This was my presentation at the Foreign Language Association of NC Fall Conference:
Many people already employ multiple apps
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...
Smashing adds an extra layer of understanding and personalization to a "boring" book activity.
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 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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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
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
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:
Great work flows:
Download the Definitive Guide to App Smashing:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5732877/Ebooks/The%20Definitive%20App%20Smasher%27s%20Guide.epub
Awesome teaching ideas:
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
https://www.smore.com/02y4-app-smashing
