It is hard to believe that we are just about to wrap up another school year. It has been a busy year, full of opportunities to learn in new, authentic ways and of course, at times, has been challenging as well while we navigated any transitions in our learning spaces. As we start to wind down, it is important to keep pushing through strong to the end of the school year which makes it the perfect time to try some new ideas and engage students more in learning through choices in how to show what they know. I like finding new ways to use Buncee in my classroom, especially because they always have new features and so many choices that students really enjoy creating with it!
Buncee is a tool that we have used for several years and my students find that it offers exactly what they need when it comes to choosing what to create for their classes. It can be used for creating multimedia, interactive presentations and gives students more authentic ways to learn and to express themselves. In addition to using Buncee to have students share their learning, it is great for also helping them to develop digital citizenship skills, and promote social-emotional learning (SEL) skills as well. Providing my students with different choices for creating with the language will not only help them to build their language skills and foster creativity, but also help with the development of technology skills and promote digital citizenship as they post online and share their work. With these activities, besides boosting student engagement at the end of the year, we will help students to develop essential skills including communication, creativity, decision making, problem solving and teamwork.
Buncee can be used at any grade level with any content area and it provides educators with resources to get started right away. Choose from the templates or look in the Ideas Lab for thousands of options! Try each of these and see how students respond and the changes that it brings about in student engagement! A template to start from also helps with students who might be a little hesitant when it comes to technology so that they can focus more on creating with the language and have fun while doing so. Students can start with one of the templates available or start from scratch to create a more authentic and personalized Buncee to their specific interests and needs.
Ten Ideas for the End of the Year
1.Create a news report to describe an academic or sporting event. Students can choose to add audio or video and fun backgrounds.
2.Daily journals for reflecting on the end of the year. Take time each day to have students respond to a prompt that is related to the content area or a current event or something to push their thinking.
3.Choose a book from the Capstone Library and make a Buncee to tell the next part of the story! Or represent the story in your own Buncee and use audio to give highlights of what you read!
4.Create a timeline of 10 big ideas learned this year in your classes or a highlight from each of your classes and add audio or video, GIFS or 3D objects to represent them.
5.Design a digital portfolio which will help with the development of SEL skills of self-awareness and self-management. Students can share their portfolios with classmates which is helpful for continuing to build relationships and develop social awareness.
6.Make a class time capsule that shares the big changes and news from this past year and predictions for the next five years. Have all students share their time capsule on a Buncee board.
7.Five things I learned about myself this year. Have students reflect on what they have learned and create something to share with classmates and families. Include images, examples of their work, and audio to describe it!
Choice board by Linda Edwards
8.Create choice boards for students and include images and links so students can explore on their own to learn more about a topic.
9.Do genius hour with students. Give them a chance to share something they are interested in and create a Buncee to capture their learning!
10.And for the summer, check out this amazing opportunity with Capstone Publishing! Join in the Capstone Virtual Summer Camp Adventure by Shannon Miller! You can explore the choice boards for access to over 100 free eBooks and activities to keep kids reading and creating all summer long! Capstone has so many wonderful choices for kids and they will enjoy participating in this summer adventure! Head to the Capstone site today to participate in this fun learning opportunity!
One of the many wonderful things about Buncee is that it offers resources to help educators get started and most importantly, gives students a lot of different and meaningful ways to show and share their learning. There are many more ways to use Buncee and sometimes the best way to learn is to ask the students for their ideas too! students create, they can work from school, at home, or anywhere, and be able to share their work with me wherever I am. Teachers can assign fun projects for students or choose from the many ideas in the Buncee Ideas Lab. And don’t forget that Buncee has an SEL toolkit which is full of ready-to-use templates and activities for use with grades K-6 and 7-12 in addition to having thousands of ideas for classroom use and more than 38,000 items in their media library for students to choose from.
When students create, it is important that they share their work with others. Using a Buncee Board promotes collaboration in a digital space, while also helping students to develop many of the essential skills for the future. They also feel connected, especially when we are in virtual learning environments. Buncee boards can even be shared with students in classrooms from around the world! Think of global collaboration and how to help students continue to develop social awareness.
When we offer more choices, we provide more hands-on, meaningful and student-driven learning. With new ideas, we can boost student engagement and creativity, help to spark curiosity for learning and student needs can be better met. By bringing in new technologies and opportunities, we better prepare students with the skills that they will need moving forward. The end of the year is the perfect time to try new ideas.
Meet the Author
Rachelle Dené Poth is a Spanish and STEAM Emerging Technology Teacher at Riverview Junior Senior High School in Oakmont, PA. Rachelle is also an attorney with a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Master’s in Instructional Technology. Rachelle is an ISTE Certified Educator and serves as the past president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network. She is the author of seven books including ‘n Other Words: Quotes That Push Our Thinking, Unconventional Ways to Thrive in EDU, The Future is Now: Looking Back to Move Ahead, Chart A New Course: A Guide to Teaching Essential Skills for Tomorrow’s World, True Story: Lessons That One Kid Taught Us, Your World Language Classroom: Strategies for In-Person and Digital Instruction and her newest book Things I WIsh [….] Knew is now available.
Follow Rachelle on Twitter @Rdene915 and on Instagram @Rdene915. Rachelle has a podcast, ThriveinEDU available at https://anchor.fm/rdene915
