Category Archives: Welcome

SPLASH: New Year, New Ideas 💦 🎉 🐟

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SPLASH: New Year, New Ideas Bitmoji Image

Bitmoji Image

Welcome back, everyone!  Are you ready for it? Another great calendar year in Ed-Tech? I know I am! I can’t wait to see what this year holds.  2018 was full of so many great ideas that I know 2019 can only be better! Do you have the resolution to try something new? A “new year, new me” sort of thing? Don’t just insert innovation into your diet – try it with your instruction too! Even if it’s just something small, trying something new can reinvigorate our practice and our students. My blog has some neat ideas for new activities, such as my post on Choice Boards, Student Expression, or one of my favorite tools: Pear Deck!

 

As a tech-educator, I am also trying new things…here’s what I’ve tried this week! Take a look:

Curating Content: Wakelet (The new Padlet, only better)!  Bitmoji Image

This is a pretty neat tool I must say! I had heard of Wakelet last year when Padlet instituted a fee structure, but I had yet to play with it. Then, I was on a Twitter Chat with my good friend Colleen Terrill before the holidays and she was able to save the WHOLE chat to Wakelet. She then shared the collection or “wake” with me! She put me in touch with James from Wakelet and he walked me through it.  Well, to say I was blown away is an understatement.  This tool has so much potential and you can do so many cool things with it! It reminds me of Padlet and Pinterest all wrapped into one! I’m just getting into it, but I am SO pumped about it! You could even use this awesome tool to create Choice Boards too!

This is a great post by Karly Moura about Wakelet where she includes others who are using it and her experience with it! I have a feeling you’re going to see this tool EXPLODE on the EdTech scene!

Emoji Bullets Bitmoji Image

This is so much fun! It came to be from an AWESOME Ed-Tech blogger by the name of Jake Miller. If you haven’t checked out his blog, I HIGHLY recommend subscribing. He teaches everything using GIFs! It’s so cool!  I’m a video girl myself, but GIFs are quick and FUN! Check out his blog to see what I mean.  Meanwhile, here’s how you can use emoji for bullets. Take a look at my video below!

Guess Who?! Digital Version Bitmoji Image

Have you ever played Guess Who? Well, this is the digital version that you can custom modify!

I caught this neat activity in another blog I subscribe too, Control Alt Achieve by the AWESOME Eric Curts! By subscribing, I get an email with little gems including his “intake” from other Ed-techies! This one is by Amanda Sandoval, a history teacher from California.

Tip of the Week: Multiple Google Accounts Bitmoji Image

Have you had family Google Photos show up in your school account? Wonder why a link is opening under your personal account when you’re logged in at school? Take a look at this great post from  Shake Up Learning regarding how to manage your multiple Google Accounts.  She actually suggests creating separate profiles. This is a GREAT tip!

New year, New Ideas… 🐦 Bitmoji Image

For more new ideas, please join me in the first MassCue Twitter chat of the new year. We will be discussing new ideas and learning from each other! It will be GREAT!

Happy New Year! I hope you use many new ideas!

oFISHally Yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

HOOKED: App Smashing ↩️ 🎣 🐟

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Students differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn.

If students are actively engaged, they are more likely to be actively learning and succeeding with content as opposed to passive learning. Every learner is different, therefore trying to engage in many different ways will most likely reach more learners.  Perhaps the coolest lessons I see are when teachers are App Smashing! What is App Smashing? Well, it’s when you are on your favorite app and you combine it with another! There are so many cool apps you can combine, I do it every day! Anytime you see a video from me, I’m usually combining Screencastify with something. Screencastify is my favorite app to smash with since it is such a versatile tool! App Smashing can be very engaging when done correctly! Students this week really enjoyed smashing some apps!

Google Slides + Screencastify 

A REALLY neat activity I worked on in 6th grade this week was a stop-motion animation project.  Students took Google Slides and showed how food traveled through the digestive tract. They would take the slide and move the food ever so little and then duplicate the slide. Once the 50+ slide deck was complete, students put the deck into present mode, started up Screencastify and narrated over the process explaining every organ the food traveled through.  The students were all highly engaged and quite enjoyed the stop motion! When the phases of the moon topic come in, teachers may try this again showing how the moon cycles around the sun and show the different lit phases. Take a look at my video below to see how you may pair Screencastify with Slides!

