I am presenting a session called To Infinity and Beyond: Student Centered Projects. I will be showcasing two apps called Tiny Tap and John Atkinson Photo Card. Both allow students to be creative and have fun while learning.
Check out my past blog on Photo Card: http://www.teacherplayground.com/2013/04/free-creative-writing-appyour-students.html
Photocard an app that allows students to be creative and descriptive when writing. Students create an interactive postcard in which they get to add their own pictures and stamps.
This app would be great to use for any subject and grade level, but here are a few ideas I have that will get you started:
- Students take a picture of something in nature and they are to write as though they are that picture.
- Students take pictures while on a field trip, use the app to tell others about their favorite part of the field trip.
- Students choose an image within the app and are challenged to be as descriptive as they can about the image. Let them know that when you read their postcard you want to feel as though you are that image.
- Students take pictures and write about famous people, states, countries, ancient times, key vocabulary, authors, composers, etc..
- Students create a postcard based on Science safety rules and write about the proper ways to act in a lab setting.
- Students use this app to help them better understand difficult vocabulary words and math problems. They take a picture of the word, what it is or looks like, and then they write about it as if they were teaching someone else.
Tiny Tap is an app that students can use to become creators. They can add their own photos or pictures, then record their own voice over the photo. Once they add sound, they become designers. To designate the correct answer, students trace that part of the picture.
- In the Language Arts class students can add a picture of vocabulary words. They add questions about those pictures. They can use this to test their own knowledge or the knowledge of their friends. This would be great support for ELL students as well.
- In the Math class students can begin with the first step in a math problem. In multiple choice format, students can choose the next step in the problem. They can reach the solution of a problem in the form of a series of pictures much like a flow map. The student who creates the exercise shows their knowledge of correct procedure and the students who solve it get a review of the previously learned skill. For younger students, you can add pictures of shapes in multiple choice format and have students choose a shape that you ask them about.
- In the Science class students can add their own pictures of s sedimentary rock and ask questions specifying if the picture is sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic. This would work for the parts of the life cyle or the weather cycle.
- In the Social Studies class you can put in a picture of a map and have students choose a state. Better yet, have students create the questions and test one another.
- Information courtesy of: http://www.appsinclass.com/tinytap.html
I hope you enjoy these wonderful apps as I have!!
Check out my handout--->To Infinity and Beyond: Student Centered Projects
