Tackk

If you're a fan of Smore {read my post about it here}, you'll love Tackk! I heard about it over the summer, but I figured there was no reason for me to have accounts at two very similar websites. Now I'm kicking myself for not investigating it earlier... 

What It Is

Tackk allows users to create online posters with text, videos, audio recordings, pictures, and embedded widgets and links. Each Tackk {poster} is stored at its own unique URL for easy sharing. 

Features

• 100% free
• Account not necessary to create a Tackk {only downside? Anonymous Tackks are deleted after 7 days.}
• E-mail address not needed to create an account or sign in -- kids can sign in with a social media account or with Edmodo! 
• Free iOS app
• Customize the poster's text, colors, and design
• Add headlines of different sizes, colors, and fonts to make them stand out next to regular body text
• Add photos -- upload your own, grab from Instagram or a specific URL, or use Tackk's partnership with 500px or Giphy to find a photo to use
• Adjust the size and add captions to photos
• Add video from 150+ {YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, U-Stream, Animoto, ShowMe, etc. included -- here's the complete list}
• Add audio from 22 sources {SoundCloud, Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, etc. included -- here's the complete list}
• Add a button to make links more visible:

• Ability to add "listings" of things you can sell directly from your Tackk {PTO and spirit shops, I'm lookin' at you.}
• Add a contact form -- all responses are sent to your e-mail inbox
• Embed widgets to things like other Tackks, a Poll Everywhere poll, Prezi, Listly, Screenr, SlideShare, Twitter, etc.
• Add an RSVP {I'm thinking of field trip, class party, extracurricular group event, etc.}
• Make your Tackk public or private
• Option to add password protection to a private Tackk
• "Tag" Tackks -- similar to tagging in Blogger or Evernote -- as a way to collect and/or organize data. {For instance, I would have my students tag their Tackks with special phrases to ensure I could find them easily.}
• Customize the URL {only downside? the URL is an extension of tackk.com and not your profile, so no other Tackk user can ever personalize their poster with the same name}
•  Add an interactive comment stream -- great for encouraging conversation between your students. {Admin rights gives ability to moderate.}
• Create an assignment template so students only have to click and edit {more about that below}
• Saves automatically every few seconds -- similar to LiveBinders 
• Duplicate your Tackks to save yourself time creating similar posters
• Transfer ownership of your Tackks to a different account
• Variety of sharing options when you're finished:

I like that I could embed all the class's Tackks onto my school webpage, or even create a Tackk that links to everyone's Tackk {how's that for a confusing sentence?} to show off student work to parents and the community.

Assignment Template Feature

I have to  share the assignment template feature with you. There is currently no tutorial on the Tackk blog that tells how to utilize the lesson template feature, but I got the inside scoop from a sweet and knowledgeable Tackk rep {shout-out to Andria!}. She's going to write a blog post about it soon, but I thought I'd share here, too. 

The assignment template feature lets you create a Tackk that is editable and share that with students. So instead of sharing a static page that no one can edit {here's example I created about ABCD drawings in a science notebook}, you share this editable page that acts as a template for the assignment. For instance, here's an editable template about the scientific method. If you give students the special link to your template, they can edit a copy of your template without ever changing your original. 

To create an editable assignment template:

1. Create a Tackk. 
2. Customize the URL under "Tackk options." 
3. Make the Tackk private, and then publish it so it's live.
4. Before sharing the link with students, edit it so that "/create/copy" in written after tackk.com. For instance, my scientific method page is www.tackk.com/scientificmethod. So to let kids edit it, I would share this link, instead: www.tackk.com/create/copy/scientificmethod

I love the idea of this for my elementary students! 

Because I only have 50-60 minutes total with each class per week in Science Lab, I often print a recording sheet to glue into the notebook -- especially for my youngest students. Not only does it help prompt them about what step in the scientific method comes next, it's a way to help speed up their writing so that we have time to do an experiment and write about it in our notebooks, too.

I can definitely see myself transferring some of my recording sheets into Tackk templates. From there, I envision students tagging each assignment with a specific phrase so that I can assess and share. 