Google Slides + Pear Deck + Your Favorite Site 

If you’re a reader of my blog, you know I love Pear Deck.  Well, here’s one more reason to love it…embed websites!  How many times do you have students have multiple tabs open?  Why not just embed the site, or even a Doc or Draw item, directly into Slides.  Simply get the link and choose the Embed Website option in Pear Deck.  See the links below for more information on this awesome SMASH!

https://www.peardeck.com/pear-deck-blog/appsmash

https://help.peardeck.com/article/47-create-a-web-slide

https://help.peardeck.com/article/48-what-sites-can-i-embed-in-a-web-slide

PearDeck + FlipGrid

SnapChat + Padlet 

A pal of mine loves to use Snapchat with her older High School students smashed with Padlet! Students take “snaps” of independent books they’re reading. They highlight something in the book that strikes them. They post the “snap” on a Padlet wall that is for the class to see. Most students include some bitmojis with their snaps and circle particular text within the book page.  This Padlet wall of booksnaps encourages other students to also read the book, thus engaging students and increasing independent reading!

FlipGrid + Screencastify 

Check out this great post on the FlipGrid blog of Smashing Flipgrid with Screencastify! It’s pretty awesome!

http://blog.flipgrid.com/screencastify

Tip of the Week: Closed Captions in Google Slides! 

Google Slides continue to get even MORE awesome! You can click the closed caption button on Slides, and your Slides with record your voice and add the captions! Smash this with ScreenCastify and talk about AWESOME!

 

What Apps are you Smashing?? I’d love to hear about it, or see it first hand! Reach out!

Have a SMASHINGLY good week, and Thanksgiving! You’ll hear from me AFTER the holiday!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

 

 

“Reel” it in with Student Video Projects! 📽️🎞️ 🎣

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HAVE A GREAT FEBRUARY BREAK!

I send you off with some REELY good ideas for video projects!  A teacher reached out this week and asked for a good program to make book trailers. What a fantastic project for students! There are so many fun ways to do this!  Check it out below:

Animoto 📸 😁 

Animoto is a great, free, website and app that allows you to make videos with premade templates.  It has themes and music, premade video or you can use your own.  It’s very easy and fun! See my how-to video below and check out Animoto here!

This is an example video I made with Animoto for Little Vikings Summer Program!

 

iMovie  😮

iMovie is also a great option for those students using their iPhones or home devices (iPads and Mac books). Like Animoto, it has premade templates and music to create pretty cool short videos.  See the how-to and video example below! iMovie

 

Screencastify 📹 

Screencastify is my favorite go-to for all things video. There’s just so much you can do with it! It works well on the Chromebooks and has a webcam option! You can pause and resume and the videos save directly to Google Drive, making it easy for students to add to Classroom.

Video Project Ideas from Others  🎥

This is a great post (click here) by Richard Byrne from Practical Ed Tech showcasing his lesson plan with video options for students. He goes into many of the free tools and how to use them. He even provides a link to example lessons.

This post (click here) by Eric Curts features video mashing using Google Slides and Youtube. Basically you insert two videos onto the same slide and have them play simultaneously. Why do that, you ask? Well, take a look at his post. He has a great explanation!

This post (click here) by Matt Miller is about how to take Google Slides and create stop motion videos. It’s pretty neat, and not too challenging! Students who like to design may enjoy this one!

Lastly, Eric Curts (click here) also suggests video dubbing using Screencastify. This is a neat idea! Essentially, you mute a video (either that you made or borrow from YouTube and you provide voice-over and narrate it.  This would be great to do over a Google Slide presentation as well to provide audio explanation.

Have a wonderful, restful break! You deserve it!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

Welcome! 🐠

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Welcome everyone to my brand new blog at Edublogs! Thank you to Chris Traynor who came up with FISH online and the mnemonic device (Finding Inspiration, Support, and Happiness) that is used in the title, and Laura McPhee for “fishin on a mission” that is used in the URL of the blog.  I would expect plenty of “click bait” on this blog focusing on technology integration (hahaha, bait, thanks Chris for that one).

I’m hoping you enjoy my weekly(+) posts of tech integration in the classroom! This blog will take the place of my weekly newsletter.  The advantage of blogging, rather than sending out a newsletter, is when you want to search for a particular item, you simply come to this blog and search for it in the search box.  Gone are the days of having to open Techletter after Techletter trying to find that one tip you wanted to remember.  Additionally, posts will be categorized and date stamped, for even easier searching.  I will still feature amazing tech integration by teachers I see both in-person and online, and weekly tips and tricks! I welcome other ideas as well so feel free to comment below!

If you still would still like to access previous Techletters, with amazing tech tips, from 2016-2017, you can do so by clicking here.

I’m looking forward to this blogging adventure ahead!

oFISHally and Digitally yours,

Erin Fisher