Have you ever used Pixiclip with your students? This FREE web tool has so many uses that the possibilities are endless. Basically it is an interactive whiteboard. You can upload images, draw sketches, record/annotate and share with friends. I LOVE that you have the option for a webcam to capture and display as students are working. This feature seems to keep the kids more focused since they know the cam is capturing every moment they are working.
This week I had the mission to help Ms. Taylor’s 5th graders at HSES with identifying the main idea and details in a passage. I thought Pixiclip would be the perfect tool to use! Students chose one science based passage I created and put into {THIS} Google folder. We posted the Google folder link into Ms. Taylor’s Google Classroom for students to easily access. They downloaded and saved the jpg of the passage to their desktop. If I were to do this lesson again, I would put these jpgs into the Student Server instead of the Google folder. We spent a lot of time going over how to download a picture and drag it to the desktop. However, it was a valuable learning experience!
I showed the students how Pixiclip works and they went to town with their passages. Seriously…I have never seen kids SO excited to dissect a reading passage. They couldn’t WAIT to use the highlighter tool and talk about the main idea and detail. THIS IS WHY I LOVE MY JOB. Boring, laborious tasks become so engaging when technology is involved.
Pixiclip will provide you with a link to the movie you create (you need to click on SHARE>Email to grab the link) and/or an embed code to showcase on your blog. Check out these cute examples from today:
I can’t wait for Friday! Tech Takeout will be doing this same lesson with 5th graders at Echo Lake Elementary 
