A couple of really great tools that I discovered recently are Do Ink, and Flip Grid.
I discovered Do Ink while at ISTE17. I was following the #sketchISTE on twitter and was really amazed at the awesome drawings that folks created to share their learning. THEN just when I thought that I couldn't be MORE impressed, I started seeing animated drawings! I HAD to look that up! Do Ink allows users to take their own hand drawn pictures or digital sketches and animate them. I loved that a student could draw a picture on paper, take a snap of it, and turn it into an animated picture. I've got tons of students who LOVE to draw so this really excited me. I tried it out myself and my results weren't nearly as impressive of some of the other videos I saw, but I am just beginning! Some roadblocks would be that there is a bit of a learning curve. It isn't as if students can just pick it up and create sophisticated animations immediately. It will also take time for students to draw, but MOST tragic of all, Do Ink isn't free! MAJOR BUMMER! It isn't that expensive, but in a time of budget cuts ANY expense can be prohibitive. Flipgrid was all the rage at ISTE17. People were VERY excited about it, and although I didn't attend any Flipgrid classes, I did hear about it, and see references to it on Twitter. We used it briefly in class the other day which caused me to dive a little deeper into later on, and I have to say that I did really enjoy it. I know my students would LOVE making videos of themselves (they all have YouTube channels) and I think it could really increase student involvement. Some roadblocks to the use of Flipgrid would be lack of access. While it might seem easy enough to ask students to download the app on their phones, and have them respond that way, that assumes that your students all have phones. This is not always true! Many students living in poverty might have a "device" in their hands, but that does not mean it is functional. One of my 5th graders carried around an iPhone 6 all last year, but it was a broken one he had found on the ground. No one knew this, and everyone thought he was a "King" because he had such a new and fancy device, but truly he was trying to save face and hide his family's lack of access to technology. As we move forward in the digital world, it is important that we are always, always, mindful of ways to be inclusive. I hope to use both of these tools next year in my classroom (the expense of Do Ink, notwithstanding), as I think they are great ways for students to share their responses in creative and meaningful ways, and will provide excellent insight into the effectiveness of my own classroom instruction.
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AuthorJen has been teaching school for awhile now. She's learned some stuff, but she's got tons more to learn. Archives
October 2017
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