Screen Chomp: A Great Tool for Station and/or Rotation Activities
Community Review for ScreenChomp
My Take
Screen Chomp is an excellent app for rotations or station work. It would be a great tech aspect to add to the Daily Five rotations that many teachers in elementary classrooms use. It has many functions like recording, snapping pictures, etc. I will have students record their problems from time to time and use them for students in other classes and different grade levels. The app is very easy to use and the kids love using the ipad to make problems for each other. It is easy to upload the students' recordings and easy to generate videos from the app that teachers can use in their personal portfolios or for use in student portfolios. Students really enjoy changing colors of their pens and the quick erase feature. The camera option also allows teachers the opportunity to take pictures of graphs, charts, etc. and then asking students to "mark up" the picture with essential pieces of information from lessons being taught. I will take pictures of the rhythm tree and then ask students to circle eighth notes, draw triangles around quarter notes, etc. This is a super fun way to check for understanding while incorporating technology within my music lessons.
How I Use It
I use Screen Chomp extensively with my elementary students in Kindergarten through fifth grade. I love the usability of the app as it allows students to write on the ipad just as they would write on a white board or chalkboard. I use it for many different types of lessons. The kids favorite use of screen chomp is Maker and Solver. I have one student use the ipad to make a rhythm problem and the other student needs to solve it by writing in beat counts or using rhythm to represent fractional parts of a whole measure. The kids love this challenge and I always make sure to have students switch jobs. Screen Chomp allows students a unique opportunity to apply the knowledge they have gained from the lessons I am teaching and encourages critical thinking, knowledge acquisition, shared decision making, and problem solving skills.