Apple a Day

Day 2 of the #JulyiPadChallenge is all about one of my favorite free digital tools, Shadow Puppet EDU!  Shadow Puppet lets students easily create videos to tell stories, explain ideas, or document the learning taking place In the classroom. 

Safe image-searching and image citation are two of my features of Shadow Puppet.  A helpful tutorial is built in to the home screen, so it’ll be a breeze for you this week even if you’re a first-time user. There’s lots of additional info and resources (scroll down for printables) here, too.  

Students in grades 3-6 in our 1:1 iPad school really became experts on this app this past school year; now I’m excited to help more middle and high school teachers discover how useful it can be for their classrooms, too!

Here’s one of my favorite ways to use it with “big kids”...as part of a spongework choice board! 

Just based on a few random tweets with them (see pic above), the kind folks at Shadow Puppet (the same team behind Seesaw, which will be featured in our challenge later in the month!) made this awesome editable choice board! I’ve loved using it with my kiddos; it’s super easy to change the squares and print new versions as needed.  

The July iPad Challenge is back by popular demand; boost your digital skills before the kiddos come back to school!  Click here to learn more about this free and easy summer PD opportunity.  

I teach and help teachers in a 1:1 iPad school district, so I designed this activity (both this year and last) with some specific skills and tools in mind.  Because we’re K-12 iPads, I didn’t create an alternate Google/Chromebook challenge, but that would also be fun and I might keep that in mind for 2016!

This challenge is designed for us to complete on our own using our iPads and should only take about 5 minutes per day.  The link above will take you to a calendar that looks something like this:

Complete one a day…or just the ones that interest you…or go at your own pace… or just whatever!  It’s a great opportunity to try out 20+ apps that we’ll be able to use or share in our classrooms.

Ever want to draw on top of a photo (a la Snapchat) without actually being in Snapchat?  You need You Doodle!   

Just click the + in the upper right corner to add a photo, and then use all kinds of drawing tools to make your masterpiece.  The share button is in the upper left when you are done, and there are many great options there, too!  

S/O to Brock from my workshop last week for recommending this cool (new to me) app!

A *teacher handed me this simple yet awesome list the other day after our workshop had wrapped up.  I loved that she was thinking purposefully and realistically about some free digital tools she wanted she (and, of course, her students!) to master in the coming school year. 

 What I love about this list in particular is how it mixes some creativity tools (Toontastic, Tellagami)...with some productivity tools (Remind, Evernote, Evernote Scannable)...with some tools that promote good digital citizenship (KidRex, PhotosforClass)...with the BEST portfolio app around, SeeSaw!  

(For the record, this teacher and her students spent last year using Google Classroom, Shadow Puppet, 30 Hands, and Adobe Voice.  So I appreciate how she’s adding some new tools to her “digital toolbox!”)

Have you thought about what would be on your iPad to-do list?  Let me know! 

*S/O to Ms. F. for using some of her summer “free” time to boost her digital skills!  As always, teachers who make time for tech training in the summer really inspire me!

Much like Remind, Evernote Scannable is now a key component of my (almost) paperless classroom.  

It’s so quick, easy, and user-friendly that I’ve never even made a tutorial or how-to guide for teachers or my students; it automatically scans any book page or document and then adjusts the image so it’s ready to share or save in seconds!  Your scans can be saved as JPGs or PDFs, depending on what you need them for.

You can see from the image below that you can also save to the Camera Roll of your device, put it in Evernote (perfect for my students who are already using it for note-taking), or...the best part...put it right into SeeSaw or Google Classroom (two of my OTHER favorite free digital tools!) 

I rave about this app so much that my students are probably tired of hearing me talk about it.  Get this on your phone and your iPad--you’ll find yourself using it all the time!  

I wrote a little about playing “ghost mode” in Kahoot here, and today I had another rewarding experience trying it out at home with my own littles.  (You know your mom is a teacher when you are playing Kahoot...at home...in the summer.) 

I had kind of forgotten about about ghost mode, to be honest, having only tried it once with big kids right at the end of our school year.  But after my daughter was in tears after missing one item and being beaten by her brother, I thought that ghost mode might give her the perfect chance to redeem herself!

I explained to my kids that ghost mode just gives you a chance to beat your previous score and is a way for you to see your own improvement.  My daughter beamed when she thought she had a second chance, and the kiddos loved the little ghost icons and the cool music.

They seemed to catch on really quickly to the idea that, if you’re beating your ghost, that means you’re improving!  I can’t wait to use this feature again when I head back to school in August.

I’ve written and spoken about Remind a bunch of times--it’s one of my favorite free digital tools to use in my (almost) paperless classroom.  

I sometimes forget to mention that you can tweet your Reminds once you have sent them.  See picture below--you can see that once I have sent the messages, I have the option to click the Tweet button (or to just send the message again through Remind.)

This screenshot is from Remind.com, which is how I usually use Remind from my laptop. If you are using the mobile app, though, just hit the share button (familiar rectangle with arrow) and then select Twitter.

This is just one more awesome and convenient feature from Remind, especially if your students follow you on Twitter!