Spice Up Your Text Message Game with "Bitmoji"

Looking to add a little spice to your text messages? Feel like your texting game as gone bland? Well, maybe what you need is "Bitmoji." 
Bitmoji is an app for Apple and Android that gives you a ton of new emoji's. What's even better is that you can customize the emoji's to look like yourself! Once you edit how you look in the app itself, you can select bitmoji's to use in your text messages. There are a wide variety of bitmoji's so you are sure to find the perfect emoji for the situation. 
Here's how to do it:
-Go to App store and get "bitmoji." 
-Open "bitmoji" app and customize what you look like.
1. Go to "settings"
2. Go to "general"
3. Go to "keyboard"
4. go to "keyboards"
5. touch "Bitmoji--bitmoji"
6. Turn on "access allow"
7. Use it! In a text message, click on the icon (looks like a globe with lines) in the bottom left to access the bimoji's. 

Shared at Sharapalooza

In case you missed it or forgot to write down what was shared, here it is!

Plickers.com (web and apple/android app. Free)

Get instant feedback from all your students without needing devices.

Flippity.net

Use Google Drive to create game-show type review games

Cel.ly

Create a social network that you and your students can use to communicate and share

Too Noisy Pro (ipad app. $2.99)

Noise detector. Great for classroom management. Screen “breaks” when the noise volume gets too high. Students/classes can earn “gold stars” for prolonged times of being quiet.

Purposegames.com

Create identification games. Upload a picture and set the points of identification.

Bring Famous People Alive in your classroom!

The Morfo app allows you to create talking pictures. All that is needed is the app (free), a face shot of the person you want to make talk, and a recording of the message. Morfo is a quick, easy way to be creative, make announcements, share a thought, or give information. With Morfo, you can bring any famous person to life and have them speak with the message you want them to have. You can also make yourself speak or any student. With app does a really good job making it look realistic when the "person" is talking. 

Applications for Education: In my class, during the ancient Greece Unit, I would have Zeus "stop by" with a message every so often. It would either be an announcement  some words of encouragement, or a piece of valuable information. This app works even better in school now that Youtube is open. Once you make your creation, you can easily upload it to Youtube and share on you website. Kids can then watch it in school. Morfo could be a great tool in any class. In history, there are obviously tons of historical people you could use. Maybe an author of a book the kids are reading in class. Or a famous scientist, mathamatician, or athlete. If you have an iPhone, down the app and give it a try.  See example below.  

Online Trading Cards: web and app versions

The online trading card web version (on the computer) and app (on the iPad) is a great tool to focus on a particular person, character, or thing. The online trading card program is free and easy to use. This tool can be used in any class: famous person in history like George Washington, famous literary character like Katniss Everdeen, or a famous scientist like Bill Nye. This tool allows the students to create a quality product, which focuses on their topic/person. The teacher can make one for their students to learn about the person or have the students make them to show what they know/learn. I always like the students to make/use the tools but obviously computer availability is limited at BVMS. Check out Online Trading Cards on the web or the iPad. 

Cool App: History: Maps of the World

Name: History: Maps of the World

What is it? Browse high-resolution maps of the world from various periods throughout history.

Best for: History, Geography; iPhone, iPod, iPad

Price: Free

Rated: 4+

Features: Wide variety of historical displays; support for Category/Era view; keyword search; displays the source about each map; zoom in/out (zoom in/out with pinch, zoom in with double tab, and zoom out with two-fingers tap); free screen rotation; does not require a network connection.

Thank you to "eschoolnews.com" for this iPad app description. 

iPad apps for Idea Mapping

Here are a few quality iPad apps for idea mapping. These apps can help students organize and share their thoughts, ideas, and knowledge. Simple to use and engaging, these apps allow the students to make a much more dynamic and powerful idea map than a piece of paper would. These maps are all fairly similar but some provide the ability to upload photos into your idea map, and others don't. Start with an main/general idea and extend out to more specific details of the main idea. Visually stunning and creative, these apps will help students share and understand much better.  Examples of Idea Maps below. 

Idea Sketch -students us text only. Email final product to the teacher as an Idea Sketch. Open attachment with iPad or iPhone.

Inspiration Map -Allows students to use text and images. Share with DropBox

Popplet -Allows the student to organize their ideas/knowledge. Easy to use, allows the student to write text and upload photos into their idea maps.

SimpleMind+ -Students can use text only. Take a screen shot of their project and email it to you for viewing.










Examples of Idea Mapping:

3 Teacher Apps You Should be using

Here are three apps that you as a teacher could be using quite often. Download these on your iPhone or iPad device. 

The CommonCore app allows you to quickly and easily bring up the common core standards. The Common Core standards are obviously a big thing right now so get yourself immersed in the standards with this app!

The Remind101 app allows you to remind your students with your Remind101 account anytime, anywhere with your iPhone or iPad. 

The "WeWantApps" app allows you to search for specific apps by filling out specific search fields.

App Spotlight: Lino It!

The Lino app for the iPad is a great creation tool. Imagine a huge canvas and on it, you can put whatever you want. You can design, create, organize, remind, share, and learn. You can Lino! I used the Lino app in class over the course of two days and my students picked up on it very quickly. The app is already installed on the iPads at the middle school, so it is ready to go. In order to use the app and save their work, the students needs to log in. I created a username and password for them, and they all use it, which means all their work is in one place. This makes for easy grading because you are not logging into a bunch of accounts. However, you may want to make a separate account for each class period to help with organization. 
Lino Is GREAT! Minimal explanation of how to use the app, then the students can get to work. With Lino, they have a huge virtual board and can place sticky notes and pictures (either from the internet or taking them with the built in camera) all over it. I had my students produce a preview of the ancient worlds we will be learning about. This project could be done with the same effectiveness on paper, IF each student was awesome at drawing. That's not the case! In the virtual Lino world, anyone can make a sharp, organized and creative product.  Sign up for the iPads and try Lino! It's Free!