We have a lot to share with you!
Join in the fun at your own pace, but Robin and Martha will be posting a feature daily starting on December 11th!
Quiver Vision
The app is available for free for the Google Play store, App Store, and Amazon.
Suggested idea: Print off the Christmas Tree coloring page. While students are learning about how different countries celebrate Christmas or the holidays, have students record a video using the Quiver app to explain what the most eye-opening or neatest tradition that they learned was. Students can then upload the videos to Flipgrid in order to create a whole class compilation of what they learned. Share it with parents on your weekly newsletter or through Class Dojo. You can also use this for students to share what some of their own holiday traditions are! Virtual holiday cards to military. The ideas are endless with this app and it's educational components.
Google Street View
If you have not visited the Street View webpage, do it now! There are so many options for virtual field trips here. What a great way to introduce or expand on your lessons to make the places your students are learning about come alive! The gallery option allows students to explore on their own or your could send students the direct link to a virtual field trip through Google Classroom or by QR code (try Google Shortner for a quick QR code generator). It's a long link to type out so make sure you are prepared when sharing with students or teachers.
As part of the Future Ready Librarian Framework, though, we should be challenging students to become creators rather than consumers of information. Google Street View allows you to create street view 360 degree images as well! To do this, you can use the Google Street View app or use a 360 degree camera, which you can use to capture an image and upload at a later time. This is our favorite way of using this tool!
Suggested idea: Capture 360 images of your community buildings. Have students to write descriptions for the buildings and upload the images to Street View. We live in a transient military town so I could see this being used to help families learn more about their new community and surroundings.
Capstone 4D Books
With books like origami or epic cardboard adventures, students can read directions, look at pictures, and scan the pages to learn from different media and can help your reluctant readers, which tend to be non-traditional learners. When thinking about multiple intelligences and the different reading levels at our schools, I love that there are books that are now including ways of helping learners of all styles learn and feel confident in reading.
Bloxels
Bloxels has been the biggest hit in our MakerSpace!
Bloxels is a hands-on platform for kids to build, collaborate, and tell stories through video game creation. Students can use colored blocks to design their characters and settings to tell their own amazing stories! The game board is scanned using the free iPad app to make the creation come to life! This engaging classroom tool is transforming learning off the paper and putting it in the hands of students. Imagine designing a scientific process, a historical location, or even a story about yourself! The possibilities are endless!
If you create an educator account, you have access to the educator hub with lesson plans and activities. Also, for every kit you order, you receive student accounts so that students can login and save their work.
Check out the Bloxels EDU website for more information and how to purchase your own kit!
Unity
This free download includes the Unity Curricular Framework and Professional Skills Standards, which map to learning objectives for academic standards and are designed to achieve high-quality outcomes in the classroom.
Made with Code-Upper Elementary and Middle School
Santa Tracker-Elementary
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Wedge
What are #BookSnaps?
A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of any excerpt of a book or text.
If you are anything like me, you are always trying to find ways to balance motivating students to read while also challenging them to think deeper about their text. I love, love, love #BookSnaps because it helps students visualize their thoughts about their reading, makes reading more social and interactive, and helps students use technology beyond a consumption tool. Technology can be used with purpose and you can still have fun learning!
Discovery VR (app)
Download the app and watch using a Cardboard viewer or by moving your device around you like a magic window, to reveal 360-degree views
Check out more on how to use this in your library and classroom (with lesson plans) here!
ThingLink 360°
This now includes access to 360° images!! Check out the demo. Ideas: Use the new platform to have students explain layers of the Earth, force and motion, components of a computer, etc. Have students take images of historical sites, then use ThingLInk to add information for visitors. Museums could use this for tourists or schools. There are so many applications to this!
Nearpod Virtual Reality
Martha Bongiorno and Robin Thompson
Martha: @mrs_bongi
Robin: @crazymrst