This Week: Bitmoji Classrooms
Rethinking the virtual classroom
Hi,
Welcome to The Teacher's Assistant by me, Tyana Daley. I’m not a traditional educator, but am passionate about learning. There’s a need to equip the wonderful teachers of the world with resources to help them provide unique and engaging online and offline experiences for their students.
I hope to share thoughtful and fun ideas that inspire you to take your students beyond physical and virtual limitations.
I plan to publish this newsletter sooner in the week. But my goal, for now, is to send you what I hope will be one of your favorite emails of the week. I'd love to get to know you, so if you have a topic, subject, or technology you'd like to learn about, send me an email.
Idea of the Week
Bitmoji Classrooms
It seems that more resources are popping up to keep students engaged which is good, but so many things get shared on the daily that it is also overwhelming. One thing that stood out amongst the Google Classrooms and Blackboards of the world is the Bitmoji Classroom. If you have used, Snapchat or Facebook you've probably heard of or used Bitmojis before. They are human-like avatars you can create to look exactly like you.
The classroom idea was created by teacher Latoya Burns who shared the concept in a few teacher Facebook groups once Coronavirus stay-at-home orders went in place and has since inspired tons of other teachers to make Bitmoji Classrooms of their own.
The Bitmoji Classroom is a creative virtual classroom method that uses your Bitmoji and Google Slides clip art to create a virtual space to share with your students. You can also hyperlink the objects in your classroom to resources on the web.
This is such a neat idea, especially when planning what the 2020-2021 school year might look like.
Create your own Bitmoji by downloading the app for either iOS or Android.
To learn how to create a Bitmoji Classroom of your own start here.
You can also join the Facebook Group all about Bitmoji Classrooms here. Many teachers have shared their own classrooms, so you're bound to find inspiration for your own Bitmoji Classroom.
Sharpen Your Skills
Webinar on Remote Learning Strategies for K12
Amazon Web Services also known as AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, has created a platform of webinars created by educators for educators.
One webinar that stood out to me is Remote Learning Strategies for K12 led by Amaurys Valdez, Network Engineer and Cybersecurity Instructor of Queens Technical High School. He covers tips for creating videos, lesson planning and ways to keep your students engaged.
Watch it on-demand here.
Tools
Virtual Classroom with Start.me
In the spirit of creating virtual classrooms, I thought this tool was pretty neat. Start.me allows teachers to create a wiki, a storage of media, links and content, for students to access. I think this could present a unique way, like the Bitmoji classrooms, to create a hub for students to learn and explore per their interest.
The tool, typically designed for internet users who want to save links to a central place, has been reimagined for education. All Basic Teacher accounts are free forever. For a limited time, they are offering Pro Teacher accounts free for 2020. You can learn more about that here.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check out this sample Start.me classroom here.
Cool Finds
A random list of cool things I think are interesting to read, fun to learn, or engaging for the classroom.
Two ways to add videos to Google Slides that aren't on YouTube 🎥
Aquation: The Freshwater Access Game from Smithsonian Science Education Center; Ideal for 5th grade+ 💧
Check out this teacher using TikTok to connect with her students 📱
A good read on using Copyright-Protected materials in the classroom 📖
An iOS app for vocabulary building 📝
National Geographic Kids’ hub of "try this" videos for science experiments 🔭
Teacher Memes
No matter what, teachers will find a way. 💪
Have an idea for the next newsletter?
Drop me a note at tyana.daley@gmail.com
If you're enjoying this newsletter, share it with a friend or two. You can send them this link to sign up.
Thanks for reading! Until next week. 👋