It’s always important to remember that our students listening skills are in need of constant development. I’m a huge fan of Listenwise and Flocabulary, but I recently came across the app, Leela Kids. The app is full of podcasts organized by age group. These podcasts are organized by age group and by category.
Tools and Resources
Take ‘Em to Church with Preach
If 👏 you 👏 like 👏 emojis, 👏 you’re 👏 going 👏 to 👏 looooooooove 👏 PREACH! It 👏 places 👏 emojis 👏 after 👏 every 👏 word 👏 you 👏 type! 👏 It’s 👏 available 👏 as 👏 a 👏 chrome 👏 extension. 👏
Just 👏 highlight 👏 the 👏 text 👏 you’d 👏 like 👏 to 👏 preach 👏 and 👏 choose 👏 “Preach!” 👏 Your 👏 “sermon” 👏 is 👏 copied 👏 and 👏 just 👏 needs 👏 to 👏 be 👏 pasted 👏 where 👏 you’d 👏 like 👏 it 👏 to 👏 be. 👏
Have fun!
Emoji Madness
Emoji Pics Composer
Emojis are ubiquitous. Even Duolingo has a emoji course. They are a modern take on hieroglyphics that give learners the ability to communicate their feelings and understandings VISUALLY.
Here are three ways to utilize EMOJIS in your classroom:
- Telling stories- Including stories during writing is magical especially if students blog regularly. Emojis can be accessed through the keyboards on mobile devices and with hotkeys on computers. Using apps like TextingStory, will allow students to write including emojis in a very fluid way.
- Health Checks- Emojis are great to display quickly how one is feeling. Using them to determine how students feel at different points of a lesson or a day can be both impactful and fun. Apps like Assembly, Emoji Me , and Emojify=You + Emoji , allow students to customize their emojis to insane levels.
- Exit Tickets- As aforementioned, emojis are visual. They are so concise. Leveraging these allows one the ability to create exit tickets that can be created quickly, delivered quickly, and assessed quickly. Emojis are versatile enough to be used in any program or app that allows access to the keyboard. In addition, tools like Emoji Pics Composer, gives one the ability to create a visual timeline of learning that can be turned in at the end of the lesson.
Interland: Internet Safety
image via Interland
Interland is Google’s new tool to teach children about internet safety. You take the role of an explorer trying to avoid phishing attacks and being a good navigator of the internet. It’s aesthetically pleasing and game based as well. Looks like Google has a hit on it’s hands. I’m already integrating it into my first month’s lesson plans!
DESIGN.
Kung-Fu Kenny inspires us so we had to drop some heat. Channelling our inner K.Dot, this project is an explanation of design thinking in our view. You can take a look at the project by visiting here or download it by visiting our Gumdrop shop.
Go DJ: Making Youtube More Lit one Lesson at a Time
What would MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech sound backed by Kendrick Lamar’s “Be Humble?” What about John F. Kennedy imploring us to choose to go the moon backed by “Rocket Man?” Though, Youtube DJ was designed for mixing music from Youtube, it could be applied for classroom use to introduce speeches, historic events, and documentaries backed by any music you wished.
Finish Him!: Closing Lessons like a Boss
Closing your lessons is important even in video games. Here are some iOS applications that can help you to a flawless victory.
Follow up: Follow up
Last episode, I talked about inboxing.
Once you have the list of all the things rattling around in your brain, you have to sort through it. Set aside an hour or so the first time you do it so that you’re not rushed.
The #1 rule is NOTHING GOES BACK IN THE INBOX.
This isn’t like going through Grandma’s attic where you can just put something back once you’ve touched it. If you look at an item, it gets dealt with in one of four ways.
DO
If it can be done in less than 2 minutes, do it right now.
DELEGATE
Can you or should you assign the task to someone else? Then, compose an email, make a call, send a text and let that person know. Record who was delegated the task and make a clear deadline with deliverables.
Example: Janine, Will you please contact Moore’s Ice Cream Parlor about providing ice cream for the Harvest Festival by Wednesday morning’s committee meeting? We will need to know how they charge and a ball park figure based on their rates for the 3 hours of the Harvest Festival. You’ll be sharing with the committee on Wednesday. Contact me if you have any further questions.
DEFER
Don’t need to do it right now? Set the due date to one week from now and check in on it again then.
DELETE
Things have changed or the deadline passed, delete the item so it’s not taking up valuable list real estate.
There you have it. How to deal with the inbox list. The first time it might take a while. However, you should spend 5-10 minutes at the end of the day reviewing your inbox and you’ll find it will go faster and faster.
Increased Apptitude: TextingStory
APP
TextingStory is an app that allows one to simulate a text conversation between two parties.
Price
TextingStory is free with the resulting video containing a watermark from the app. If you’d like to get rid of it, there’s a $4.99 fee.
Uses
The app can be applied in a number ways.
- Exit tickets
- practicing dialogue
- interviewing experts
- book reports
- explaining processes
- add to larger projects
In a box
Inboxing.
Dumping all those thoughts that bang around in your head out into a place.
It could be an analog place like a dedicated notebook (bujo anyone?) or a collection of sticky notes affixed to your desk or monitor.
It could be a digital dumping ground like Omnifocus, Habitica, or Todoist. Maybe even the good old reminders or notes app or a cloud solution like Google tasks or keep.
What matters is that you do it consistently.
To the same place anytime you think of something. Then, you revisit that list. That is for another post though.
Choose your weapon right now.
Paper and pen will do.
Write down everything rattling around in your head no matter how big or small.
Great job.
Now grab some hot chocolate and watch some Hulu.
Intelligent Hoodlums 