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?

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:

Good and Evil Twins with Split Pic

One of my students suggested this app...he uses it on his phone but there is an iPad version, or you can use the iPhone app on the iPad.  I imagine there are similar options in the android market.

Great free iPhone app allows you to create one photo with two by splitting the lens. While there are more applications, I'm sure, we are using this one today to create a graphic with good and evil twins.  

Students describe their twins using terminology like "travieso", "consentido", "bien educado", or "generosa".

This was the original, which he liked so much he posted to his Instagram account.  He later added his adjectives in Pic collage. 

Some students did theirs using the regular camera feature, then importing two photos into PicCollage, like this one...

(Yes, I realize there are some errors. This led to a productive review discussion about adjectives and gender.)

(Student photos used with permission)

  

iCitizen

Ok, so not a language app...but still amazing, this app will give you a list of all your elected officials at the federal and state levels-just type your zip code.  Then, it will give you all their contact information, their votes, a list of names and monetary contribution of all their campaign supporters, and information about bills they've sponsored. You can email them with one click! And that's just one tab! Further, you can follow issues (like 'Economy' or 'Education') and it will notify you of any related legislation.  Visually clean, super informative, and easy to use-this app rocks! (And makes it easy to be politically active/aware).  And did I mention, it's free!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icitizen/id725655449?mt=8

Visual Poetry

This free app is a wonderful tool for manipulating basic vocabulary. There are lots of choices for schema and colors--You can select a pre-formatted background or draw your own. You can enlarge certain words, drag them to the location of your choice and highlight with colors. 

My favorite way to use this is to make the background and shape represent the theme of your vocabulary. The activity lasts 10 minutes or so, then students can present their final product using the target language. The only drawback is that the app won't accommodate that many words so you need to limit to about 10.  

This is an example of one my students made...