Apptastic Activities!

Find this page at: DitchThatTextbook.com/apptastic


1. Screencastify

It records any combination of: video of your screen, video through your webcam and audio from your microphone … saves it to your device, to Google Drive or to YouTube.

The activity: Virtual tours. Use Google Maps Street View (maps.google.com). Start the recording with the Screencastify Chrome extension. On Google Maps, drop the little yellow peg man on the map. Narrate with the microphone, telling the audience about the place that they’re seeing. Use the mouse to look all around the areas and click to walk around the area. When you’re done, stop the recording with the Screencastify Chrome extension.

street-view animated


2. SeeSaw

Class sharing tool, geared toward elementary ages. Lets students share images, notes, videos, etc. with the rest of the class. (Parents can be added so they can see, too.) Students can then comment and like each other’s stuff.

OR Snapchat

Social media tool for sharing videos and photos with friends/the world. You can annotate, draw on, mark up photos before sharing.

The activity: BookSnaps. With BookSnaps, you take a photo of a page (or a passage) in a book you’re reading. From there, you can do a variety of things: underline sentences, add emoticons, add Bitmojis of yourself reacting, etc. Once they’re shared, it’s a great conversation starter with others. They’ll want to write comments about your BookSnap and discuss what you’re reading. See examples here on the #BookSnaps hashtag on Twitter. (A variation of BookSnaps — MathSnaps! See some examples here on the #MathSnaps hashtag on Twitter.)


3. AWW App

Draw on a digital white board. Multiple students can join a single white board and collaborate. When finished, you can save your board as an image file.

The activity: Brainstorm sessions. Students could create mind maps/word webs or even storyboards of stories they’re reading/writing. They could work through math problems together, answer social studies questions, consider science concepts, etc. in a digital space. Students could be paired/grouped with students in other classes and could collaborate in the same subject with students they don’t see face to face in that class. See my post about using AWW App in the classroom here.


4. Flipgrid

Students are given a prompt and record video clips (up to 90 seconds) responding to the prompt. They can then listen to each other’s clips, favorite/heart them and (in the premium version) reply to a clip with a video clip.

The activity: Book talks. Students could talk about books they’re reading on their own and why they like them. They could also talk about individual sections/characters/plot twists in the same book everyone’s reading. You might be surprised at how often they’ll go listen to each other’s videos — even outside of class! See examples of how people are using Flipgrid on the #FlipgridFever hashtag.


5. DriveSlides

Gather photos in a folder in Google Drive. Click the DriveSlides extension and it puts all of those photos from the folder on separate slides in a slide presentation.

The activity: My world photos. Have students take photos of something in their worlds outside of class that relates to the topic you’re studying. They can submit those photos to you so you can put them in the Google Drive folder. (Or they can add them to the folder by email using the Save Emails and Attachments add-on for Google Sheets.)

DriveSlides for Book (1)


6. Hypothes.is

Online article discussion tool. With Hypothes.is, you find an article/page on the web. Students can then highlight it, write comments on it and even add sticky notes to it. It’s a great place to have digital discussions about what you read.

The activity: News article discussion. Find a news article that’s relevant to what you’re talking about. Post a Hypothes.is discussion about it and let students highlight important points, ask and answer questions through comments and add any additional pertinent info in sticky notes. Make it an unforgettable experience by asking the author of the article (from the newspaper or website) to jump in and interact with your students! Here’s an article about homework that’s been lightly annotated with Hypothes.is.

hypothesis


7. Stackup

Stackup lets students track what they read online — either for class or for pleasure. It runs through a Google Chrome extension that watches what they read. Stackup shows students how many minutes they’ve spent actively reading in a variety of categories (aerospace, tech, education, etc.) and even lets them reach levels/earn badges for their reading.

The activity: A free time reading contest. Encourage students to read digitally and let Stackup track their reading time. Create a challenge within Stackup and let them watch their name go up and down the leaderboard based on the minutes they’ve read.

stackup screenshot

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