8 Apps For Class Warm Ups

Class warm-ups are an important part of the class. The teacher can use them as a review of the previous days material or they can provide an inquisitive foundation for the days learning. Below are five apps that can get the days class off to a good start.

Recap: With Recap, the teacher can initiate a chat-style discussion. In addition to the typed chat response, one of the cool things about Recap is that it gives the teacher the flexibility to let the students respond to a class warm-up with a video response.

Socrative: A great app for multiple choice quizzes. Socrative allows for the creation of a short answer warm-up question as well. If you feel a little competition would be fun, you can create a digital race where students answer questions faster than the competition to reach the finish line.

Seesaw: A fantastic online digital journal. Seesaw provides the flexibility for the teacher to either post a video, a drawing, a link, or something from Google Drive to the students journal for them to write about.

Google Sheets: That's right, you can use Google Sheets for class warm-ups! Simple create different sheets for different opening topics. When students enter the class, they open their shared Google Sheet, choose a square, and address the topic.

Newsela: Not just for English or Social Studies. Newsela is a great way to increase literacy. Choose from a variety of subjects. Ask students to read the content and answer the questions.

Kahoot: Gamify the opening of your class. Have your Kahoot waiting as students enter the room. A great way to get students seated with their device ready to begin the day.

Padlet: Create a Padlet board to open the class. Ask students to address the topic with links, photos, or video to make the discussion more interesting

Tag Journal: Tag Journal is the only app in the list that's for iOS only. What makes Tag Journal cool is that it allows the students to tag topics. For example, if the class is studying World War II, the journal topics may have something to do with the subject matter. Students can add pictures or audio to their journal entries.

9 Apps To Help Get Your Students Writing

Sometimes you’ll find that your students need a little inspiration to get started in their writing. The following apps can give them the push they need.

Tag Journal: Ask students to journal. They can journal about a memory or about their day or week. In some cases, thinking about a memory can spark creativity and give them a topic to write about. Or, ask them to review past journal entries for ideas. The thing that makes Tag Journal unique is that it allows you to “tag” entries. A student can tag certain themes, places, and people for easy retrieval later.

Padlet: Ask students to fee associate things that come to mind and create a Padlet. Have students create topics as headers for columns and then fill out those columns. For example, columns could be titled “Home,” “Work,” and “School.” They can populate the columns with terms that come to mind in each of those categories.

Lists for Writers: A great way to break writer's block. If a student is stuck because they need the right name, place, phrase, or setting, Lists for Writers can help. It is a fantastic resource to help get the writer back into their writing.

Story Starters for iPad: It’s all in the name. Story Starters for the iPad is a fantastic way to start a writing project. A student can simply take a look at the main menu, which includes speeches, phrases, pictures, and settings, and choose which inspiration they’d like to start their story with.

Skitch: A fabulous markup tool. Skitch can be used in many ways in the classroom. For writing inspiration, ask students to take pictures of people, locations, and/or things. Then, using the markup tool, they can describe the pictures, giving them characteristics that can be used in their story.

MindNode 5: Great for organizing ideas. Asks students to write down people, places or ideas. Then, ask them to free associate about those topics. After a certain amount of time, connect those ideas. The result is a skeleton of a story.

Popplet: Another great way to mind map or organize a story. It’s kinda like MindNode in that you can connect ideas and maps. The difference is in the usability and design. Again, have students free associate and connect ideas they can use in their writing.

Prompts: Prompts is a writing prompts app where, upon starting, presents you with a prompt such as “I love it when…” then the student can build something bigger from the prompt. But that’s not where Prompts ends. If you find you’re stuck in your writing, clicking the Prompts icon will prompt you again, making a suggestion on where you should go next with your writing.

GarageBand: record sounds for inspiration. Ask students to record everyday sounds. Then, using those sounds as inspiration, base a story on the recordings. Have students give the voices, the bird chirps, and the everyday sounds characteristics they can use in their writing.

