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and self-assessments.

Conclusion:

The App is designed in a way that customizes instruction and provides students with the appropriate scaffolds, support, and rigor. After reading more about the App and its privacy agreement, I have found that this is an excellent tool for students ages 12 and older.

Bridging the Gap One Recap (App) at a Time

What does your classroom typically look like during the last five minutes of class? Be honest! It sometimes is a collection of backpacks zipping, talking, and the occasional student who wants to get homework done. The last five minutes of class is critical to the comprehension of our students. Yet, how many of us are guilty of wasting 5 minutes a day? If we waste five minutes a day for a week, we have wasted 25 minutes of instructional time for a week, 2 class periods a month, and 18 class periods a year. How can we better use this time period?

I believe the key lies Carol Ann Tomlinson's quote, “Formative assessment is the bridge between today's lesson and tomorrow's.” How can we better bridge the gap between today and tomorrow?

Recap:

An excellent tool to accomplish this important task is called Recap. Available on the web or as an iOS App, teachers can develop classrooms where students can respond and reflect on what they have learned through short video messages.

How Does It Work?

Teachers have to create an account and create a class for students to enroll in. Students have the option of enrolling in a class via email address or with a pin. This is a very helpful feature for students without email addresses.

Student Login with a Pin:

In order to use the pin feature, teachers will have to manually enter in the names of their students. If you are familiar with SeeSaw, the process is very much the same. If you are having students use the pin to login, they will enter the pin and then choose their name from a list (much like SeeSaw).

Creating a Recap:

Assignments are known as "recaps." Teachers can enter in a question via text and / or with video instructions. This is perfect for students, who may have difficulty with understanding what you are trying to ask and may need to hear your voice.

As a teacher, you can set how long you want student "recaps" to be (2 minutes or less), when it is due, who to send it to (perfect for differentiation), and include an Assess Self Poll question.

Student Recaps:

Students will receive a notification that they have a Recap due and have to respond to the question(s). Students will open up the Recap and use their device's camera to record a brief message answering your question.

Receiving Student Work:

Once students are done with their Recaps, teachers can access their dashboard and watch student activity. They can see who responded, view poll responses, and leave timely feedback for students.

I also like the daily recap feature, where teachers can see the Recap question(s) and responses of their entire class in one video. Very cool!

Conclusion:

Providing students with options for how they respond is an important component of learning. Recap provides students with the ability to verbally share their responses, which is helpful for students who struggle with writing or typing. I also like the fact that students need to quickly respond to a question in 2 minutes or less, essentially creating an elevator speech. It is so important for our students to quickly gather, assess, and state their thoughts in a logical and organized fashion. This can be a great tool for helping students do so.

Tell Your Story One Frame at a Time with Lego Movie Maker

Video is a powerful teaching and learning tool for our students. As devices becoming increasingly more mobile, there are many Apps available for our students to create powerful multimedia projects. I recently read a survey that suggests that 2/3 of American adults consider themselves to be visual learners.

This is why the popularity of social media posts increases when a picture is attached. It is why many of our students find watching and creating images and videos so powerful.

Lego Movie Maker:

Lego Movie Maker is a free iOS App that makes sharing and telling your story extremely easy. Do you remember the days of claymation? Lego Movie Maker uses the same principles of claymation to combine your iPad and the power of image, as you tell your story frame by frame.

Whether you are using Lego figurines or using objects (or people) around your room, this App is extremely easy to use. Students who are avid movie producers and those with very little experience can easily publish, edit, and create captivating movies that tell a story.

Conclusion:

Do you use video in your classroom? If so, I'd love to hear about your favorite tools.

Leave Your Popsicles at Home and Try Random Student for Teacher Instead!

Summer is a great time to recalibrate and begin to thinking about tools to make your life easier. Random Student for Teacher is an excellent iOS App that you may want to consider to integrate into your classroom for next year. Why?

The free version of the Random Student for Teacher App will allow you to create 1 class, while the paid version will allow you to create 9.

This is a great tool for you with a way to randomly call on students. You may have Popsicle sticks in your classroom, but this App takes things a step further:

• Import your student rosters from Google Classroom! This is perfect for Google Apps for Education schools!

