Friday, September 21, 2012

Sparklefish




iPhone Screenshot 1





App: SparkleFish

Price: Free

Pros: This app is a fun take on madlibs.  The students are able to choose their own story, and then following the directions are recording the story.  There are four different stories that you can choose from.  Once you have chosen a story, you record what you are prompted to say on the screen. ex: part of body- arm. If you are struggling with a word that is needed you can press where it says body part, and a whole list will pop up for you to choose from.  You are given plenty of time to decide what word you want to use, because you do not have to record the word until you are ready.   Once you have gone through each slide there is a narrator that reads the story back to you.  .You are able to save as many stories as you want, and are allowed to keep recording stories.  


Cons:   I have not found may cons with this app.  The one that I have found is that if you and your students are tired of doing the same stories it costs 99cents to buy a new story pack of four stories.



Educational Use:  I would use this application in my English classroom.  Since you are able to record so many stories, I would have my students use this one day in class.  It is having them think of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and different types of speech.  After the students have recorded their story they will be given the opportunity to listen, and see what they think.  I would use this as a small group activity where the students take turns saying words, while the other students are given time to work on an assignment.  I would also use this on a individual level and have one student come back and work with me on the story.







3 comments:

  1. Another education idea would be to use something like this end a unit covering these parts of sentences and collecting them for a class " online" book.

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  2. This app. is awesome!! I love the fact that students don't have to type in the word and they actually get to say it. This would be great for students with special needs who struggle with writing but we still want to know if they understand what an adjective is, a noun, etc.. This would also be great to use as a speech pathologist. If students struggle with saying the phoneme for "L" they could require the students to choose and adjective with this letter and then record their voice while saying it. So many fun ideas to use with this app.! And it's free!!

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  3. I think this app is awesome! I think this would be a great way to start out a creative writing unit. I love how students can use speech in the classroom. I feel like too often Language is all about the writing, having this app would allow students to creat stories with their voices. I also like that the stories can be saved and played back. It would be fun to have each student create a story and then share them with their classmates. Students also become familiar with the terms noun, adjective, and adverb. I like that the app gives examples but the students can create their own as well. Once students have a chance to create a story on the app you could move into writing a story. Plus I love that the app is free! I had a lot of fun creating my own stories!

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