Interactive Learning | Smore Newsletters

page background

Nearpod

Nearpod is an interactive presentation and assessment tool that can be used to convert your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations into engaging lessons for your students. Easily create interactive multimedia presentations to engage your audience. Push your presentation to the student devices. End-of-lesson reports to help you monitor progress and plan future instruction. Students can create their own presentations to share with the class.

Quizizz

Quizizz is a classic game quiz that is player-paced. Quizizz lets you create fun formative assessments in a self paced game show format! The questions are sent directly to the student devices. It will read the questions to the students! You shuffle the questions and answers, set timers, and print detailed reports for each question as well as for each student. Complete with avatars, leaderboards, music and memes, Quizizz will keep students engaged in their learning for sure.

bulb Digital Portfolios

Create beautiful digital portfolios with bulb. Bulb is a great place for students to showcase their work - and best of all, bulb goes with them from grade to grade and even after graduation. The main goal of the service is to provide a space where students and teachers can evaluate the meaningful works they have created, and to showcase their highlights by bringing in all forms of multimedia. It’s an excellent resource and offers some great features that aren’t typically seen in other digital portfolio providers. There are free and a paid versions for schools and students. Here are some samples:

Elementary School

Teacher Sample - Classroom

Teacher Sample - Professional

Wakelet

Wakelet is a free content curation tool. Save any content from the web: articles, videos, images, Tweets, and pretty much any link you find online. Items that you save are private and can be edited at any time. You can also make collections or your sites and invite others to collaborate on the collection.

Here are some Wakelet samples:

Brandi Reams - Kindergarten teacher
Paul West - Tech Coach
Dave Randles - Lecturer
Mark Siemens - Principal (newsletters)
Diya Dey - Digital portfolio

And here are a few examples of ways to use Wakelet:
Using Wakelet for Digital Storytelling
Using Wakelet for Exit tickets
Using Wakelet for Class research

Wakelet Educator Resources

Symbaloo

Symbalooedu.com

Easy method for curating digital content
Webmixes (curated sites) are saved in the cloud, so they are accessible anywhere
Visually engaging for students and educators. You can color code and more!

Examples:

Vocaroo and Online Voice Recorder

Vocaroo - Easily create audio recordings that can be shared via email, embedded on a website or create a QR Code that links to the audio file. Vocaroo is a free website that does not have an app.

Try using Vocaroo for greeting cards or ornaments.

Online Voice Recorder lets you simply create and edit voice recordings then save them as an MP3 to your chromebook or laptop. So simple!

Here are some interesting ways to use Audio

1. Create a "voicemail" link for a quick assignment summary
2. Create a podcast or radio show
3. Narrate a story
4. Create a soundtrack
5. Create a QR Voice code
6. Embed a recording in a website or blog
7. Learning foreign language – Students can record speaking and receive comments from teachers and class members on their performance
8.Reading – Younger students can record their reading practice and listen back to hear their voice
9. Public speaking – students perform public speaking with a virtual audience
10.Storytelling – Older students or teachers can record short stories for younger students to listen to
11. Create recordings to place on your ThingLink interactive photo.

FlipGrid

Flipgrid is a video response tool that is used to create discussions between all students within your classroom. Teachers post a topic or question via text or video and the students respond to the prompt. Flipgrid also gives students to ability to comment on their classmates' responses.

Key Features:

All of your videos are located in one location.
You can Freeze a Topic to continue sharing the videos but prevent new recordings.
Student comments can be turned on or off.

Flipgrid Samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IQKJr5nTAc

Flipgrid Tutorials/Blog Posts:

Tony Vincent's Review of Flipgrid - with helpful tips
15+ Ways to Use Flipgrid in Your Class

Pricing options: FREE!

Build Your Wild Self

Students can create their own avatars and then morph them into something wild! You don't have to sign up. Just go to the site and get started.

Here's a video that explains how it works (but it's really easy!)

Students can then print out their creations or capture them in a screen shot.