• Have your device speak the name of the student aloud

• Take attendance so absent students are not called

• Create random groups

I like the fact that you can add your own student photos, but you can also use the photos to quiz yourself on student names. This is an excellent way to quickly learn names!

The New Goal Setting Feature on the Google Calendar App

If you are an Android or iPhone Google Calendar user, you may have noticed a new feature called Goals. This new feature will help you find time to work out, build a skill, spend time with friends and family, or spend some alone time. The best part is that the App does most of the work for you!


How Does It Work?

Instead of entering in a new event or task on your mobile device, choose the new Goal option. Then select the type of goal that you would like to set. Google Calendar currently will help you set goals to work out, build a skill, spend time with friends and family, schedule time for yourself, or help you organize your life.



Once you choose the type of goal you would like to set, you will be prompted to enter in information. For example, if you were to schedule an exercise goal, the App would want to know the type of exercise, frequency, duration, and best time for you.

Once you set the goal, it becomes apart of your Google Calendar schedule throughout the day. If you have to schedule another event during this time, the App will automatically reschedule for you.

Conclusion:

Goal setting is an important part of learning, whether you are a student or adult because humans are naturally goal-oriented. In every human, there is a part of us that wants to measure our performance, accomplishments, and how we stack up against the competition.  I

This is critical when we are in the process of learning a new skill or strategy. Goal-setting tools provide the supports we need to self-regulate our efforts. Although, goal-setting may look very different among learners, the Google Calendar App could provide a useful tool for students who engage with electronic media, are visually motivated, or need the scaffolds and supports that this tool provides.

Teaching Number Lines iOS App

I was sitting in a first grade classroom today and watched a cool lesson on teaching number lines. The teachers did a great job using manipulatives, word problems, and using the SmartBoard. Since we use iPads in the classroom, I thought I would check out an App that may be helpful.

One of my favorite Apps is called Teaching Number Lines, which is an excellent tool for counting, ordering, adding, and subtracting. This App provides students with a unique way to interact and act out the concept of a number line. I love the fact that the App also encourages kids!

We know from brain research that not every student learns the same way. Using this iPad App can provide students with visual and tactile ways of representing the concept of a number line. This can be an extremely helpful strategy to help all students learn the concept of number lines.

iOS Update to Google Slides

Google recently announced a nice update to Google Slides for iOS. If you have used this App in the past, you may have noticed that you were unable to change the background theme of slides. With this most recent update, you are now able to create amazing presentations with just a tap!

How does it work? 

1. Open up the Google Slides App on your iOS device


2. In the top-right corner of your screen, tap on the three vertical dots. This will open up a side menu.



3. Select "Change Theme"


4. Choose the theme that works best in your presentation.

Now all of the themes that you love in the web version of Google Slides are available on your iOS device!

Help Students Manage Time with the 30/30 App

Time management has to be one of the most difficult tasks for students (and adults) to master. There are so many things to do and keep track of each day! When we are helping our students become expert learners, we need to help them develop important self-regulation skills, like sustaining effort, managing time, and even breaks.

A Great Time Management App:

One of my recent graduate students wanted to find an App that could help her students plan and manage the amount of time they spent on assignments, tasks, and even breaks. She found an excellent iOS time management app called 30/30, where students set up a customized list of tasks and the expected time of each task. When students start the timer, you will be prompted when to move on to the next task.

How can you use this App?

Step 1: Create Your Task List

Students can open up 30/30 and create their own new Task List, where they can customize the task name and amount of time spent on each task. Add as many tasks as you would like.

Step 2: Create Your Tasks

Add Tasks to your Task List, customize the amount of time spent on the task, and even add an icon. I would highly recommend adding time for breaks! Students can even reposition the tasks in an order that makes sense for them.

NOTE: If you go to settings, you can email task lists to others. This may be a little tricky if email isn't setup on student iPads; however, this could be a great tool for 1:1 environments.

Step 3: Begin Using Your Task List

When students are ready to use their Task List, they can open it and press play. They have the ability to add time, decrease time, check the task as complete, or even delete the task. 

My Thoughts

With an easy-to-use interface, this App is a powerful tool for any classroom. It can help not only our students manage time, but perhaps we can use it ourselves. How often do you find yourself wondering where all the time went? 

Do you have a similar tool that you use? I would love to hear about it.