Presentation Tools that Ignite Student Creativity

I am an educator who is constantly in search for tools that promote student creation over student consumption. For years PowerPoint, Prezi, and Google Slides have been the "go to" presentation tools that allow for some student creation in the classroom. At times, many teachers and students look for something different to use, something a little more engaging for their audience.

There are many free online presentation tools out there, but I am going to highlight a couple that your students can use to create with.

Adobe Spark

Example of a Adobe Spark Web Story

Spark offers 3 different presentation types: Social Media Posts, Web Stories (similar to a PowerPoint), and Videos. All three types are simple for students to use. Students can search for media and information without having to leave the application. This allows for a more efficient presentation development time. At the end of the presentation, all of the photos are automatically cited. For students wanting a professional looking product, Adobe Spark is an amazing option.


Buncee Edu

Buncee is a fun and simple tool for students to create engaging presentations. The platform is set up like PowerPoint/Google Slides but caters to kids more creative side. As with Adobe Spark, backgrounds, pictures, animations, stamps, and several other media types can all be searched and found within the app.

Buncee's click, drag, and search options are simple to use for all learners.

Picture Surfing for Students and Teachers

Part of the purpose for student usage of technology in the classroom is to allow students to become creators not just consumers. A large part of this creative process for our learners is the resources that they find to put into their product. In this case we are talking about visual resources, or images.

Many students and teachers go directly to Google and search images. They then copy and paste away. As many of us know, this can rise several issues. Two of them being:

1. Inappropriate images appearing within the search.
2. The use of pictures without permission of the rightful owner.

These issues (and several others) have created the need of safe searching creative commons photos for educational use. Luckily there are several websites that students can go to for that very purpose!

Photos for Class - Just as the title says, this site allows students to search for photos that are appropriate for classroom use. The photos also include auto citation, and creative commons photos for use. If a student search does bring up an inappropriate image, it allows teachers to report it to be removed.



Pics4Learning - Pics4Learning is another safe place for students to search for needed photos. The organization of the site is excellent, and allows students to easily search by category.

Pexels - Pexels is full of large sized creative commons stock photos. Some of them are truly breath taking. Pexels was created for student and adult usage, so it isn't quite as filtered or safeguarded. There isn't anything extremely inappropriate, but some images could contain things like alcohol usage and mild adult situations. Students, especially younger students, should be monitored during the usage of this site. Nevertheless, landscapes, citiscapes, and other stock photos are excellent on this site.

*Addition to original post: These sites try their best to filter out inappropriate photos. As with anything online, there is nothing completely safe. Inappropriate pictures could still appear on these sites. However, they are still safer than simply searching google photos.

Supporting ELL Students with EdTech

Over the last 13 years, I have spent my career in education in the Springdale School District in Springdale, AR. The 3rd and 4th grade classrooms I have taught were at about a 75% or higher ELL (or ESL) population. As I have seen the boom in EdTech over the recent years in our district, I have really paid attention to the technology tools that are available to help our ELL students succeed.

There are several tools out there to provide the scaffolding and support to these students, but I am just going to focus on a few of them for this post: Translation Tools, Auditory Tools, and Recording Tools. These tools are nothing new in the world of technology, but as more students are able to access technology in the classroom they should not be overlooked.

Translation Tools:

Google Translate
 used on iPhone

The translation tool I have seen the most success with is Google Translate. It works very well in multiple ways:

• Tablet/Phone App: The app allows you to point your camera at a sign and translate it to a different language. It also allows you to speak one language into the device and it will translate and speak out loud in another language.
• Google Search/Website: If you search google translate, a text box will appear at the top of your search results that allows for instant text translation. translate.google.com also does this function.
• Chrome Extension: The Google Translate Chrome extension allows you to change the language of any website you are looking at with a few simple clicks, never leaving the web site you are viewing. 

Auditory Tools: 

I am defining auditory tools as any type of tool that reads texts to students. Many of our ELL students comprehend speech at a much higher level than they are able to read (in English). The use of auditory tools will allow students to hear the content needed even if they are struggling to read the words on the screen. There are several text to speech apps out there, but the following have worked best for me:

• iPad/iPhone: I simply use Siri. This is activated through the accessibility menu within settings. Students can change voice accents and also speech rate.  
• Chrome: I prefer the extension SpeakIt! Voice accents and speech rate are also controllable. 

As mentioned, I realize that these may seem like fairly simple tools in today's high tech classrooms, but the importance of what these tools can bring to our ELLs should not be looked over.

Recording Tools:
Apps that record student voices, screens, and actions can make a great impact with our ELL students in two ways: comprehension/assessment and reflection/meta-cognition.