10 Ways Students Can Use Tech to Show What They've Learned

Technology presents teachers with a variety of ways to have their students show off what they've learned, whether it's over the course of a unit or checking for understanding over the day's lesson.  Below is a list of apps that can help students show off their learning.

1. Google Slides.  Google Slides is great for many more things than your standard run-of-the-mill presentation.  Have students create an e-book summarizing what they've learned.  Another option is to have the kids create a journal, using each slide as a concept with pictures and explanations.
2. Book Creator.  Use Book Creator to have the students create books summarizing what they've learned or to explain a concept, then share it with fellow students to be critiqued.  The students can make the book look how they wish with different styles and templates. 
3. Google Drawings.  The days of teachers bringing construction paper of having the students buy poster paper are gone.  Ask the students to create a diagram, poster, or flowchart to show what they've learned. 
4. Explain Everything.  With Explain Everything, the student becomes the teacher.  Have students record themselves while they explain a concept on a virtual whiteboard.
   
5. iMovie.  The ol' reliable.  Use iMovie to have students create a movie about a topic.  They can recreate a historical event, record a video diary about a topic, or video themselves conducting research on a topic.
6. GarageBand.  Using Apple's GarageBand, students can create a song summarizing what they've learned.  They can create a daily podcast tracking their daily learning.  Students can also use GarageBand to create a theater of the mind audio play about a certain topic.
7. Skitch.  Skitch is a tool that allows students to mark-up images.  They can use it to annotate a digital document, such as identifying places on a map. Skitch is also great for language classes where they have to identify real-world examples of vocabulary words.  
8. Popplet.  Popplet is great for mind mapping.  Students can use it to explain an event or create a visual biography.  It's also a great way to explain the steps of a concept or a math problem.
9. Padlet.  Padlet has been around a while and there are a whole lot of great uses of Padlet.  The teacher can create a Padlet where students simply share what they've learned that day.  Students can create a class Padlet where all students contribute to a particular topic. 
10. Notability/Blogger/Google Keep.  I put these apps together because they all serve the same point--to journal about what they're learning.  They can keep a log of they're learning in class as a daily reflection or answer questions posed by the teacher in their journal.  

Five Apps to Get Students Excited About Journaling

Journaling can play an important part in the classroom for a number of reasons. Journaling helps students develop their writing skills and become a more confident writer. It's a great way for students to self-reflect. And, in the case of a free-form journal, it may aid in decreasing stress as they are able to pour out their thoughts and emotions. Journaling in the classroom is also a great way for students to reflect on their learning.

As far as journaling tools go, there are the obvious word processors such as Google Docs, Pages, and Word. But the following are five unique ways students can journal in the classroom:

1. Google Slides/Keynote: Presentation apps are an easy way for students to organize their journals and an easy way for teachers to review them. Simply use each slide as a day's journal entry. Let students edit the slide so they might include pictures, themes, and various fonts.
   
   
2. Seesaw: I've written how cool Seesaw is as far as keeping a student portfolio. In essence, it's a journal where students can reflect on their work by including pictures and video about what they're doing in the classroom. Take it one step further and post some of the student entries on the class blog included in Seesaw.
   
   
3. Kidblog: A way for students to not only keep a journal, but develop good digital citizenship skills by creating a blog. Kidblog is a blogging platform tailored for the classroom. With Kidblog, the teacher is in complete control. From who can see the posts to who can comment, Kidblog puts the teacher in total control of the blog.
   
   
4. Tag Journal: An iOS app that can be used for both note-taking and journaling using, text, voice recording, and pictures. The cool thing about Tag Journal is reflected in its name. You can "tag" your entries. A student may want to tag journal entries specific to what they're learning in class. For example, tag entries regarding the Civil War or World War II. It's a great way for students to organize their journal according to topic or subject.
   
   
5.  Paper by Fifty Three:  A unique way to keep a journal. Unleash students creativity and give them ownership of their learning with this iOS app. There's no end to what students can do with Paper. Paper enables students to be creative in documenting their learning by giving them the ability to draw using a variety of tools, annotate screenshots, incorporate photo's, as well enter text.