Bitmoji has been all over FL edu social media lately, and it’s understandable- Bitmoji’s are adorable, and teachers are using them is such creative ways to make their virtual classrooms all the more attractive and inviting for their students. But how exactly can we use them?
First of all- if you haven’t yet created your own Bitmoji classroom and you are curious to learn how- THIS tutorial is a great first step to getting you situated. At the end of the video, Katherine also give some useful ideas for how to embed links into the posters and objects. Can’t find the transparent image you want? Search for your image online, and then upload it to the site remove.bg. Download the image as a png and then insert it! I really recommend keeping a digital folder to organize all your bitmoji goodies- it can get addicting….
So now you’ve created your basic classroom. Great! Now what?
I hear you- assessments are upon us- and many schools and districts have varying protocols- but in general- educators all over need to be able to provide their students for effective review- whether it be over the summer, or review for an end of year assessment.
Here are 3 ideas in which any WL educator can adapt their own curriculum.
Reviewing for Upcoming Assessments:
Whether you are giving a project based task or an actual traditional style test- Kids still need to review. Sometimes teachers create exhaustive packets to complete and review. Sure you can always just share the file and have the kiddos fill out another packet online- Or- provide various grammar based, culture based, vocabulary based, music-based and literature based links- within a google doc you’ve embedded within a link. So your review classroom might look something like:
An embedded link- (video, google doc) is attached to EACH image- depending on what we may have studied over the course of the year or semester. Something I find useful-a doc with different links for each category- For example- in the vocabulario section- there are specific links to Quizlet sets so kids can review the specific words needed to be successful on their assessment. For the grammar- a doc with links to various review activities/games/video tutorials to practice the various verb tenses and other grammatical structures we’ve covered. Billy la bufanda (the singing scarf) has a link that leads right to the senor wooly site we use a lot in class for content and grammar rich stories put to music. Music- we listen to tons of music stories throughout the year with varying activities- so I embed links to some of those songs for the kiddos to refresh and sing along. Music is great for review as often times the lyrics are quite catchy and repetitive, leading to kids retaining the meaning- comprehensible input- AND output, that is what we want!
Cultural summer learning or review?
This cultural classroom was created by Erika Clark, and showcases a cultural choice board full of Latin American posters- each one has a link to a short video to learn about that particular country. This is screaming Inquiry based learning- students’ own curiosity leads them to click on something they may already know something about, or about something they know nothing about. You can even tie in a higher level strategy of making ‘predictions’ activity to this.
Once you create something like this for your own language- you can add the next slide to include some compare and contrast venn diagrams. Comparing and contrasting cultural aspects in the target language is one of the standards for AP and IB upper level Spanish. Why not get them to start thinking critically early on? You can adapt this to whatever language level you want, depending on the questions you choose to add. Posters could also be linked to edpuzzles. This type of choice board is great for distance learning, but also can be used for when everyone is back in the classroom.
I realize both examples above are for Spanish. Take a look at this list for other language ideas as well.
Project based learning assessment?
So- how about having the kids make a presentation of their learning? They can Bitmoji their room, their house, the park, the forest, themselves- and everything they’ve learned this unit, semester- whatever. Have them embed linked recordings where they orally describe every object in their Bimoji image. However you decide to set it up as a performance based task, make sure to share a rubric so they know what to include. Don’t forget to give it an intercultural twist- after all it is not ALL about them- but also what they have learned about culturally as well- maybe it might be a poster of Frida, and a poster with a link embedded to an authentic recording about her life. They can even include comparing and contrasting to their embedded recordings. The sky is literally the limit here for the potential Bitmoji’s offer to the WL classroom.
If you like what you see and are looking for more inspiration- inquiry based or not. Do visit 3 FB groups:
Tech for World Language teachersÂ
Cultivating Curiosity in the World Language Classroom
If you create one, and enjoy the process, please leave a comment!
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