So, Día de los Muertos...There's an app for that!!!

I played with a LOT of Día de los Muertos apps (yes, I'm a geek), but the best BY FAR are these two!

Day of the Dead Me.  Free.  NOTE: this is an iPhone app which won't come up on your iPad unless you switch from "iPad only" to "iPhone only" in the app store search.

You can take pics and make them into Calaveras!

There are lots of effects and free options to add to your photo.  There are even more to purchase, but why?

There are two strange things about this app:
1. There is an age requirement of 21-even though I have see nothing to rate that.  I just told my kids to put in a date before 1992.  Problem solved.

2.  This is the age of the selfie, yet this app won't let you reverse the camera...So, either get someone to take it for students, or have them take a selfie before opening the app.  You can upload from the camera roll (great chance to APP SMASH!!).  I have also had some students take a selfie with the back-facing camera--you would be surprised at how good they are in spite of not being able to see their shot!

This is fun way for students to personally identify with what we are learning about el Día de los Muertos.  One photo takes about 15 minutes, give or take.  I have students share their work on Edmodo, that way it isn't fully public, but they do have the reinforcement of others seeing their work.

iMuertos.  $1.99, although if you have the opportunity to purchase apps in bulk, you can get them for half price!

I was so excited to see this app this year!  We regularly create an altar and calaveritas in class but this is a great complement!

Students can design their own papel picado, calaverita and frame a pic of a person they want to memorialize...they then create their own altar using their designs!  There are 'velas', 'pan de muerto', 'copal', 'mole', 'cempasuchitl', and flower petals.  There is also built-in information/history of the holiday and a recipe for "pan de muertos".

Maybe the only drawback is that it is mostly in English, with some words in Spanish.  But, then again, it is accessible for all my students...I would have liked the choice, however.  Maybe they'll come up with a future version in Spanish...*fingers crossed*

I loved my students' creations!  Some students went traditional while others went all black and white or modern!  They really enjoyed it!  I led them to each section and demonstrated how to complete, then turned them loose!  I had them upload their final altar showing their papel picado, calaverita and photo to our class in Edmodo.

Extension activities (depending on the level) could be to respond to a classmate's post, write a description of the altar, or say if you like a photo...

Venn Diagram, the app

There are other ways to make one but for easy usability and clear interface, this free app is my new choice!  You can label each circle, change colors and add an overall title.  Further, you can add a quick description of each item you add, although that isn't visible in the actual circle...

This is brought to us by the same people whe created Word Mover.

App-solutely Smashing!

This was my presentation at the Foreign Language Association of NC Fall Conference:

Shoutout to Greg Kulowiec who is credited with coining the term "app smashing" several years ago....    http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/

Many people already employ multiple apps

 to create a product which is then shared with the world on social media

There is NO reason not to!  High interest level, lowering affective filter, personalized, fun!

One teacher uses dice to select apps! Look on Instagram or Twitter with #appsmash

These are my go-to apps.  All are free except PuzzleMaker.  I also like Noteography, which is 1.99...

Not a super creative task, but keeps the student active and individually accountable...

Smashing adds an extra layer of understanding and personalization to a "boring" book activity.

One student makes this for another to complete.

Kind of like Tagxedo but with more options. Require students to personalize in an authentic and meaningful way so all components work together to create meaning.

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Students can either do this activity on one iPad using the created background in Make Dice Lite OR use 2 iPads, one with dice and the other with the game board.  Try two dice, one with subject pronouns and the other with numbers.  One person rolls and selects a square.  Then conjugates for the other person to check.  If guessed correctly, use the number dice to indicate the number of points won.

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Students create a web with a main idea and individual related items, then add photos to illustrate the main idea.

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Students create questions to ask other students.  In this case, they asked about favorite types of movies, and favorite locations for watching.  Then they put their data into the pie chart maker and collated both in one piccollage.  They followed this up with presenting on AppleTV.

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This assignment was to create a movie poster for a movie of their creation.  She used several apps including camera, PicCollage and Pages.

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With Elin's house, students can create their own house, design the colors, add furniture and can interact with the lights, inhabitants, and items.  Then they take screenshots and open in PicCollage, where they add the name of the floor, the room and list an activity for that room.  Students present their designs on AppleTV by saying "This is the living room.  I dust in the living room".  You could bring in questions about furniture, colors and likes/dislikes.

To practice training their listening skills we occasionally do a dictation.  When we do, students use an app to write like ShowMe.  This is especially important since there is no spell-check feature when students use a writing tool.  If students use the PicCollage (like this one) make sure you have toggled the spell check off.  Students then screenshot their writing so it cannot be changed, then open in ShowMe and correct using the pen tool.  This is especially important for metacognition and reasoning skills.  They get a grade for completion, since this is considered a 'formative' grade or practice.  

