[00:00:00] Shanna Martin: Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece of two of technology that you could use in your classroom. I’m your host, Shanna Martin. I’m a middle school teacher, technology and instructional coach for my district,
[00:00:31] Fuzz Martin: and I’m her producer and husband, fuzz Martin, and I’ve taken a moment to breathe.
[00:00:38] Fuzz Martin: Reflect and make sure both of our microphones are on. I’m warning everyone that I’m gonna be
[00:00:47] Shanna Martin: super distracted today by today’s website,
[00:00:50] Fuzz Martin: tented distracted today by today’s website, uh, because they’re fantastic and that’s, uh, an important thing. But, uh, yeah. Well, we’re coming to the end of the year, so you need, uh, some things that are a little bit more, uh, light
[00:01:05] Shanna Martin: Sometimes say you just need like a, A break. Like a mental break. Yeah. You need just some calm, like just need something. Just need something. And so we’re here at episode 213. We are in May. And Man, man, are we in May. And so as I was digging through sights, I was like, oh. This one’s good. And this one’s good, and this one’s good.
[00:01:31] Shanna Martin: So this is one of those weeks where I was like, we need to talk about three things, but they all go together. Mm-hmm. And you can use them for like a minute in your classroom. Like we’re all gonna take a minute. Because we all need a minute.
[00:01:47] Fuzz Martin: Literally one minute.
[00:01:48] Shanna Martin: One of them is one minute. Yes. Yeah. Little break sometimes, you know, it’s, it’s May, it’s may.
[00:01:55] Shanna Martin: Everybody, we all know how this is gonna go. Mm-hmm. So the three sites that I put together, like the highlights, so like my, my top five things, like what they’ll be helpful for, to hopefully relax your students, or I’m even thinking as like a teacher, like when you need a break at this point in the year, like.
[00:02:12] Shanna Martin: If you get five minutes to yourself, you could spend one minute doing these and it might just help. Yeah. So relax a little bit, whether it’s kids or you, these could be done this whole class. You don’t have to sign up for any of them. So you can do ’em as whole class. Kids could do ’em on Chromebooks if they’re still allowed to have them, unless they’ve been taken away.
[00:02:29] Shanna Martin: If, if you wanna put on a smart board mm-hmm. You can put on a smart board.
[00:02:34] Fuzz Martin: I could see the first one that we’re gonna talk about being one that you could use, like if you have a specific student. Who needs, needs like to calm down a bit.
[00:02:43] Shanna Martin: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Fuzz Martin: This one could be used like individually as well.
[00:02:47] Shanna Martin: Yes, absolutely.
[00:02:48] Shanna Martin: Or just like after lunch or something. Like after recess come in, like open it up. Like have it Google classroom or like one place, like a one quick link. Mm-hmm. And they can go to it and they can all just take a minute. Mm-hmm. They all can bring you a moment of calm. A couple of ’em can bring you like a little few more moments of calm.
[00:03:05] Shanna Martin: They also can rile you up and apparently it’d be super distracting. So you know what we’ll get there. What, uh, anyone can use them, whether it’s adults or kids, like these are just like user friendly.
[00:03:18] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.
[00:03:19] Shanna Martin: There’s sounds in them and it’s actually interesting ’cause there’s sounds in all three of them, which.
[00:03:26] Shanna Martin: The last one we’re gonna talk about the, sounds like it has, it’s calming, like as you do it. Mm-hmm. Because it’s the sound of sand, which sounds really fun, but you’ll see in a second. And then these would be great for brain breaks too. So there’s some, some great way to build these in. And again, you can always use these throughout the year, suggestion for the summer, but in May, I was thinking, you know what, sometimes we just need a little, little something and something different that we haven’t tried before.
[00:03:50] Shanna Martin: Like we do bouncing balls with. You know, sound levels in our classroom and there’s many things we’ll use throughout the year and I thought maybe just throw some new ones in there to like,
[00:03:58] Fuzz Martin: yeah. You
[00:03:59] Shanna Martin: know,
[00:03:59] Fuzz Martin: good.
