Put a mouth on anything and make it talk with Chatterpix and Chatterpix Kids!

App: ChatterPix - by Duck Duck Moose

Cost: Free

Lesson Ideas:
- Shapes: Have students take pictures or find pictures online of various shapes and then have them explain the attributes and the name
- Hero essay? Have students fine a picture of their hero and then have them speak and explain what makes them hero.
- Inventors? find a picture of the inventor and have them explain what they invented and how it has changed/helped society

Display and Sharing:
Save the video to your camera roll, upload it to your DropBox and make public, then you can create a QR code that directly links to student work or you can create an Aurasma (print out picture of the Chatterpix to be your trigger photo) and then download your video to play when scanned.

How To Videos:

This year CISD 3rd - 12th grade students and teachers have Gaggle Accounts and with Gaggle (drum roll please)...teachers and students have an unlimited amount of blogs! Today I had the opportunity to present the blogging application to the teachers at AV Cato. 

Here are a few reason why I am in LOVE with Gaggle Blogs:
1. Easy to set up and access
2. Multiple blog themes available, this allows students to have ownership in selecting their themes but does not allow them edit the theme or move things around... thus gives them time to be creative but with management of time
3. Insert Gaggle Tube videos and documents stored in their Digital Locker with their peers =  collaboration!
4. "Say It" button that has a roboticish voice that reads their blogs, this allows students to hear what they wrote and ask themselves the important question of, "Does it make sense?" Oh... did I mention they have this in English and Spanish?
5. "Translate" button will translate the text to another language and "Say It"
6.  "Blog Look Up" allows for teachers and students to search all blogs within Gaggle, comment on their peers blogs and "Favorite" blogs for quick access
7. Unlimited number of blogs, this means students can have one per subject or topic

Need some blogging prompts?  http://www.lorideboer.net/blogging-ideas-for-students-of-all-ages/

Why should students blog? http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/3721

Need a Gaggle Blog tutorial?


How do you plan on implementing Gaggle Blogs or other blogging platforms into your curriculum? Please comment below.

I absolutely love Popplet! My students and I will be using it on a weekly basis to create anchor charts, organize thoughts, assess understanding or help students create connections of concepts.


What I did for a Tech Infused Lesson:
While discussing force with my 5th graders I wanted to them to organize their thoughts during the week, in order to Tech Up my lesson decided that my students were going to use Popplet to be the medium through which students would organize and developed their thoughts.

Since it was my first time using Popplet as a class I didn't want to purchase the Group Subscription because I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out. What I ended up doing was creating 11 (you read correctly... 11!!) different Gmail school accounts and Popplet accounts so that each student could save their work. If you remember from above... I would highly recommending looking into Popplet Groups.

I checked out the netbook cart from our Media Center for the week since this was going to be an ongoing lesson. I walked students through signing on (after the first 2 days they got the hang of it!). On Monday I started my lesson by explaining what force is and the students independently watched a Brain Pop Jr. video about force. Then we went through together and listed the 5 kinds of force that we were going to discuss for the week (magnetism, push, pull, gravity, friction). Each day we focused on a specific kind of force and added definitions, examples and pictures (from Flickr) to our Popplets. On Friday I took the students to the computer lab and we printed our Popplets and they glued them in their science journals.




Lesson Reflection: 
I thought the lesson went pretty smoothly and students really enjoyed creating their Popplets. I wish I would have had students collaborate on Popplets so that they didn't take as much time to create and then they could have taught each other from their one Popplet. Many students gave examples that truly showed that they applied their academic vocabulary and understood the content. I did not think ahead of time about modifying the assignment for specific students but on the spot I was able to tell them my expectations (Ex: I had a special education student that provided only pictures for examples). In the future I would also like to provide students with a rubric and have them proof read each others work.

A few random notes:
1. For the iPads/iPods: Popplet Lite App is what you have to use due to flash... it works well but I personally prefer the website
2. I would highly recommend looking into Popplet Groups 
3. Sometimes the pictures from Flickr can be inappropriate, ahead of time be sure you have discussed digital citizenship and what to do if you happen to be presented with inappropriate content

If you have IPads then you have GOT to start having students CREATE with Educreations. Educreations is like a personal SmartBoard for each student but it allows them to import pictures, record their work and easily share with one another.

With the STAAR test approaching my students and I were getting pretty bored reviewing standardized test questions with paper and pencil so I decided to call upon my PLN. After a few #'s I stumbled on a sparkling jewel called Kahoot! Below is an email that I sent to my school after implementing Kahoot in my classroom...