Tag: technology

15 Ways to Use Avatars in Communication and Instruction

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There are many opportunities to use Avatars and personalized emojis in our communication. There are also many ways to use them to showcase and enhance student learning. Below are a variety of ways to use Avatars and three go-to sites to get started!

With Families

  1. Embed a Voki on your website with a welcome message to families
  2. Personalize your social media bio with an Avatar to match your persona.
  3. Have your Avatar spread your school brand by dressing it with school colors or include your school mascot.
  4. Post a special announcement on your school social media page using an Avatar to match the announcement
  5. Enhance posters and flyers with Avatars to match the message or event
  6. Embed a Voki into a SMORE Page to make an announcement or share your school news

With Students

  1. Engage students in historical biographies by having them create characters to match their learning content
  2. When students write autobiographies, have them include an Avatar of themselves as part of project. Can they correlate their writing to the elements they include on their Avatar.
  3. Play a “Guess Who” as a get to know you activity at the start of the school year. Have students create an Avatar and then pose a few questions for other students to make guesses as to who it is.
  4. Embed a BitMoji or Avatar into a google doc to personalize it and build relationships with students
  5. Celebrate an accomplishment of a student, by embeding an Avatar onto their Google assignments.
  6. Bring student narrative writing to life by having them create a set of characters to correspond with their writing piece
  7. Teach adjectives by having students create an Avatar and write adjectives to describe them
  8. Practice reading fluency by having students record their voice on a Voki reading a poem or short passage. Share it with their parents or embed in a digital portfolio
  9. Encourage students to include dialouge in their writing and use personalized Avatars to illustrate their writing

The Lego Movie Figure Creator

Personalize any Lego character and create posters, wallpaper, icons or scenes with backgrounds and props. Options for personalization include hair, eyes, eyebrows, clothes, ect.

http://sigfigcreator.thelegomovie.com/app.html 

Androidify

Create a GIF using attributes of any person using Androidify. This app/website even allows users to personalize movements to correspond with the characteristics of the individual.

http://www.androidify.com/ 

Voki

http://www.voki.com/

Voki allows the user to personalize an Avatar and it’s background. Users can then record a voice message to include with the Voki. I’ve used it on our school webpage as a welcome message to visitors. Students can also create Voki’s for a variety of classroom projects to bring story, writing projects, or speeches to life!

Illinois Computing Educator’s ICE 2017 Conference Review

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It’s hard as a principal to be away from your building for multiple days in a row. There are needs that arise and ongoing supports that need to be provided, but when you are granted the opportunity to go to a conference to connect, learn and grow with industry leaders and experts, it is an amazing experience! I spent three days at the Illinois Computing Educator’s Conference this past week. My time away was well worth it. With my Is dotted and Ts crossed in my building, I was ready to learn and connect! To say the experience fell short of awesome is an understatement! There were so many moments that I seized to learn and build my capacity as a leader.
My first full day was spent in the Future Ready Administrator’s Academy learning from Tom Murray. I spent 6 hours collaborating with other administrators, teachers and technology directors learning about the principles of the future ready framework. We dreamed big and brainstormed elements of the future ready classroom and I was proud to reflect that many elements are already established in our building and district! Future Ready is more than technology. It is building a robust infrastructure, personalized professional development, collaborative learning spaces, and connected learners!
The next two days were filled with workshops and networking! Highlights included keynotes by Eric Shenniger and Joe Sanfelippo and breakouts by Adam Welcome, Todd Neosley, and Kim Darche! I enjoyed connecting with leaders across Central Illinois and also expanding my network by meeting educational leaders across the state.
I was even able to spend a period of time volunteering for ICE at the presenter’s check-in table where I met and welcomed many of our Thursday presenters to the conference!
The Storify below shares a glimpse into some of the learning and connecting that occurred during my time at #ICE17

DGS Literacy Harvest

Dunlap Grade School teachers hosted the first Literacy Harvest to provide parents relevant resources and book titles to support the development of a culture of readers in the home. As part of this evening program, teachers reviewed current and beneficial technological applications or websites and current book titles or authors for parents. Parents accessed available technological devices to browse each resource and analyze potential uses for their child.

The following applications we reviewed and serve as recommended resources for parents to access at home with their child

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News-o-Matic: http://press4kids.com/ features daily news stories and current events and serves as a resource for non-fiction texts.

Starfall: http://www.starfall.com/ offers early reading activities, texts, and resources for developing readers in K-2. Vivid images and animated text makes it engaging for young learners. The navigation is simple for little learners.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ allows readers to document their reading life, connect with other readers, write reviews, and develop a reading plans. Students could benefit from authentic reading and writing audiences.

Kids Learn to Blog: http://kidslearntoblog.com/ provides the structure and information for children to learn to blog. Blogging provides an authentic audience and purpose for writing that can enrich students’ writing experiences or allow them to share with an audience experiences.

Read.Write.Think.: http://www.readwritethink.org/ provides several resources for home and school that includes writing templates and generators that are easy to use.

Wonderopolis: http://wonderopolis.org/ Is a favorite at DGS for students to search ‘wonders’ and find answers to questions like “What is a Hot Dog” or “How is a Telescope Made.” Students can search particular topics or ask their own ‘wonders.’ Answers provide kid-friendly responses with multi-media pictures or videos.

Word Salad: This app is available in iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordsalad-beautiful-word-clouds/id545164778?mt=8 A word cloud generator that can support the development of a reader’s ability to determine importance, synthesize or text, or expand their knowledge of vocabulary.

Newsela: https://newsela.com/ features engaging non-fiction texts and serves as a resource for non-fiction texts that allows the teacher or parent to differentiate text by lexile level.

AR Home Book Finder: http://www.arbookfind.com/default.aspx search to determine a particular book is an AR book, determine book level, or find related books to a particular keyword.

In addition to reviewing the applications, staff reviewed ways parents could assist their child in choosing relevant and meaningful book titles. Parents “Bobbed for Books” as we provided parents complimentary copies of a few of our favorite titles and spoke to our decision for including them in why they were chosen. Of the book titles shared, we focused on the variety of ways to choose appropriate and engaging books:

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  1. Balance your reading diet with a combination of fiction and non-fiction texts across genres
  2. Picture books may require higher levels of critical thinking and are appropriate to use across grade levels to engage learners in inferences of pictures, plot, and character development.
  3. Texts that tell a strong story can also be great examples for other literacy elements.
  4. Graphic Novels are popular, engaging, and appealing to readers. It is ok to encourage these.
  5. The “Who Am I” series provides students access to biographies at a grade and age-appropriate level.
  6. Accessing the Newberry or Caldecott honor lists can provide an instant list of books that are award winning for their contribution to children’s literature or illustrations.
  7. Books written by the same author or included in the same series can provide students structure in character development or plot structure; however, some authors write texts that are very different in theme, level, or content.

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Thanks to Stefanie Pitzer and Samantha Mahrt for their planning, preparation, and delivery of the important content that was shared with families!

Powerschool App available

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Goal 4 of the District Strategic Plan reads

”To Ensure a Satisfying and Productive Partnership with Families and the Community.”

Progress reports will be sent home with students on September 21, 2012. The Dunlap School District has been utilizing Pearson PowerSchool for the past two years which is a web-based Student Information System for tracking grades and attendance.

PowerSchool is now portable! The PowerSchool for Parents app is available for download from the App Store and compatible with the iPhone®, iPad® or iPod touch®. Parents can easily view each child’s progress in a single feed to check grades, review assignments, and more!  Learn more online!