Library Tech Tools | Smore Newsletters for Education

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Novel Effect (app)

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.

ChatterPix Kids (app)

Chatterpix Kids -This app makes your photos, friends, pets or drawings talk. Take a photo, draw a line to make a mouth and record your voice and then share with your friends and family. This is a very creative way for students to introduce themselves, retell a story or book, etc.

Directions:

Take a picture
Draw a line for the mouth on the picture
Record your voice for up to 30 seconds
Add stickers, frames and text (optional)
Save product to your Camera Roll

Chatterpix Kids Examples:

Author's Purpose in Tough Cookie
Charlotte's Web - Wilbur describes how he was saved by Fern and Charlotte

Write Reader

WriteReader.com

WriteReader increases students' digital writing skills and creativity. Students can use tablets, Chromebooks or computers. Teachers quickly set up their classes and give students the code. Best of all books can be emailed to parents.

Examples:

The Quick Start Guide under the Help menu will help you create your account and get your students creating books! Six Ways That Teachers are Using WriteReader blog post can be found at tinyurl.com/writereader.

Symbaloo EDU

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

Examples:

Nicer Tube

Nicer Tube gets rid of comments, ads and other clutter from YouTube videos, and it also allows you to customize your video’s background.

Copy the URL (web address) of the YouTube video.
Open nicertube.com.
Paste the URL into the blank.
Scroll down and select a background color or image (optional).
Select Click Here to Create Your NicerTube. You can make you

The new link contains the YouTube video without ads.

Similar options:

Quiettube (extension)

View Pure (follow the directions under Use It Anywhere)

Shadow Puppet EDU (app)

Create videos to tell a story, explain an idea or send a personalized message. The app has a search tool to find pictures from the Library of Congress, NASA, and to find Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr. Students can also import pictures and videos from the camera roll on their iPads. (APP)

Examples:

Gimkit

Gimkit was created by high school students and is similar to Kahoot! and Quizizz, except the students play for “money” instead of points. The free version allows you to have 5 Kits (games) in your account. The paid version allows for unlimited Kits and edits and includes other features. The Pro version is $59.88 a year or $7.99 per month. School and bulk discounts are available. New pricing is coming soon!

Gimkit includes a library of Kits from users. You can create your own Kit by typing in the questions and answers or you can upload questions from Quizlet or a CSV file.

Let's give it a try! Open gimkit.com/play and enter the code on the screen.

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark Video lets users record their voice, import pictures and write text to create a short video. Videos can be shared publicly or privately. (WEB or APP)

Examples:

Adobe Spark Page is used to create an online web story. Spark Page is often used for newsletters, digital storytelling or a method for sharing information.

Examples:

Lord of the Flies Book Trailer
Library Parent Letter

Writing Cubes

Everyone loves a little adventure! Using a cube with QR Codes on each side gives the students options for their writing prompts. What a great way to review a book!

Hatchet Chapters 1-4 Writing Prompt Cube

Students roll the cube and then with a QR Reader (I-Nigma is our favorite), scan to reveal the prompt they will be writing about The newest IOS has a QR Code reader in the camera app. No need for a separate app to scan QR Codes).

Tony Vincent of Learning In Hand has created a Reflection Dice (cube) to help students reflect on a lesson, unit, activity or project,

Screencastify

The Screencastify Chrome Extension is a great way to allow students the ability to demonstrate and create visually with their voice. Stella Pollard wrote this blog post about using Screencastify in different subject areas.

Directions for finding and adding Chrome Extensions can be found here.
This one-hour video course by Matt Miller (Ditch That Textbook), will show you ins and outs of Screencastify and some of Matt’s favorite ways to screencast in the classroom.
3 Screencastify Features You Probably Didn't Know About by Jake Miller
Using Screencastify to Improve Student Annotations by Kristi Moore
How to Use Screencastify to Grade Student Papers by Casey Clark

Examples:
Screencastify Math Student Talk
Spanish Screencastify Project

Booksnaps & Vocab Snaps

BookSnaps provide your students with a fun way to use the Snapchat app to reflect on their reading or visually demonstrate the meaning of a new vocabulary word. Tara Martin from Lawrence, Kansas has found a creative way to use Snapchat in the classroom.
The following is from Tara's website and gives a great overview of how to use BookSnaps:

A few (of MANY) reasons to create BookSnaps:

To annotate and share excerpts of the book you’re reading
It allows the reader to connect a concept or thought to an image, which then allows the brain to recall the information linking it back to the visual.
Diagram the rise, fall, and climax of the plot (see an example image below)
Highlight figurative language and imagery
Notate character conflict and internal struggles (see example below)
Point out the main idea or a supporting argument

Click here to access Tara's website.

Click here to read Tara's blog about how to create Booksnaps.

Click here to follow Tara on Twitter and you can find tons of great ideas and examples by searching #BookSnaps onTwitter.

Read more here about BookSnaps from Dave Burgess (Teach Like a Pirate).

Can't use Snapchat in your school or you work with younger students, read Tara's post on alternative websites for creating BookSnaps.

Engaging Congress (web and app)

Engaging Congress is an interactive game that uses primary source documents to explore the basic tenets of representative government.

