3 Ways to Use Clips After the New Year

Clips is quickly becoming one of my favorite iOS Apps. If you have not used Clips before, please feel free to check out my tutorial. Here are three ways you may want to consider using this App:

1. Share New Year's Resolutions 

I was working in a first-grade classroom this morning, where we used Clips as a tool for students to reflect on a book they read about New Year's Resolutions. Students used the camera on their iPad to take a picture of the book cover, a New Year's selfie, and a picture of a writing piece that they wrote.

Students recorded a summary of the book and read their writing piece, which described their New Year's Resolution for the school year. Once we were finished, we published the video to SeeSaw.

2. Set Goals 

Why not use Clips as a way for students to develop a SMART Goal for the classroom? Remember that SMART Goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

Have students use the tool to reflect on their progress periodically. This could be a great way of engaging students in making and attaining goals. Students can publish their video to SeeSaw, Google Classroom, or another Learning Management System that you might use.

3. Summarize a Reading Assignment

Clips can be a great tool to summarize reading content. Whether you have a book with illustrations or not, it might be helpful for students to take several pictures related to key events in the story.  Students can take pictures from the text or their own pictures and add a voiceover to describe the events. Students can use stickers, emojis, and posters to emphasize key points!

Conclusion:

Video is a powerful tool for our students to express their thoughts, opinions, and reflect on learning. Whether you are using Clips or another platform, it is important to have different ideas for using this valuable tool.

Noisli: A Customized Concentration Solution for Any Device

Many teachers turn to ambient noise, classical music, or meditation music to help students with concentration and relaxation, which may be effective for some students and not so effective for others.

A Customized Concentration Solution

Whether you want to provide a one-size-fits-all solution for your entire class or give your students a chance to customize their noise solution, the Noisli is extremely helpful to use!

There are three different versions of Noisli that you can use:

• Noisli Web Version
• Noisli Chrome Extension
• Noisli iOS Version 

Noisli is very simple to use. Choose a noise combination that will work best for you, whether you want to increase productivity, relax, a random set of sounds, or create your own customized set of noises. Noisli has a vast library of sounds, such as rain, a fan, and noise from a coffee shop.

Next, choose whether not you want to use the timer feature. Set the timer for a specific amount of time and enjoy!

Conclusion:

Concentration is such a valuable commodity in a noisy and hyperconnected world. Today's classrooms are no different - often containing a simultaneous array of individual and small group activities occurring. Noisli is a great solution regardless of the device that students use!

Clips Makes Video Creation Easy for Anyone!

Clips is quickly becoming one of my favorite iOS Apps. If you are not familiar with this tool, it provides you with a quick and easy way to turn images and videos into movies. I like to think of it as a simpler version of iMovie, which makes it extremely easy to use in an elementary classroom.

I love the easy to use interface, which makes it extremely easy to add content. Users can add images or video from their camera or Camera Roll (library). There is also a feature called Posters, which allows you to add title slides to your movies. Just keep in mind that you have to use the red record button (red oval button at bottom of your screen) to "record" your clips. If you do not use this button, you cannot add your clips.

There are also additional helpful features too, like adding stickers, emojis, and music (from built-in soundtracks).

Want to learn how to use Clips? Check out my tutorial below:

Wheel Decide: A Useful Decision Making Tool

Having trouble with decision making? Want to give students options for completing an assignment? Sometimes random choice gives students a voice in completing assignments!

Wheel Decide is an actual website that can help you make random decisions. To create your own customized decision wheel, choose the "Modify" button in the bottom right corner of your screen.

Add up to 100 different choices for students from the list provided.

Then, share your wheel with a link, social media, or through embedding it on a website or blog!

Unsplash Photos: A Great Option for Royalty-Free Images

Images are an important part of learning; however, copyright laws tend to be confusing and murky. Therefore, it is important to find tools that will help you find royalty-free images.

If you use Google Slides, then you might want to check out the Unsplash Photos Add-On. You can easily search and add high-resolution royalty-free photos to your Slides presentation.

Yes, Google Slides does have a feature to insert royalty-free photos into your presentations. However, it's library is often limited. I like Unsplash Photos because it has a variety of high-quality images, which have been curated by people from around the globe.

3 Tools to Make Electronic Reading Easier

There is an art to reading electronically, which can make it a difficult task for our students and even colleagues. There are a number of tools available to help students read in an electronic format, whether they struggle with dyslexia, ADHD, or just need an extra support. 

Here are a few that I recently came across. 

1. Visor (Chrome Extension) Free 

I like Visor for reading while browsing in Chrome. This is the perfect tool for reading news articles, working in Google Docs, etc. The free Chrome Extension utilizes a screen dimmer to dim your screen, making it easier to focus on content on your Chrome Browser. Your cursor controls the point of focus feature, which highlights text line by line. It is also important to note that you can still utilize your cursor while Visor is on. 

2. Focus Reader View (Chrome Extension) Free

Focus Reader View is a very simplistic, but effective tool. If you use Safari, then you might be familiar with the Safari Reader View. Focus Reader View is essentially the same thing for Chrome users. How does it work? Simply find an article that you like, turn on the Chrome Extension, and it gets rid of any distracting text, advertisements, and graphics from your screen. 

3. Reading Focus App - (available on the MacBook) $5.99

Do you remember using an index card, bookmark, or piece of paper to focus on one line at a time? The Reading Focus App for the MacBook is very similar to the strategy that many of us used or still use today. It provides you with a digital index card, which you can use to focus on one line at a time. It provides you with a variety of tools to customize the look and feel of your index card. If you are working in multiple applications like iBooks, Word, etc., this might be a good tool to use. 

ExploreLearning Gizmos: A Great Simulation Tool

How often do you use technology to provide your students with hands-on learning experiences? It can be a difficult task; however, providing students with hands-on learning opportunities is extremely important. ExploreLearning's Gizmos is a Math and Science library of simulations. 

I recently came across a Hurricane Motion Gizmo during a recent search on Twitter. I was amazed at the quality of the simulation and the type of data that you can analyze. Simply drag the hurricane to analyze its path. Choose the weather station data to get wind speed data, cloud cover, and pressure information. 

ExploreLearning has an extensive library of Gizmos that explore a variety of math and science-related topics. Here are a few samples!

Circulatory System

Graphing Skills