Teacher Tech blog with Alice Keeler

Paperless Is Not a Pedagogy

Alice Keeler

Go Back To School With Flocabulary

Melody McAllister invites you to check out Flocabulary by Nearpod to ramp up your students academic vocabulary this year!
Go Back To School With Flocabulary

This year, make sure to start off with Flocabulary! When used consistently, your students will grow their academic vocabulary and be more connected with the world inside and out of your school community. Being more connected will fuel curiousity and confidence.

Click on the picture for a short inroductory video about Flocabulary!

Core Subjects, SEL, and Vocabulary Included

Every core academic subject is thoughtfully included in a Flocabulary subscription. Every lesson tells you the grade level its geared towards and they also include a Life Skills section for social emotional learning. Flocabulary includes grades K-12. I used Flocabulary to introduce new lessons and each unit (video) has six activities to go along with it. The activies all range in Depth of Knowledge and are great for center time or independent practice. The Vocab Game is always my students’ favorite activity, but the Lyric Lab is where you will find the higher order thinking. Teacher resources are also provided, and you can print out lyrics and review them with your students. (Some teacher resources include .pdf worksheets.) If you like a video, add it to your favorites, like making your own Flocab playlist!

If you like a song, don't forget to add it to your favorites!
On the left side, you will see the different activities. At the top, you can see an option for Teacher Resources and an option to add to favorites on your top right. You can also change the speed of the video!

Lyric Lab

The Lyric Lab is set up to help your students create their own rap or song about the subject area they are studying. My advice is to not rush your students. This easily fits into Project Based Learning, and the best songs I’ve heard from students are when I’ve given them time to explore this tool. Try the Lyric Lab out in a whole class lesson at the beginning of the year and have fun with it! For instance, after learning about setting SMART Goals (Life Skills/Goal Setting unit) and going over the video until you feel like your students undersand, you can then make up a new song with your entire class. Explore Lyric Lab by choosing the beat and finding rhymes with the list of vocabulary words included to keep you relevant to setting SMART goals. This may take more than one class period. My students loved to make dances to go along with their songs! If you have the technology, you can make a class video and upload it to your school’s social media channels to share with the world! It’s challenging, impactful, and so fun!!

Everything you need to create your own song, with your students, is included in Lyric Lab.
Lyric Lab is not hard to use! It’s an all inclusive experience. Look at the words, start a couple of lines, add your beat, and have fun!

Compatible with Google Classrom

Flocabulary allows you to import your Google Classroom or create your class and allow them to join inside of the program. You can assign different lessons to your students, and the lessons are self-grading. If students don’t make a passing grade, you can give them retakes. You might even decide you don’t want to use Flocabulary for grades, but that is why you are the teacher and decide what and how to use this program. Also, Flocabulary is a program that has a price tag, so there will be features you can’t use if you don’t have school subscription. If you use the free trial and find success, use the data to help convince your admin to pay for your class subscription!

Allow students to retake if they make below passing grades on flocab assignments.
I always created my class on Flocabulary (the first choice) and it was easy to keep track of and review.

Check Out FREE YouTube Channel

Explore some Flocab songs for FREE! They keep adding songs to their YouTube channel, and you may find all you need there. You can add these links to your Google Classroom assignments or presentations as well. The best part is to have fun and learn! Your students are going to love this program, and if you like quality music with deep messages, you will too.

About the Author

Melody McAllister is a wife, mother of five, educator, and author.

Melody McAllister is a wife, mother of five, educator, and author. She and her family relocated to Alaska from the Dallas area in 2019.  McAllister is 2017 Garland NAACP Educator of the Year and author of the I’m Sorry Story.  She is also the Logistics Manager for EduMatch Publishing and Alice Keeler, LLC.  McAllister has spoken at ISTE and ASTE about equity issues in education, and writes about her journey in her blog, HeGaveMeAMelody.com.  If you would like to schedule an author read with your class, please contact her on Twitter or email her at melody@mjmcalliwrites.com.

Join Melody’s BookChat every Wednesday at 8pm EST at YouTube.com/melodymcallister

© 2024 All Rights Reserved.

💥 FREE OTIS WORKSHOP

Join Alice Keeler, Thursday Mar 21st or register to gain access to the recording.
Create a free OTIS account.

Join Alice Keeler for this session as we learn how to revolutionize your assessment strategies. We will dive into the essentials of crafting high-quality rubrics that go beyond traditional scoring methods to offer rich, meaningful feedback. We’ll learn about the components of an effective rubric and how to mathematically ensure the accuracy of your assessments.

Exit this pop up by pressing escape or clicking anywhere off the pop up.