April #AusELT  Twitter slow burn:

April’s Twitter chat will be a slow burn that starts on April 2 and finishes after the Easter weekend on the Monday evening. Let’s see how we’re using apps in our teaching and learning in and out of the classroom.

Topic: App swap

This is inspired by the App slam / App smash movement.  What apps are you using in your daily life and in your classroom with your learners?

Details:

App slamming

Have you ever taken part in an App slam before? Basically, a group of people (in our context: educators, students) have an allocated amount of time per person (30 secs-1min) to present an app then pass the baton to the next person to present their app. It’s fast-paced, hence the “slam” in the title. I organised an app slam via a BlackBoard collaborate webinar with my colleagues at the institute where I work and it was very successful. Each participant sent me 1-2 PowerPoint slides in advance of the webinar and when I pulled up the slides they presented their chosen app. Each had 1 minute to present and 1 minute to answer questions before the next person presented.

App smashing

This is when you use more than one app in a work flow where your students are creating using apps. Content created in one app is transferred to and enhanced by other apps. The final product is usually published online. The term app smash was coined by Greg Kulowiec (@gregkulowiec) from EdTech Teacher.  The term also has its own hashtag #AppSmash.

How you can contribute:

For this slow burn feel free to tweet an app you’ve used in your teaching and learning. Try to include the following information if you can:

1. Name of app / link on app store
2. Try to categorise the app: Good for: writing / speaking / reading / listening / integrated skills / organisation / time management / photo editing etc.
3. How you’ve used it with students.

Eg. Toggl: students track their time on different tasks for one week as prep for a class discussion on lifestyle  life stresses #AusELT

As I’m suggesting a slow burn we probably won’t be experiencing an app slam as we would in a fast-paced Twitter chat, however, if enough people are online tweeting at a particular time this could happen.

Your app smash examples may be more detailed and you could find it easier to find someone else who recommends an app smash. There are many great EdTech bloggers out there and you could provide a link to a post. You could also write your example in a blog page and then post the link into the chat. If you need three tweets to describe your app, just label them 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 so people know there is more than one tweet to your comment.

You can also participate just by asking questions. Is there a particular kind of app you are looking for? Do you want more details on an app someone else has mentioned? Etc.

This post by @sujava