Explain the central idea of a primary source.
Accurately summarize the key details and ideas in a primary source.
Evaluate differing points of view on the same historical event by using primary sources.
Evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats.
Analyze a primary source and relate it to an issue of the past.

Padlet

Padlet is a virtual wall/bulletin board that allows students to create a sticky note to express their thoughts on a common topic. Padlet allows us to post text, links, images, and a wide variety of files including video.

Note: Padlet recently began charging $99 a year for unlimited Walls. The free account allows new users to have free accounts. If you already have Walls in your account, you may add 3 more Walls for free.

New from Padlet:

Padlet has added 2 new formats:

Shelf - Posts can be sorted into a series of labeled columns
Canvas - Move posts around free-form style
Collaborate and assess with Reactions. Grade, star, upvote, or like posts - a simple way to give quantitative feedback. Read more about Reactions here.
You can now highlight text in your posts.
Categorize posts with Colors. Customize your posts one of five colors. Learn more about Colors here.
Seamlessly link your pages to an LMS. Learn more here.
Video Recording on a Padlet
Snap feature - allows you to take photos and selfies from within Padlet and post them to your pages
iPhone and iPad app users: Padlet just launched a new, experimental feature called Catscan. You can take a picture of a wall with post-it notes and Catscan will create a Padlet with those notes on it.

Examples:

Quizizz

Quizizz is very similar to Kahoot, except the questions appear on the students' devices.

Let's try it out!

On your device or laptop, open quizizz.com.
Click Join a Game.
Enter the Game Code the teacher provides and click Go.
Type in your name and click Join Game.
Wait for the teacher to begin the game.

Good Luck!

Take a look at some of our favorite Quizizz features:

Easily create a quiz by using questions from multiple public quizzes
Math symbols
Highlight keywords with red, green or blue text
Make your own Memes

Quizizz Tutorials

Quizizz just released three new features:

Read Aloud was available in their IOS app, but now it works on the web. So if you have laptops, Chromebooks, etc., your students can hear the questions and answers! You will need to toggle this on in the settings: https://quizizz.com/join/settings
Now, when students complete a quiz, they can retake the quiz in Flashcard Mode. How cool is that? Students can find it on the "Activity" page. Just go to https://quizizz.com/join (while being logged in) and click on the "Activity" link at the top of the page (this page shows all the past activity of a student.) Click any quiz that you've completed, and you'll see 2 buttons "Play" and "Review" (Review is the flashcard mode). Just click it to see the new mode.
Require Login will prevent anonymous participants from joining your game. This can be toggled on in the settings.

Flipgrid (web and app)

Flipgrid is a video response tool that is used to create discussions among 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 the 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 Examples:

Flipgrid Certified Grid (password is Flipgrid)
Simple Machines
Non-Fiction Text Features
Flipgrid for Assessments
Summer!

Immersive Reader

Microsoft's Immersive Reader is a wonderful tool that makes reading and understanding easier for students. Flipgrid recently announced the addition of Immersive Reader into Flipgrid. Here are some great ideas for how Immersive Reader can be used in your classroom:

Read text aloud
Change text size, font, spacing, and color
Highlight parts of speech
Break words into syllables
Provide line focus
Improve word understanding with a picture dictionary

Read more about Immersive Reader and Flipgrid here.

Ideas/Tutorials/Blog Posts:

Have students draw pictures of characters in a book or story then create a talking picture of their character in ChatterPix. Upload the ChatterPix file to Flipgrid.
Use the filters in Snapchat to create a video to upload into Flipgrid.
Explain a Science experiment.
Tell how to solve a math equation step-by-step.
Have teachers create a video introducing themselves and their class to new students.
Have students welcome new students to their school.
Exit Tickets
Book Talks
Padlet of Flipgrid ideas
15+ Ways to Use Flipgrid in Your Class
15 MORE Ways to Use Flipgrid in Your Class
17 Ways to Incorporate #FlipGridFever in Your Classroom
13 Ways to Enhance Math Lessons with Flipgrid
15 Ways to Use #Flipgrid for Social Studies
Using Flipgrid in the High School U.S. History Class
Using Flipgrid in Instrumental Music
How to Use Flipgrid for Book Clubs

Create a QR Code

Create a QR Code that links to your Grid or Topic! Click the Share option and choose QR Code.

Topic Disco Library

Share and find Topic templates that have been submitted by educators from around the world. All subject areas and grade levels are included.

Mix Tapes

A MixTape is a place to showcase videos from your Topics. Create a MixTape and add videos to share with the world!

GridPals

Connect with fellow Flipgrid educators and classrooms around the world!

Flipgrid Best Practices

See our Do's and Don'ts for best practices and make sure to collect Consent forms from all students before onboarding them to the platform.

Creating a Shortened URL

Copy the URL (address) of the website you want to direct the students to.
Open tinyurl.com.
Paste the URL into the Enter a long URL to make tiny: field.
You can click Make TinyURL field and the site will create a shortened URL for you or you can make a custom URL by adding your own title in the Custom Alias field.
Click Make TinyURL. If you are making a custom alias and the alias you chose has already been taken, the site will inform you that your alias is not available.

Librarians on Twitter

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