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Tech Tuesday: Chatterpix Kids

Going through my pictures, I realized I have so many fun tech projects my students have done over the last year that I realized I haven't shared with you!  I'm lucky enough to have an Instructional Technology Specialist at my school two days a week.  Not only is she a wonderful person but Ms G. is also collaborative and loves libraries probably as much as I do.  I feel very fortunate to be able to have a supportive partner in many of our technology projects. We work really well together and are able to advocate for one another when we meet with teachers.  I encourage teachers to check in with her to see if she can help them on the tech end of things and she encourages teachers to join us both in the library and reminds them of all the ways I can support student learning in the library when they are doing projects.

We've been able to collaborate with classroom teachers as one big team on a few projects.  One of my favorite tools we've used with students is Chatterpix Kids.  With this FREE app, students can make pictures that talk.  We have used it across a few different subjects and I can see endless possibilities for future use.

Chatterpix

My most favorite Chatterpix Kids project of the year was a 3rd grade biography research project.  After choosing a famous person to study in the classroom, 3rd graders came down for extra research time during our project based learning time.  The classroom teacher and I were able to assist students with their research and writing at the same time.  Students who needed extra support on the research end - locating additional resources, taking notes, or citing sources - worked with me.  Students who finished researching went on to work with the classroom teacher on their informational writing.  In the classroom, students created an illustration of their famous person.  Then they came back down to the library to create a Chatterpix Kids video.

Chatterpix_2

Students took a picture of their illustration in the Chatterpix Kids app.  Then they simply drew a line across the image in the app and recorded each other reading their informational writing.  The app was very intuitive for them and they easily moved through each step after we gave them an overview of using the app.

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Click HERE to see this video in action.

In another class, students learned about pilgrims and wrote diary entries of a pilgrim.  In class, the created a portrait of their pilgrim and then came down to the library and we used Chatterpix Kids to share their pilgrims' stories.

Another class drew self portraits in the beginning of the year and recorded their hopes and dreams for the new school year. The tech end of this particular project took 30 minutes start to finish with 2 students per iPad, which was very manageable for the classroom teacher in terms of time.  It's always good to have a quick tech project when classroom teachers are really feeling a time crunch and may be hesitant to collaborate outside the classroom. Once teachers see how engaged students are in creating their project, sharing it with others, and how interested they are in learning from each other, they're more likely to work with you on other projects!

There are so many fun ways to use this app!  I can picture using it in our first grade social studies unit on people who make a difference, for creating character profiles of book characters, to advertise books, an upcoming artists project with the art teacher...so much potential!