Welcome back to the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast! It's Season 7, Episode 190, and today we're diving into two awesome classroom management tools that'll make your teaching life easier and your students' learning experience more engaging. Let's spotlight BouncingBalls.org and Gynzy's Group Maker!
Um, ADD, I guess more. But you've been talking about this one for a couple of weeks now to me.
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So here we are.
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This one's been around a little while and some of you may already use it, but if maybe you forgot about it and we just need to bring it back for entertainment's sake. If nothing else, and so, so I have two sites, but. I'm, the top five list fits for both of them with our new little top five list we're doing.
The two sites are Bouncy Balls and Jinzee. And if you haven't done Bouncy Balls, it's so much fun. Just turn it on. But anyway, let me highlight why I love these two sites.
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Shanna is going to give her five reasons why she loves the tools that were tool or tools that we're talking about for the week. In the beginning of the episode, she'll tell you the five reasons why she chose this tool to talk about.
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Quick last revenge.
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Three, they can be used for different purposes other than what they're outlined for.
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If you haven't already gone there or you're driving, stop. No, I'm kidding. Don't stop. Don't stop. Also, do this as soon as you get to work, or home, go to bouncyballs. org, B O U N C Y B A L L S DOT O R G. Okay, today, click start.
And now The bouncy balls are flying all over your screen. And as you talk, and we are specifically using podcasting microphones, so they are
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So that way the balls stay on the bottom of your screen. However, I can almost guarantee you that this will ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss make your kids be louder.
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So if the bouncy balls are flying all over the screen, it will tell you that you are being too loud. There is a sensitivity tool. So all the tools are on the right hand side. So you can change your sensitivity, like how much you want them moving around. You can up the total amount of balls on your screen.
So you can like. Up that sucker. So there's like a hundred, 200 balls bouncing around your screen, or you can drop it down to like 42 and then there's just a few flying everywhere. You can change them to plastic to one of my favorites is the emojis that are flying everywhere all over my screen.
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I actually like having the, the total lower because they bounce more. I think it feels like, yeah,
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A little ocean. And then for, you know, creepy things, there's eyeballs, which is creepy. But if your students, like, might be creeped out by having eyes stare at them the whole time, Coming up on Halloween? Then maybe that would be good, because they're staring at you, so you should be quiet. I'm watching. See?
All these things. There's noise alert, there's shushing, there's beeping, and there's just basically lots of entertainment for being loud or quiet.
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You could turn the sensitivity down, um, and then whoever gets the loudest, you could see visually on screen.
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Like the longer the bouncy balls stay on the bottom of the screen, the longer your indoor recess will last. But if the bouncy balls are flying all over the place, then we've had too much loud time and we need to be
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This would also be great. Not necessarily. I mean, you can put always on your like smart board or full screen in your classroom, but kids can put it up on their Chromebooks. Yep. And if they're having, if they're learning how to have a partner conversation, this can teach them for noise levels in the classroom.
Mm-Hmm. , like what's, what's a partner conversation? Like a level one?
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org so much.
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If you go to Gynzy it's g y n z y. com. And I'm using specifically the group maker, which does not require an account. But Gen C has all kinds of cool classroom management tools that you would use like on a whiteboard in your classroom. And some of the free tools are there's a group maker. So you just type in all your student's name and it will quick, randomized groups for you, which I appreciate one of these because this one has a good visual that kind of goes with it.
And you can say like, I want groups of two or three, like save. And then it gives you my names and then you just click the little button and it swaps out your groups for you and gets just like squares, like where desks would be. And it's a very fast group making tool. Once you get the group making tool available to you, then there's some other tools.
You have access to some things. Again, it's a free account, but it also, you can type in different information or if you need to change fonts or different things like that, you can do so. Or you can create an account and you still get some free tools. Fuzz. But it's just a quick group maker if you're looking for one of those, just a fast way to mix it up on your screen.
Yeah.
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They flip the groups for you real fast.
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org.
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Substitutes needed.
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Uh, or any other social media for the most part. And if you want to get more information on the links to the technology discussed in this episode, you can visit smartandwi. com. If you'd like to support the show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit buymeacoffee. com slash smartandwi or visit smartandwi.
com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going. New episodes each week. Thanks for listening. Go educate and innovate.
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Prior to using any of the technologies we discussed on this show, please consult with your employer regulations. But this podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we hope they do. And we'll talk to you next week, right here on the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast.