Comprehension/Assessment - Giving ELL students the option to record their voice to explain a concept and turn it in to their teacher is critical. Our ELL students comprehend information at high levels, many of them just have difficulty putting their learning and understanding into writing. Why not allow them to record their understanding verbally and send that to the teacher for a comprehension check/assessment? There is a relatively new website/app called Recap just for this purpose.



Reflection/Meta-cognition For decades, coaches have recorded players on the field and reviewed it with their players. Music directors have recorded performers and had them listen back for reflection. This can now be done with every single student in the classroom. Having students record their thoughts through screen-casting, audio notes, or video will allow them to reflect upon their learning and presentation skills. This is only effective if part of the assignment is that the student listen back to their recordings for that reflection piece. There are so many great tools out there, but a few to check out are:
Chrome Extentions: Screencastify and Snagit Chrome Extensions.
iPhone/iPad: Book Creator, Draw and Tell, Educreations, Explain Everything, Seesaw, Shadow Puppet, Tellagami, and simply just use the camera. (If you would like to learn more about some of these apps, then check out my post 5 iPad apps for Student Presentations and Meta-Cognition)

As with everything with EdTech, it is important to not get wrapped up in the "bells and whistles" of an app/site, but what it really offers your students. In the case of our ELLs, thinking of how these tools can support language development should be our number one goal.

Student Response Tools for the Digital Classroom

As classrooms become more connected through technology, teachers have several choices when it comes to selecting a Student Response Tool to use with student devices. Whether your class is 1:1 with a specific device (Chromebooks, iPads) or you have a BYOD environment (Bring Your Own Device),there are many websites that work as an excellent option for teachers to gather responses from their students.

As always in my blog, I will just name a few of the many tools that I have found beneficial. These will be listed in alphabetical order:

AnswerGarden:

AnswerGarden is a response tool that allows a teacher to ask a single question and makes a word cloud out of student responses. It is intended for short answer questions, about 20 to 40 characters long. It does not record which student gave which answer. It is more so intended as a brainstorming tool. The user can hover over any of the answers to see how many times it was answered. No accounts are needed for the site, and each AnswerGarden that a teacher creates holds its own URL and code for students to type in to. It has an iPad app that is easy for students of all ages to use.

Nearpod

Nearpod has many features beyond collecting student responses. It is a teacher presentation tool that allows the teacher to control what is on the screens of the students via WiFi. The teacher can set up a presentation like they would in Google Slides, Keypoint, or PowerPoint, and they an embed question types into the slide. Students sign in through a class code. Draw it, Fill in the Blanks, Polling, Exit Slip Quiz, and Open Ended questions can be asked. When the lesson is over, the presenter can download the answers that students gave. Nearpod is free, but has an upgrade to "Gold" as well. The dash board is simple to use, and many teachers share their presentations for others to use in the library.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a great option for the BYOD environment. There are several ways for students/participants to join a poll, including texting through their phone. Poll Everywhere shows real time results in a bar graph on the teacher dashboard. While it would work best as a multiple choice response system, the teacher can also ask open response questions as well.


Socrative

Socrative is an excellent site/app for giving tests/quizzes to students. The students sign in through a class code and the teacher can choose to give a student paced quiz or the teacher can control the pace of the quiz as well. As you can see, there are 3 other options as well.
Quick Question: Allows instructors to ask their students questions "on the fly."
Space Race: Students take a teacher created quiz in groups as a competitive game.
Exit Ticket: Has 3 generic questions for the end of the lesson for students to answer.

After the teacher chooses to close the session, a report can be downloaded, printed, or added to Google Drive as a Sheet.

These are only a handful of the great apps/websites that are available to students and teachers to collect responses in real time. This allows for faster student feedback, and easier classroom management. Other tools worth trying are: Kahoot.it, TodaysMeet, Zaption, and EduPuzzle.

iPads in the Primary Classroom: A few apps to get you started

As we continue to go 1:1 in our district in Springdale, AR, one of our biggest challenges is finding great apps for our Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st Grade classrooms to use.

Here is a short list of just a few FREE apps to get you started:

ABC - Magnetic Alphabet Lite for Kids - Learn to write!
By Dot Next

Just as the title of the app suggests, this is simply a magnetic letter board for your students to use. The letters are easy to pull from a tray and drag and manipulate. 

Talking ABC - Magnetic Alphabet for Education in English and Spanish

By Tatiana Churanova

This is basically the speaking version of a magnetic alphabet board. The voice is fairly natural, but can sound a little strange on some words. When choosing the letter, it names the letter for the student, but will not make the sound of the letter by itself. As soon as you start to blend the letters together, it will begin to "sound it out" for the students.


