I sent this out to my #1st chat group on Twitter awhile ago but totally forgot to throw it out on the blog. I've been using the Popplet Lite app for awhile now but always with my students. Earlier this year as I was revamping my reading groups for the umpteenth time it dawned on my that using Popplet would be SOOOO much easier as I could move kiddos around with the touch of a finger in addition to being able to color code their groups (I'm a visual learner and color makes me happy)
Popplet Lite only allows you to create one popple at a time which has always been sufficient for my students as we simply take a screenshot when we are done and then clear our popple for the next time. Personally though, I wanted to be able to create, save, and go back to my popples so I invested in the full version. This has been a wonderful way for me to track my reading groups as my groups are very fluid and change as children's needs change. This has also been a handy tool when attending grade level meetings to discuss student needs.
Seem simple? Yup, it was and I highly recommend giving it a try.
This week we use a the app, Popplet Lite to help us with our word study. During the week we worked on the short u families of -ug and -ut. On Friday we used what we knew about these sounds/families to sort and write words using the correct word family. We did this on Popplet by creating a box (a popple) for each word family. With each word, children had to decide which word family was needed to make the word and then attach a new popple (box) to the correct family and write the new word themselves. This was a great visual for students to see how the words are "connected".
When thinking about the SAMR model, this is in many ways just a substitution for what we could do on paper. I like to use this as a springboard however for more advanced used of the app as it is a simple way for students to learn how to use the app. Later in the year we will use this app for webbing of ideas and information. We will also use our screenshots to embed into Doodlecast Pro projects, iMovies, etc. So again, this is a wonderful springboard for what is to come.
If you decide to try this app, the link for Popplet Lite is above. With the lite version you are only able to create one Popplet at a time which could be a concern if you are not in a 1:1 or 1:2 environment. Our class is currently 1:1 so when we complete a Popplet, we take a screen shot of our finished creation and then we're able to start a new Popplet. There is also a paid version here for $4.99 which allows you to create multiple Popplet boards at one time. This would be a better option if you have multiple students using one iPad for various projects.
I wish there were more hours in the day. I have about 6 different blog posts in draft format right now that I just can't seem to find enough time to do. Hoping that after conferences are done this week, I can eek out a little extra time to catch up on those posts. In the meantime, here's a quick post on using Popplet to show fact families. This went over very well today in my class and most students did 2 or 3 Popples in about 10 minutes time.
We've been working on related facts (fact families) in math for the past few days. Today students used dominoes to help them write their related addition and subtraction facts. We used Popplet to record our results. We have used this app a few times for various things but we haven't used it as much as I had hoped to this year. That being said, the kiddos did great using the app fairly independently and kiddos decided on their own if they wanted to use the text feature or the pen feature. As they finished their popples, they took a screen shot which we then shared via Air Server at the end of our lesson.