[00:04:00] Shanna Martin: Whatever you can do, change it up. The first one we are gonna talk about, first website we’re talking about, it’s called Pixel Thoughts.
[00:04:08] Shanna Martin: And the site itself is P-I-X-E-L-T-H-O-U-G, HTS co. So pixel thoughts. Oh,
[00:04:19] Fuzz Martin: okay.
[00:04:20] Shanna Martin: And what it is, it’s, it’s, it’s meant for mindfulness. It’s meant to acknowledge something that is stressful and to help you, not get rid of it, but take it out of the forefront of your thinking. So it gives you these cool little stars.
[00:04:39] Shanna Martin: And it’s got background music that’s like calming, meditative background music. And it says, put a stressful thought in the star. So I typed in like end of the school year. Yeah. And then it says like, what is bothering you? And you can type in and then once you hit done, it puts it in this like little moon shape.
[00:05:01] Fuzz Martin: Yep.
[00:05:02] Shanna Martin: And as it’s playing, are you gonna play the music? Yeah.
[00:05:06] Fuzz Martin: Let’s see. So we’ll say uh, um, clients. Alright, so I’m gonna hit done and then
[00:05:14] Shanna Martin: it tells you to take a deep breath in and breathe out. And it takes your stressful moment and it just makes it smaller and smaller on your screen and it like tells you it’s gonna be okay.
[00:05:28] Shanna Martin: That there’s a lot Oh yeah. There’s a lot more things going on in your, in the rest of the world than just your thoughts. So like this thought is minuscule.
[00:05:37] Fuzz Martin: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:38] Shanna Martin: In the grand scheme of things. Yes. Like we all have things that like stress us out, whatever. And it points out like,
[00:05:44] Fuzz Martin: how come mine’s getting bigger?
[00:05:45] Fuzz Martin: No, I’m just kidding.
[00:05:47] Shanna Martin: It points out just like, like how, like our thoughts that we like focus on Yeah. Then end up, you know, stressing us out. And it’s just the whole goal is to like take it’s literally 60 seconds. Mm-hmm. And you can keep, like each day you could do this with your students or with yourself, honestly.
[00:06:05] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Take 60 seconds to take a breath. Acknowledge, like, this is what I’m thinking. I am hoping like we need to like de-stress for a second. Mm-hmm. And like that’s it. Like that’s the whole thing. And it’s just 60 seconds of. De-stressing
[00:06:20] Fuzz Martin: and then it just disappears with the other stars.
[00:06:22] Shanna Martin: Yep. And it just joins the rest of the stars in the galaxy and then life goes on.
[00:06:25] Shanna Martin: Was this helpful? Sure. And then you can buy a coffee. Just go buy me a coffee. We love buy a coffee and then you just go like, you can just start over, like anytime. So, yep. That could be a link that you go to or you have your students go to, or maybe just all student needs like. A 62nd break.
[00:06:40] Fuzz Martin: Yep.
[00:06:41] Shanna Martin: And that would be a way to build that in.
[00:06:42] Shanna Martin: So it’s super fast. Type in what you think, take some deep breaths and then move on with life or move on to the next tool. And,
[00:06:51] Fuzz Martin: But again, that one is called, pixel. Pixel Thought. Thoughts with an s.co?
[00:06:56] Shanna Martin: Yes. Perfect. Perfect. So our second site. It is gonna take away the column slightly.
[00:07:04] Fuzz Martin: So, are we ready?
[00:07:06] Shanna Martin: Are we ready? So the second one is like, if you’re feeling a little frustrated or you just need to get some things out or make a beat. ’cause we need a little music sometimes, you know, like a little music and creating something for a little break. Here’s like, everyone can have three minutes in the classroom.
[00:07:25] Shanna Martin: We are gonna play. I haven’t introduced the site yet. I know, but I’m parameter that’s, this is where we’re at with the site, everybody, just so you know. So it’s called pat aap.com. PAT
[00:07:39] Fuzz Martin: aap.com.
[00:07:40] Shanna Martin: It’s P-A-T-A-T-A p.com.
[00:07:45] Fuzz Martin: P-A-T-T-A-P,
[00:07:46] Shanna Martin: uh, tap.com.
