Tackk - Create and Share Ideas and Content

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As I was browsing through my old posts this week, trying to decide what to write about and what I haven't covered that would be useful to share, I realized that I have written about infographics, poster creation tools, and a number of web tools that fall into those categories, without ever talking about Tackk.  Tackk is one of those tools that has so many possibilities, it's hard to put it into a single category to explain.  I generally group it in with my infographic or poster creation tools, but essentially it is a tool that allows for the easy creation of a web page that can then be filled with just about any kind of media or links you can imagine, so it can be used as a poster creation tool, web page creation tool, or blog tool.

The Tackk site provides templates that can be used to create a variety of educational products, either by teachers or students, such as presentations, lesson plans, book reports, newsletters, goal setting posters, and student portfolios, just to name a few. I love that the site is easy to use but offers a variety of options, meaning you can move beyond just a cookie-cutter project where students all end up with the same product.

I also love that Tackk has an area of their website focused solely on how their tool works in education and offers a variety of ideas and templates to help you get started.  Like many web tools, it offers one click login with Google, making it easy to access and start creating. There are numerous options available for designing a project or poster on the site, adding text and media, or uploading files.  Just about any type of media can be added to the site, and the site itself links to over 300 other programs and applications, making it easy to combine creations and information from other sites.  For instance, you could have students create a Thinglink and then include that in their Tackk. This feature is the one that makes me excited about the potential for Tackk as an online portfolio for students or a place to feature their work.

Overall, this is one of those tools that has a ton of potential because of its versatility, but is also very easy to use.  It has potential for a number of content areas and a wide variety of options for both student and teacher use.  Check out the videos and links below for ideas and to get started!

Demo Video on Tackk for Education

20 Ways to Use Tackk in the Classroom

Full Tackk Tutorial:

Getting More Out of Presentations and Posters with Smore

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Yes, s'mores are a sweet treat around the campfire, but Smore.com is a simple way to create an online, beautiful flyer, brochure, or project. With so many design and content options and a finished professional product with multiple privacy options, it is perfect for educational use!

If you are looking for a quick poster tool that can be printed as a flyer or a PDF, or can be shared electronically, Smore may be for you. 

One of the things I love about Smore is the variety of options for items to add to a poster, like text, pictures, audio, video, links, and forms.

There is a free and a pro version, but I have found the free version is very robust. Once you have logged into Smore and click the new flyer link, a window opens with choices of the type of flyer you want to create. You can go from there using premade templates for creating your own from scratch.

If you share the flyer you create electronically, Smore gives you analytics regarding how many views your flyer has had. 

Here is a great example of a student project created with Smore.  

You can find more information about how to use the tool and ideas for using at this link. 

Interested in learning more? This is a great video tutorial on the tool.

Office Mix - Turn Your Presentations into Interactive Student Lessons

Well, I missed my post last week while I was at the NDATL Conference, but it was totally worth it because I picked up some great tech ideas for some of my teachers to try in their classrooms. In particular, I was very impressed with Microsoft's Office Mix.  Office Mix is an add-on for powerpoint that lets you take an existing powerpoint (or create a new one) and turn it into an interactive lesson for your students.  You can record directly on your powerpoint, do screen recordings or screenshots, insert outside audio or video, insert quiz questions or other app enhancements, and then upload the whole thing so that students can access and interact with the lesson on any device.  But wait, it gets even better... if your students have Office 365 accounts like ours do, you can track their access to your lesson and receive information on how they interact with the lesson and how they do on the quiz questions.

To access Office Mix, you can go to https://mix.office.com/ and download the add-on.  Or, if you're in my district, you can access the add-on through the software center and add it yourself.  Once you have the add-on, you'll see a tab in powerpoint that says Mix.  When working in a presentation or creating a new one, you can add the different Mix elements from that tab.  When you're done with your mix, you can upload it directly to Mix where it will be stored and your students can access it.

One of the things I really like about this tool is that once the Mix is created and uploaded, students can access it from any device.  Additionally, while the teacher has to go through the work of creating the Mix and adding all the different elements, once it's done, you can just supply the link to the student and that is all they need to access it.  You can also set different access levels, such as limiting it to your own organization, requiring a link and a sign in, allowing anyone with the link to view, or making it completely public.  However, if you want to make use of the analytic tools and reports, you'll want to require a login or keep it within your organization.

Overall, I found Office Mix to be an intriguing tool that has a lot of potential for flipped classrooms or for changing the way we use existing powerpoints in the classroom.  For more information, check out the Office Mix for Teachers Resources website.  For some sample educational mixes and an introductory video about Office Mix, click here.  Happy Mixing!

Powtoon - Create Animated Videos and Presentations

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Well, I missed my post last week just due to a lot going on, and this week we have no school tomorrow, so I'm going to post this one a day early.

One of the biggest challenges teachers face when having students create presentations is how to provide them some options beyond the traditional Powerpoint slides they have created since the third grade.  Additionally, options for creating videos are numerous, but most involve meshing pictures and music and all of the options can sometimes be overwhelming.  Powtoon is a tool that puts a new twist on videos and presentations by allowing students (or teachers) to create animated videos.

The easy dashboard and drag and drop options make it a nice option for creating quick animated videos or presentations with little assistance and easily publish and share them. Additionally, there is app available in the Chrome store, which will make Powtoon even easier to access from your Google Drive and allow one-click sign in.

While there are some limitations to the free version (5 minute video limit, 11 styles to choose from, 10 tunes to choose from, etc.).  However, even with those limitations, the options are wide and varied for the animations and students can exercise a lot of choice and options when making videos.

Overall, I found Powtoon to be a fun, easy-to-use site to make videos and presentations a little different and to try something new and fun.  Check out the links below for more information, examples, and tutorials!

Example Powtoon About Creating Presentations
Example Powtoon by a Teacher About Electricity
Powtoon Video Tutorials - short tutorials from the Powtoon website