Ideas for use:

Descriptive Writing

Gallery Display

Shared Google Docs Image display

Bring the image into Chatterpix or other talkify app and make the image talk!

If this site is more than what you bargained for and you just a simple avatar creator, then check out DoppleMe! And of course the older kids love Bitmoji's!

Love Emoji's? Checkout Emojipedia! Download millions of emojis to use in projects and presentations.

Easily Remove Backgrounds in Pictures

No need for Photoshop! PhotoScissors Online provides an extremely easy way to cut a background an image. Instead of trying to accurately enclose a region with the Lasso or Magic Wand tools in cumbersome professional graphical editors, you quickly mark areas you want to cut out and areas you would like.

Check out Remove Background for portraits. This only recognizes people, but with just a click, the background is gone in an instant. Now your picture is ready for you to put in front of a famous landmark and you can say you were there!

Why Google for Photos When You Have These?

Pixabay - Free images and illustrations
Photos for Class - download properly attributed Creative Commons photos for your school
Unsplash - free high resolution photos
Pexels - Free stock photos.

Open Clipart -It’s full of public domain and creative commons zero images which means you can use them without attribution. You can download in a variety of forms

BUT IF YOU HAVE TO USE GOOGLE...then make sure you are using the right settings to find pictures that are legal to use. Go to Tools > Usage Rights > and select what applies to you.

Novel Effect

The Novel Effect app uses invisible technology to follow along, as you read a book. Music and sounds play while you are reading the book. Smart voice recognition stays in sync with your reading style, if you skip ahead or read a favorite part again and again.

Click here for a link to the books and a short preview of each on Novel Effect.

Novel Effect is coming soon on GooglePlay and Amazon Fire! Sign-up here.

Classroom Screen

ClassroomScreen allows the teacher to create a digital board of widgets for students to help them focus on their work/tasks.

You can…

Choose a background (web cam options too!)
Type your instructions in the text area and zoom
Choose a work symbol
Set a timer
Show the clock & calendar
Use the traffic light
Pick a random name
Use the calculator
Draw in-screen or full-screen
Generate a QR-code
Drag and drop the icons in the right place
Select a language

Creative Ideas for Using Classroom Screen

Click on the menu bar (3 lines in the top left corner) and click on Tips & Tricks for directions and ideas.

Add an Animated Image to Your Classroom Screen

Add a Gif to Your Classroom Screen

Other Ideas:

Use an image of the book or a page from a book you are reading as the background picture on your Classroom Screen.
The Full Screen Drawing widget has graph and lined paper as options.
Use Classroom Screen to have assignment choices in a Text widget for students to select.
Have the Text widget with bell ringer instructions written on it when students enter the room.
The circle with yellow and green icons in the bottom right of your screen opens up a poll option.
Use the Stoplight from Classroomscreen.com for technology readiness/expectations (red = off and away; yellow=logged in screen down; green=on task/ready to work).

Flippity.net - Turn Google Spreadsheets into Awesome Stuff!

Flippity.net is an easy to use website that provides teachers with 20+ activities for both teachers and students. Each activity is provided with a Demo, Instructions, and a Template (which is a Google Sheet). From badges, to award certificates, timelines to scavenger hunts, flippity does it all and it's FREE! Here's what you or your students can create in seconds:

Even More Tools!

Check Out These Tools

Kiddle - Kid Safe Search Engine! One of the best!
View Pure - YouTube Videos without the Ads!
Education Place - Graphic organizers for every need
VisuWords - Online visual dictionary
Hidden Treasures for Your Interactive Board - a complete list of interactive activities and sites
Class Tools- scavenger hunts, name pickers, interactives
Read Write Think - interactives, lessons and more for language arts and social studies
Illuminations - lessons and interactives for math
Interactive Periodic Table
Video Interactive Periodic Table
Science Net Links - lessons and interactives for science
Smore - a great resource for newsletters, one page web, and more. This document is a Smore!

Design

Slides Carnival - Free presentation templates for Google Slides

Canva - the best design site out there!
Challenge Template

Copy of Challenge Template Here

Loading indicator