[00:07:48] Fuzz Martin: Also, POME. Yeah.
[00:07:51] Shanna Martin: Yeah.
[00:07:52] Fuzz Martin: Pal. Is it Palindrome Pal?
[00:07:53] Shanna Martin: Palindrome.
[00:07:54] Shanna Martin: Pallen. So with Pad tap it does, you do have to let it access your keyboard as music. Yeah. But you don’t have to sign up for anything. And basically what you do is type out start typing again, like what my name sounds like versus. What like you’re feeling, or you can just type things and it makes pretty pictures and you get like different geometric shapes and things like that.
[00:08:22] Shanna Martin: And as you can tell, it’s highly entertaining. And so like you could just say, all right, everybody’s like losing their minds super distracted because let’s be real. That’s where we’re at. And take three minutes, set a timer on your board. And okay. Everyone’s got three minutes. Yep. Put in your earbuds, or, I mean, if you really wanna hear ’em all, you can hear ’em all.
[00:08:47] Shanna Martin: Welcome to life, chaos. And so three minutes and play. I, you can, you don’t have to set a time limit on it, but I mean, if you’re gonna let kids just play, this would be a great brain break if you need it. It’s a way to create, it’s fun like it is. Very entertaining and it’s like, plus press any key A to Z and turn up your speakers and here we go.
[00:09:10] Shanna Martin: And so you have all of those you can just play. It’s just to play around, create music, and create sounds and connect kids with. Sound and music, you could have them, which could be cool. Is write out a code, like Oh yeah. Like a letter code?
[00:09:28] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, like a, like a secret message or something? Oh, sure. Yeah.
[00:09:30] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.
[00:09:30] Shanna Martin: And then like their friends could type it and hear what it sounds like. You know, there’s different ways you could build that in, where you can build it into your classroom with. Not just a brain break, like it could be built into language arts where they’re like decoding things. It could be built into math where they have to like type things out.
[00:09:47] Shanna Martin: So there’s different ways you could use it where like you’re gonna type out, like how to spell numbers and like, what does that sound like? Mm-hmm. So it connects sound with letters on your keyboard and it has cool patterns. So they could even search like what patterns, like what letters create circular shapes versus what letters create.
[00:10:05] Shanna Martin: Like line shapes or things like that. Yeah. So you could build in different ways into your classroom. Mm-hmm. Besides just typing around the keyboard. But if you wanna just give ’em a little freedom for three minutes, they can type around their keyboard and like hear different sounds. So there’s different ways you could use it in your classroom with a little structure to it as well.
[00:10:21] Shanna Martin: Yep. To make it more meaningful and then they’ll find other purposes with it too. Yep. So cool. Pad a tap.com is highly entertaining. And also can be distracting. So once you teach them how to use it, have them put their keyboards on mute. Alright, so we’ve got two, we’ve got pixel thoughts, we’ve got pad tap, and the third one is my favorite of the three.
[00:10:51] Shanna Martin: Yes. Which I have been playing with now for a while is called, this is sand.com.
[00:10:57] Fuzz Martin: This is sand.
[00:10:59] Shanna Martin: You do not need Google Play and you do not need, you can just play. Yeah, like you have the option of just playing. So they don’t actually have to put the app on or anything. This is sand. So T-H-I-S-I-S-S-A-N d.com.
[00:11:15] Shanna Martin: This is sand.com and you can hear, the sound. Yeah, might,
[00:11:22] Fuzz Martin: might be hard to hear, on, on this recording, but we can hear it in our loud headphones.
[00:11:27] Shanna Martin: But it is. The sound of sand pouring and it’s like a sand jar. So you know when you go to pour sand and make art.
[00:11:34] Fuzz Martin: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:35] Shanna Martin: And you can make little like mountains and shapes and all kinds of things.
[00:11:39] Shanna Martin: So there’s a circle in the upper right hand corner. Yeah. And you just pick your color and then you just use your mouse and you can make little sand pictures. I am working on a mountain range right now, but you can do kind of an oceany kind of thing or any, any way you wanna make sand. It’s just sand art and it pours it and it’s super relaxing and it’s like satisfying.
