Triptico – #2 of 10 Tech Things

What is it? Triptico by David
What I use it for: EVERYTHING!! I’ve used this for grouping students, I’ve used it for matching collocations, I’ve used it for making sentences, I’ve used it for putting events in order, I’m going to use it this week for a vocabulary review game . . .
How long does it take: You can create usable material in less than 5 minutes, and probably no more than 20 to come up with something to use for class
My rating: ********* 9/10

I love this app! I must say that this has come in very handy for me in the week and a half since I downloaded it. I wasn’t sure at first exactly what I would use it for, but it just keeps proving to be perfect over and over again! Here are a few examples of what I have used it for in class so far:

Speaking Lines with a Twist:

I must admit. I am a speaking teacher and I hate speaking lines, or speaking circles, or anything like that. Every time I attempted to set my students up to talk and move and talk and move, they complain about moving, and they seem to have the hardest time moving over one seat. But, with the student selector part of the application, I have been able to do a similar activity to speaking lines, and the students are excited to see who they will be paired with next. I set up 5 or 6 desks, depending on how many pairs of students I have in my class, and I leave a topic on each desk. Today we were answering Dear Abby problems with giving advice. Last week, I had travel questions, for example “Where should I go if I like historical things?” “Who do you like to go on vacation with? Why?” I left these topics on the desks, and then began the random student selector. The students then found their number, went to the assigned desk, and spoke for 1 minute until I re-randomized the names. Today, two of my students stayed after class and had me randomize the names until they were partnered together.

One tip with this: always keep a couple of extra topics on hand so that you can replace them if the students are stuck at the same station twice. I’m really excited about this activity, and finally feel that I can have a speaking activity where everyone is involved and active.

Vocab Sentences:

This is super simple, but I needed something for the last 10 minutes of class that would cover the adverbs we were supposed to spend a whole class hour on. I opened up word magnets, typed in the adverbs, and we were set. I had the board set up so that the students couldn’t see all of the adverbs that were at the bottom. I took one at a time, pulled it up onto the white board, and then elicited a sentence from my students to write around it. I know this is completely simple, but there is something different about using the computer rather than just writing the words on the board and creating sentences. It’s kinda the like bugs on those lamps, my students are just attracted to computers and technology.

Collocations:

This one is pretty straightforward. Verbs+prepositions+lines= collocation activity.

Ordering Activity:

As my students were summarizing the story, I pulled up this activity, just to get them to remember the facts of the story in order. This gave them a visual of all of the facts in the story, and the ability to see them moved around until everything was correct. Again, a normal classroom activity just made faster and more fascinating with technology.

Vocab Review:

This is the one I haven’t done yet, but it is on the docket for this week. I’m pretty excited about it too, so I’ll have to let you know how it goes. We are studying vocab for the final exam this week, so there are a lot of words to review. I am going to print out all of the vocabulary words that the students are responsible for and keep them in a bowl or box. Then, I plan on lining the students up in two teams, and having two students face off. They will choose a vocabulary word, and then I will spin this spinner, and the first person to give me what is required will get a point. We’ll see how this goes!!

Let me know if you have other ideas for using the word magnets in your classroom. I must say, I’ve been really impressed, and this is only using 4 of the 14 programs David has developed so far!!

My advice: go get it . . . now.