Coggle It!

Today's Tuesday Tech Tip is all about Coggle. If you have ever sought an online tool that allowed your students to create a map of relationships, then this is your tool.  You can add images or text to your coggles.  For me, the best thing about coggle, is that each map has a unique link for sharing. You can also invite others to edit your coggle.  Once your coggle is complete, in addition to sharing the link, you can download it as a PDF or as an image file. Below is an example coggle that I whipped up about the ritual of Passover. Enjoy!

Create a Starring Role for Your Students

Today's Tuesday Tech Tip revolves around two apps in particular. The first app is one that I am pretty much obsessed with because it is SO awesome! It is called Shadow Puppet Edu and it allows you and your students to create videos to tell a story, explain ideas, or document a process. Even better, the app gives you suggestions for usage. Here are just a few of the ideas/templates that they have built into the app:

When you first download the app, it walks you through a 20 second tutorial that explains how easy it is to use. It is designed for ages 5 & up. I highly recommend it. It is rated highly by several reputable educational organizations, such as graphite.org. Try it out! You will love it.

The next app is just as fabulous and it has been used heavily by one of our own! It is called Starmaker and Julie C. shared this fantastic app with me. In fact, she made me embarrass myself by testing it out with my singing. It was scary.  Anyway, Starmaker is a music video app that shares song lyrics with you on the screen, you read off the prompt and it turns it into music.  Similar to a karoake experience.  The reason that Julie and her students are enamored with this app is that a) it is a great tool to encourage reading fluency and b) it is so much fun!  The only caveat is that you need to be sure to preview the songs to ensure you and your students select G-rated songs, such as Happy.  Otherwise, you may find your students singing about things you don't want them to sing about.  

Both of the above apps are free. Shadow Puppets are easy to share and Starmakers are easy to save and playback. I hope your students enjoy their moment in the spotlight!  

Go Wild!

The Wildlife Conservation Society wants you to go wild!  They have created this FUN online avatar-building website in which you can literally build your wild self (see mine here).  No need to log in to use this fun tool either!  This activity would make a great conversation starter about protecting your identity online to stay safe on the Internet.  Below are some other great ways to use it via Tech Learning:

• Show a wild self picture, provide the beginning of a story and ask students to write or tell the rest of the story.
• Children can create an original story from scratch about their new wild selves.
• Show different wild selves and children can match the parts with the animal.  Great for an animals and habitat unit.
• Use the avatars as an activity to explore the use of adjectives and have students describe their animals.

Now it's your turn to go wild at BuildYourWildSelf.com!

Comics in the Classroom

I absolutely, positively love this website.  It is called chogger.com and it allows you and/or your students to create online comics. Simply click on Build A Comic Now (see below) and you are ready to create a masterpiece:

You might be wondering why I am sharing a comic creation tool.  Well, the reason is that there are so many different uses for comics in the classroom.  I will tell you two ways that I have recently used comics in the classroom but first, here is a great list that I came across from the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog:

• Create autobiographical comics
• Practice vocabulary words
• Practice a foreign language (Hebrew or Spanish)
• Engage in creative writing
• Create alternative endings
• Demonstrate how to solve a word problem
• And so much more if you click on the blog link above!

Recently, I've had my students create comics that demonstrate the do's and don'ts of digital citizenship.  I've also used chogger.com to create an opening slide for an upcoming presentation (see below). Chogger.com is a tool that encourages students to think creatively, explore empathy, express themselves, and practice reading skills.  I highly recommend giving it a try!

Add Some Rhythm to Your Classroom

Last week, I focused on math improvement.  This week, I'm focusing on reading comprehension. Thanks to Monica Burns, I discovered a great website called Lyrics2Learn.  Lyrics2Learn includes 15 multi-sensory reading centers that include rhythm and rhyme with repeated reading, choral reading, leveled quizzes and instant feedback.  They are designed for literacy center rotations, hence the 15 minute intervals.  If you are interested in trying it out, it is easy to set up a free 2 week trial and you can test it out during your next literacy center rotation.  If you don't want to set up a free trial but still want to test it out, click here.  

There are a variety of subjects.  For example, if you are learning about habitats, you can select that topic for that particular day's literacy center. Activities are also divided by grade level, making it possible to differentiate the learning.  Lyrics2Learn can also be used as a class with the help of the Smartboard.  Another option is to break into small groups and turn it into a fun competition.   However you may decide to use it, I hope you find that it jazzes up the learning!