ABC Alphabet Phonics - Preschool Kids Game Free Lite

By Innovative Investments Limited


A great app for students learning to or struggling with identifying letters. A voice on the app says a letter name, and the child touches the letter to identify it. As they progress, more letters are added to the screen to make it more challenging for the students. A highly engaging app, with immediate feedback for the students.


Little Writer - The Tracing App for Kids

By Innovative Mobile Apps

A great app for students to learn how to write letters and sight words. The app will not let a student continue until the child traces the letter according to the path the app displays. 

To help this process transfer into their handwriting, teachers could have students write the letter or word on their iPad onto a piece of paper as well. The use of a child friendly stylist is a great option as well.
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These apps can be a great way to get your iPad classroom started. Of course, there are many great apps out there, and these are just ones that I have seen success with. Feel free to comment below on other apps that are worth trying out for our primary students!

5 iPad apps for Student Presentations and Meta-Cognition

One of the best things about going 1:1 with technology is the amount of options students have to present their learning experiences. There are numerous apps out there that will allow students to display their thinking and make presentations both within and far beyond the classroom walls. Here is a list of a few apps that can be used for student creation in the classroom (listed alphabetically):

Book Creator Free

Book Creator is simply what is says it is, it is an app that allows students to create their own books. An added bonus is the ability to allow students to record their voice on each page of the books as well as embed pictures from their camera roll. I think this book has amazing journal potential for students. They could do a weekly math problem in the book and explain how they solved the problem. Over the course of the year you could see and hear how the students thinking has evolved. Of course the free version does have its down side, you may only create one book at a time.


Draw and Tell 

Draw and Tell is a great app for literacy usage in the classroom. Students can create drawings from scratch, or they can use the camera and stamps and stickers to create. After their artwork is complete, they can then record their story. It is partially interactive as they tell the story. They can move some of the objects as their story is told. Afterwards their creation will be saved to the camera roll.

The app is created by Duck Duck Moose and costs $1.99 in the app store. It is also part of the Drawing and Storytelling bundle by Duck Duck Moose.


Educreations Interactive Whiteboard

Educreations is one of the most popular apps for the K-12 classroom, with good reason. This is a great tool for teachers to use to flip their classroom, but it can be an amazing tool for students to use to explain their thinking. There is a recording option as they work on the white board. This option records all of their actions as well as their voice. An excellent tool for not only student presentations, but to record the students meta-cognitive process as well.

It is currently free at the App Store


Explain Everything

Explain Everything is a screen-casting app with a ton of possibilities. Similar to Educreations, students can use it as a whiteboard to write and explain their thinking. So much more can be done as well. Slide presentations, websites, YouTube videos, and various other media can be embedded into the student's project. Students can build outstanding presentations and record their explanations as well.

I had the privilege of hearing Reshan Richards, the creative mind behind the app, speak at the Ed Tech Teacher iPad Summit in February. His passion about giving students a tool to explain their thought process was contagious. The app's ability for students to present not just what they are learning, but how they learned it is truly remarkable.  

Explain Everything is currently $2.99 at the App Store

Shadow Puppet Edu

Shadow Puppet Edu allows students to create slide presentations with speech. Similar to PowerPoint or Google Slides, students create an order to how they would like their material presented. Once they have created their presentation they can then add a voice over to their product.  A great tool for putting together quick presentations that can be easily shared inside and outside of the classroom.

iMovie Book Trailers

The iPad offers many creative avenues for students to present material to teachers, classmates, and the web. Apple's iMovie App (which is free for any iPad Air owners) is one of the best tools for students to utilize.

Inside of iMovie, there is a feature where students can create Trailers. Several teachers throughout the country love this feature for the purpose of student created Book Trailers. This is an excellent alternative to the old "book report." Students also have several different publishing options for sharing outside of the classroom.

The trailer feature is a great tool for teachers because it can be used teach students several literary elements:

Genre: The student begins the process by choosing a genre to describe their type of book. Now these may not be the exact same as the genre types that you teach in your classroom, but they are closely related and could be used to show genre comparisons.

Setting & Characters: In the layout sections of the Trailer project, students will have to identify the setting of the story as well as the characters. 

This is where students can have some creative freedom. They could simply add images that they find, or create and record scenes using their device.





Story Development/Plot: As they develop their book trailer, students will have to summarize the story development. Of course, you don't want them giving away too much of the story. As stated before though, this can become a much more creative project than the standard book report.

Benefits for ELL Students: Besides the creative avenues and literary components, iMovie Trailers can be a great scaffold for your English Language Learners. The Storyboard layout section gives the students great sentence frames to follow. These can be easily modified by the students by just changing a few words, or they can be completely re-written altogether.

There are multiple benefits to allowing students to use iMovie in the classroom, the best being the student engagement that it will create for both the presenter and the viewer.