I'll leave you with my first full assignment created on Tackk {link here if you want to see the full version on the Tackk website}. My fourth graders are actually in the middle of this assignment, so I probably will not get to use Tackk for it until next year. But now that I know the process, I'm sure there will be plenty more Tackk projects to come.

     

Twitter: Suggestions for Use

Now that you know all about Twitter (what it is, special Twitter vocabulary, setting up an account, navigating the website, sending tweets, the hashtag, Twitter chats, and Twitter accounts to follow), it's time to put that information to use. Below are some ideas I have about using Twitter as a teacher.

Suggestions for teacher-posts with limited interaction:

1. Reminders about assignments that are due or upcoming quizzes/exams/projects
2. Reminders about snow days, picture days, sporting events, field trips, spirit days, etc. 
3. School events and/or their outcomes (plays, musicals, art shows, academic meets, etc.) -- especially ones where your school won/did well or is playing a rival
4. Hints about how to complete an assignment or project
5. Bonus points that can only be aquired through Twitter. {For instance, when I taught high school English, I once tweeted, "Go to the class website and scroll to the bottom of the home page. The first student to describe to me the newest object at the bottom of that page gets 5 bonus points." The purpose of this, of course, was to get students to view the class website and the newest important tool on it.}
6. Helpful websites
7. Links to related online games
8. Helpful apps
9. Books you recommend
10. Vocabulary words/definitions in a Word of the Day (#WOTD) format
11. A poll to help your classroom/planned lessons {either with the answer options included in the tweet or as a link to another polling platform, like Survey Monkey, for instance}
12. Exit ticket answers {If students ask a question on an exit ticket, you could answer it on Twitter.  This allows everyone to benefit from the answers without taking up valuable class time.}
13. Motivational/inspirational quotes 
14. Challenges {"I challenge you to find one example of alliteration today."..."I challenge you to do one random act of kindness -- #ROAK -- today."}

If you're interested in using twitter for professional development purposes, please read this blog post.

Posts to stimulate interaction/potential student projects:

1. Schedule a chat. For instance, I might specify the #MrsKSci4 hashtag and assign a start time of  7 pm. Ideally, at 7 pm, students would log on and use the search box to find our class's hashtag. We can then have an online discussion of classroom topics outside the walls of our classroom. You could discuss anything from an in-class topic to a President's speech on television to a movie you all went to see. Click here to read more about Twitter chats. 
2. Peer-to-peer tutoring. Encourage parents/students to tweet questions. Other students/parents could check the hashtag and answer peer's questions. We learn best when we teach! Of course, you'll want to monitor the feed to ensure that all questions are answered accurately.
3. Exit ticket. At the end of class, ask students to whip out their mobile device and tweet a quick exit comment/question to the cyber-world. Hopefully, these tweets generate a discussion for other students answering their peers' questions. You also get a quick evaluation of who understands the material.
4. Summary of the day. Whether you've just taught a math lesson or you've just finished another chapter in the class novel, students can tweet a 140-character summary of the day's lesson. In order to make assessment easier, you might consider having students either tweet this as a "reply" or include the class hashtag.
5. Short answer quiz questions. Of course,  <140-characters/tweet is a short short answer! But if you're able to explain/answers something in such a short and concise manner, you're probably more likely to understand it.
6. Twitter as bellwork. This feeds off the last suggestion, but immediately upon entering the room,  there will be questions or a discussion prompt on the board {or tweeted by you}. Students must respond to the question(s)/discussion prompt while you take care of those mundane "house-keeping" duties {attendance, lunch count, etc}.
7. Summary of text. After reading a chapter in a novel or expository textbook, ask students to tweet  summary of what they just read. 
8. Timeline report. Follow a celebrity or company and track their tweets over time. Then write a report over their day-to-day life. This could work as a biography project or even for a business class.  
9. Find students in another school/state/country with whom your students can tweet back and forth. It would be challenging to convey all information in 140-character segments, but that might create more concise writers. 
10. Create a class story. One student can start by tweeting the beginning line to a story. Students then take turns to tweet a class story, one line at a time. This collaborative project works on writing skills, creativity, and sharing.
11. Getting to know you. As a back to school activity, ask students to describe themselves in 140-characters or less. If students' Twitter usernames weren't easily recognizable, you could even play a game where students must guess which student belongs with which tweet.
12. Character tweet. After reading a novel, students can pick a character from the story and tweet, say, 5 status updates throughout the day. Each status update should be written in the 1st person format, as if the student were actually the character. 
13. Historical tweet. Feeding off the previous suggestion, you could ask students to pick a person from history and impersonate them on Twitter throughout the day. What would Abe Lincoln have to say if Twitter was available during his time? A website called Historical Tweets might help with this.
14. Hashtag timeline. Monitor the hashtags over a period of time to see the trends of our society. This would be great for a history or current events class. 
15. Hashtag quick-write. On a random day, write the current trending topics on the board. Ask students to write about a curtain hashtag either individually or as a group. They could write their thoughts, create a story, etc.
16. Personal story. Using the 3 parts of a story, ask students to write an entire story in 420-characters or less (140 for the beginning, 140 for the middle, and 140 for the end). 
17. Micro-research paper. Ask students to create a micro-research paper using the Twitter guidelines. The intro paragraph must be 140-characters, the thesis must be 140-characters, the first paragraph.... you get the idea. Each part of the micro-paper must comply with Twitter character count rules. 
18. Spelling race. Tell students a word in class and see who can tweet the correct spelling the most quickly. (You could also do this for math problems, science/history trivia questions, etc.)
19. Vocab race. Tweet a word and see who can reply with the correct definition the most quickly...or vice versa.
20. Vocab sentences. Tweet a word and ask students to reply with a tweet that uses that vocabulary word correctly in a sentence. 
21. Synonym/Antonym race. Call out a word and ask students to tweet synonyms or antonyms.
22. Book club. Students can tweet book blurbs in an effort to get other kids to read great books.