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For this assignment, students made a list of drinks they like every day, sometimes or never.  We then added the verb "bebo" to make them sentences.  I had them screenshot their graphic organizer and present to the class using AppleTV.  The other students opened their writing in PicCollage and applied a sticker every time they heard someone present something they had in common.  This is excellent to encourage active presenters but also active listeners. Level 1

Students snapped a pic of a student in class and had to answer several questions related to their new vocab, including Is the clothing tight or loose?  What color is it?  What is it made out of?  What is the size?  They typed their answers in PicCollage (although they were given the choice) and then presented their work in AppleTV.Level 2

After a cultural reading and seeing a clip of a documentary in Spanish about the trip, students had to find out more info and illustrate their finds.  This is what oen of my students came up with.  The words are her own. They then exchanged information with the other level 3 students.  Next time, I'll have them take notes on each other's presentations and then add that info to the test to make them accountable.  

Level 3

I'm in the process of uploading the actual videos.

Check out these links for more information:

Includes a full tutorial video:

http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/2013/02/app-smashing-part-i.html

Great work flows:

http://appsmashers.weebly.com/work-sample-videos.html

http://vimeo.com/71366694

http://www.edudemic.com/app-smashing-education/

http://edtechteacher.org/blog/?p=2191

Download the Definitive Guide to App Smashing:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5732877/Ebooks/The%20Definitive%20App%20Smasher%27s%20Guide.epub

Awesome teaching ideas:

http://www.zigzagstech.com/

Amazing examples of app smashing work flows!

http://lifefeast.blogspot.com/2014/06/app-smashing-study-guides-for-students.html
https://www.smore.com/02y4-app-smashing

Decide Now!

My new favorite blog, Teachers Use Tech, gave me this app idea!   

A spinner app with cool graphics and crisp audio, this app allows you to customize your spinner choices if you get the .99 cent version!  

1. Plug in the names of kids in your class to randomly pick participants.  

2. Enter vocabulary words on the teacher iPad (and project on Apple TV or LCD) and have students spin to pick a word they must translate as a bell-ringer review. 

3. Students can enter their own text to create a list of words they can quiz each other with!   Gives student choice of words and high student-to-student interaction! 

4. What about using charades words?  Students spin to select what they will act out (keeping the spinner private), while other students have to guess.  This would take care of one problem I have when doing charades, that when several students have gone, the answer gets to be too easy to guess...now, they might have to repeat words so it will keep them on their toes. 

Any other ideas?

Augmented reality

I've been learning recently about augmented reality but I've been struggling with how to add it in my classes....this blogger has a great idea.  I intend to start using this for Spanish next semester!

http://www.teachersusetech.com/2014/03/how-to-make-augmented-reality-word-wall.html

Cinco de mayo

If you have ever taught Spanish at this time of the year, you know how annoying it is to hear..."Are we gonna have a fiesta for Cinco de Mayo?"  Thanks to propaganda by beer distributors, most people have the wrong idea when it comes to what Cinco de Mayo really is.  But, wait!  There's an app for that!!!!  

Cinco de Mayo:the Battle of Puebla is a mostly free app.  Upon opening, it goes directly into a summary of what it is, and more importantly what it is NOT.  It is pretty concise and the audio is delivered in Spanish-accented English.  You can toggle a text version of the story.  The other functions must be purchased for .99 cents each, so it's not *exactly* free.  There is a memory game which is pretty pointless, I'd skip that.  You only match icons, with no reinforcement of what the icon represents. The quiz is pretty good, probably worth the .99 cents.  I suggest projecting it and having the class work on it together.  

It gives feedback like the above, but it never does tell you what is right and what isn't.  Kind of annoying but still moderately useful to inform and engage for a few minutes at the end of class.  

The coloring pages upgrade is exactly that. Maybe worth it for younger kids. Maybe. 

The other cool thing is that there is a completely Spanish-language version of the app.  I believe this was developed as a service to inform and instruct Spanish-language speakers about this commonly misunderstood holiday.

If you look at the developer, you will, in fact, find several similar Spanish-language apps...including one about the revolution of 1910, 'App Revolucionaria', and another called 'Héroes Bicentenarios'. 

In summary: good for a few minutes to close class, but only buy the quiz option, and only get it on your teacher iPad, then project.   Get it in Spanish for a more authentic and challenging tool.

Thisissand

Artists, creatives and teachers, check this out! Cool graphics and sound effects make you feel like you are really sprinkling a bit of sand onto your screen in this free app.  (Did anyone else ever do this craft when you were a kid??) Seriously, try this one out and satisfy your inner child! Thank you, Bridgette, for the suggestion!

I'm still trying to figure out how to use this in class, maybe with colors (I'm thinking kids would say light or dark, colors or compare color to an object (like, this green is the color of grass, this blue is the color of the sky)? Or get students to make a design and describe what it looks like? Do they like it?  What is their favorite part?  I wonder if you could add an element of numbers to it, like roll the dice (see my post on Make Dice Lite) and add the color for that number?  Any other ideas?  Add to comments below!

Chose your colors from the rainbow or upgrade for .99 to make a new color from anything your camera can catch!

Here are some samples from the app: