August Inservice

We all have teacher inservice when we go back to school in August. This year our district is implementing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and is hoping to move to 1:1 in the future. I love technology and I love using it and having my students use it. It is amazing what students can do when give the option to be creative -  with technology AND without. Back to the topic at hand - inservice. Well this year I was asked to present at our technology fair so here is my presentation:

App Smashing

App Smashing is....
the process of using multiple apps in conjunction with one another to complete a final task or project.

We constantly hear, "There's an app for that!"and there is  but finding one app that does EVERYTHING that you need to create a project is almost impossible especially since every project requires different aspects and final product. App smashing allows you to use different apps to get what you want. Many of us do this without even thinking about it but being aware of the process allows us to teach it more effectively to our students and be more efficient with the process. Most apps fall into level 1 or level 2. Level 1 are easy apps to use that create products that can be "smashed" into a level 2 app.

Here is an example:

In my classroom I have app Monday. I take a about 20-30 minutes every Monday to introduce new apps. Most of these apps are ones that they later can and will use to create projects some, are games to be used in a center. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Apps to be introduced (the order will depend on what we are doing and what I need them to know)

songify                                               sock puppets                           edmodo

tellagami                                             puppet pals                             sushi monster

animator                                             skitch                                      google earth

write about                                         educreations                            

books on ipad                                     tinytap

pixntell                                               paperport notes

scribble my story                                dropbox

book creator                                       animoto

funny movie maker                            imovie

toontastic                                            prezi

There are many more that we use but these are the ones that I want everyone in class to know how to use. I introduce the app and then give them time to play with (alone or with a partner) and then we conclude by talking about it - what they can do with it, what they liked, what they want to figure out, it leads to some great converstations!!!


Here is the prezi I created and used:
http://prezi.com/ly4ufe8qxbr2/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Video of how it works:
https://vimeo.com/71366694

Great guide:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5732877/Ebooks/The%20Definitive%20App%20Smasher's%20Guide.pdf


Related articles:
http://www.mguhlin.org/2013/06/app-smashing-digital-poetry-ec3ta13.html?spref=bl

http://www.ipadcreative.com/blog/2013/8/1/what-is-app-smashing.html

http://edtechteacher.org/blog/2013/02/app-smashing-from-greg/