As a scanned the list of apps and tools to try out, my attention was caught by Smore tool, I believe that with the long weekend coming I had campfires and smores on the brain!
“Campfire” by Doug Beckers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
As I explored the tool, I found that it was primarily set up to be a newsletter, a way for teachers to communicate with parents. I spent some time exploring the tool while documenting my week of progress with my learning project.
Click here to see my video demonstration of how to use this tool as well as my commentary on some of the pros and cons of this tool!
Pros:
- Ability to hyperlink within the text and embed pictures and videos!
- Easy to navigate
- Style preview by hovering over the options
- Can me edited at any time
- Pre existing layouts to get you started
- Easily modified, Added to and re organized
- Direct posting to social media, email, and the option to print out copies
Con’s:
- Free Version limits to 3 newsletters a month and 200 emails a month
- Free Version does not allow download of PDF
Uses In The Classroom:
To read more about the SAMR Model Click HERE
The classroom uses for this tool fall within the Substitution and Augmentation Level:
- Newsletters to Parents
- Student Portfolios: This is a great way to track, document and share student progress as a living record. It provides teachers with a way to track student progress and growth. There is also feedback features on the new letters, where teachers and peers could offer feedback on a project and students can edit accordingly. Teachers can easily upload pictures of work submitted and even offer video feedback for students.
- For online learning: this is a great way for teachers to send out daily or weekly lessons, as it allows them to embed links and videos. The highly modifiable newsletter structure keeps everything very organized with everything in one place!
- Student Projects: This is a great format for students to use to complete projects. The customizable options allow or students choice in how they display their knowledge, giving them text, video, audio and photography options. The layout encourages student creativity while building their technology skills which will help them to succeed in the future!
Awesome blog post Brandy! I love what you have chosen for your learning project, maybe mine should have been working out as well lol! I also really enjoyed how you recorded a video of how to use the Smore app, I believe the free version may even be useful for my small business. Thanks for sharing!
Your blog post for this week is fascinating and I liked how you added amazing pictures of the fire and smore to capture your leaning process of using the Smore tool. This made me wanting some smores now (laughing). I also liked how you included the pros and cons to the using the tool as well as how it would be useful for the classroom. Great job in your post and to making a video to how to use the app. Thank you for sharing!