Saturday, April 20, 2019

Flipgrid Fever, 21st CLN, and Ozobots

Creative Communicator 

April's ISTE Standard is Creative Communicator.  We will focus on tools this month that help communicate a message clearly and effectively to one's audience.

1.  April 24th was #StudentVoiceDay

Flipgrid is not about recording videos...it's about learning!  Learning that is social, personal, can happen anwhere and anytime, about making connections, it's deep exploration, and promotes that everyone is a teacher and everyone is a learner.  Lately Flipgrid  shared even more resources.  This week's post will share the most recent tips, tricks and ideas Flipgrid has to offer.

1.  Tips and Best Practices:

  • Start Simple-  If your students are a bit hesitant to put themselves on the camera, their nerves will be stronger if you ask them a tough question right away.  Start with something that will get them (and you) comfortable, such as "If you had to eat only one more for the rest of your life, what would it be?"  "If you had to live in another country, where would it be and why?"  "What's the hardest you've ever laughed?  Tell us the story." 
  • Moderate Topics-  The moderation feature allows you as the educator to choose which responses show on the grid, so shy students can respond without all of their classmates seeing the responses.  To do this, use the Actions button to Edit Topic, and scroll to Topic Details to toggle this switch on/off.  In this same area, you can make many other settings adjustments to fully customize how you want your grid to look and feel.
  • Use a checklist or rubric- This will help students to feel more prepared in their response.
  • Share yourself as an educator recording.  If students see you relaxed, silly at times, and creative in a response, students will feel more comfortable to do the same!
  • "Feature this Response"- Use this feature option to highlight student responses or share examples that other students can learn from!
  • Record with a Buddy or Group-  Motivation and confidence increases with the support of others.
  • Record something else!  Yes, that's right, student's don't have to be seen- just use the camera the opposites way or have them hold a picture, project, or book to capture something else as they are speaking.
    • Appsmash- Appsmashing is the process of combining 2 or more apps in order to expand the possibilities for increased impact!   We recommend Chatterpix for a quick and easy way to do this  (see our last blog post).  Flipgrid and Chatterpix appsmash well.
View the Flipgrid picture tutorial here!  Even if you've been using Flipgrid, you might see something in this tutorial that you didn't know Flipgrid could do!

Bonus Blog Feature-  

View the Flipgrid some elementary teachers experimented with and responded to almost 1 year ago, please use the flip code 1eda79 at flipgrid.com. The password for this grid is June2018.  Perhaps you posted something at the end of our June sessions and forgot about it!? Perhaps you'll view some others' responses and learn something new!  Have fun!


2. 21st Century Learning Night

















3.  Ozobots

We have shared many new activities in the Ozobot Google folder for all of you to see and use!  Most recently, we've posted for Math Top-It games, summarizing, coding through maps and states, rhyme time, using Ozoblocky, and more!  If you'd like us to create an activity with Ozobots, we would be happy to do so!  This is the perfect time of the year to try something new or change-up the way you've done something in the past!  We are here to help if you need it!  Remember, we have 18 EVO Ozobots we are always willing to share!