Ways you can keep track of tweets from students:

1. Create a hashtag for each class or group of students. For instance, I might specify #MrsKSci4 for my 4th grade Science Lab classes. From that point forward, if I wanted to find my students' tweets, I just type #MrsKSci4 in the search bar and read away. 
2. Create lists. You can create a list for all of your students, and then divide them by class and/or subject. When you want to read their tweets, just click on the name of the list and read only tweets from students on that list.
3. Ask students to "mention" you in every classroom-related tweet.

>> Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: @ckarasedu <<

Here are 50 more ideas about what to post on Twitter, courtesy of Teach Thought.

Here are 22 ways to use Twitter for learning, based on Bloom's Taxonomy, courtesy of Teach Thought.

This article by Teach Thought has 100 of the best Twitter tools for teachers. Some of them are great for use with students. 

Below are the other Twitter posts I've written for this blog:

• An overview/short 'n sweet guide
• Definitions of Twitter and its Vocabulary
• The basics: setting up an account, navigating the website, and tweeting
• Twitter Accounts to Follow
• The Hashtag
• Twitter chats {a fantastic yet "unofficial" way to be "professional developed"}
• Personal Success Stories from Using Twitter in the Classroom

Trading Cards

Constructing a biography is a fairly common school project. I know that, for instance, both the first and second graders at my school have to write a biography for their research project. The Trading Card function from Big Huge Labs might be a way to spice up that report!

The Trading Card function allows students to upload a picture of a person (or animal, I suppose... the website doesn't monitor what you upload), add a title, facts about that person or object, customize the color of the "trading card," and even add a couple of fun icons to the sides.

There are just enough options to keep things interesting, but not so many that it becomes an overwhelming project. 

One of the best parts is that students do NOT have to have an account or e-mail address in order to use this. Another great thing about the Trading Card project is that students can download their project as a .jpg (picture file). From there, you can incorporate it into a a FlipSnack book to share with parents or store in your Dropbox account for easy access later.

Here's an example I made. Mine is over Albert Einstein:

Try the Trading Card feature from Big Huge Labs for yourself by clicking here.