[00:12:06] Shanna Martin: For those of you who like to make like ridges, then fill them in and make a straight line and then. It’s kind of like a little zen garden.
[00:12:14] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.
[00:12:14] Shanna Martin: With sand on your computer. And you can change your colors to make your picture. I’ll make sure our pictures make it onto the website on smart nwi um.com. So you can see the art that we have created with this, but it is really just sand and sound.
[00:12:32] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.
[00:12:32] Shanna Martin: And color. And when you’re done with it, you can click the little check mark. You enter your nickname if you, if kids wanna keep it.
[00:12:40] Fuzz Martin: Oh,
[00:12:41] Shanna Martin: and then you can write a caption, um, mountains of calm, and then you can share it on the sa sand or you can download your pictures so you can actually keep your pictures as well, which I think is cool.
[00:12:54] Shanna Martin: So once you create your art, you can keep your art. So that could be another thing is once the kids create something in the sand, yeah. They could do a piece of writing about it. Like this, like my mountain range is now gonna be like. The setting of an epic adventure. I’m gonna go write. Or you could have the kids write a reflection about like, I chose these colors and like these shapes because I feel this way.
[00:13:17] Shanna Martin: Um, towards the end of the school year, you can have them do
[00:13:20] Fuzz Martin: like layers of the earth.
[00:13:22] Shanna Martin: Yeah, for sure.
[00:13:23] Fuzz Martin: And for science. Make it science class.
[00:13:25] Shanna Martin: Yep. Uh, I could have my eighth graders do it. We’re gonna hike the kettles and the Marines this week, and they can make kettles and marines so we can reflect on ice age trail.
[00:13:33] Fuzz Martin: Um, I, I’m gonna be, I might be a chaperone on that. We’ll see.
[00:13:36] Shanna Martin: So this is stand is calming and entertaining. And again, like I said with the other sites, while we can definitely use these in our classroom. If you need a brain break for your own mental health, or to support other people, I would definitely share these.
[00:13:52] Shanna Martin: And yeah, this is, you’re just gonna keep making like until you like fill it up and make it pretty, you just keep on going. For this is stand, once you’re done with your art, like I said, you can name it and download it. You can share it on, this is Sand. They do have like a share place that you can share it, and then when you’re done, you can click the little X and it will discard the piece.
[00:14:10] Shanna Martin: And it says like, lose this beautiful piece forever and you can discard it and then it’s gone forever. Or you can keep it. So, and there’s lots of other people’s. Art, so you can see what other people have created. Yeah. With the sand. And some of them are very cool. Yes, yes. They’re, they’re actually like,
[00:14:28] Fuzz Martin: like beautiful, like,
[00:14:29] Shanna Martin: like real pictures.
[00:14:31] Shanna Martin: Like they’ve spent lots of time Yes. Creating things and thoughtfulness. And you
[00:14:36] Fuzz Martin: can also, by the way, you can turn off the sound if you want.
[00:14:39] Shanna Martin: Yeah. So you don’t wanna hear the sound. Yeah. The sand sounds, you don’t have to,
[00:14:42] Fuzz Martin: you just want the sounds of
[00:14:44] Shanna Martin: silence.
[00:14:44] Fuzz Martin: Silence.
[00:14:48] Shanna Martin: So there you go. Hopefully there’s three sites, will help, you know, some calmness mm-hmm. Here at the end of the year, if not some entertainment for your students of things they haven’t tried before. Yeah. And just some like little brain breaks in there or some different things to kind of mix it up a bit to see what they can create because they can create some cool things and it’s kind of fun to see that here at the end of the year.
[00:15:14] Shanna Martin: Yeah. So check out. Three sites this week hopefully to stay calm, stay relaxed, and find some entertainment.
[00:15:22] Fuzz Martin: Yes, pixel fonts.co. Had aab.com and this is sand.com.
[00:15:30] Shanna Martin: So thanks for tuning in. This has been the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Facebook, Instagram at smartinwi.
[00:15:39] Shanna Martin: And if you wanna get more information on the links to the technology discussing this episode, you can visit smartin wi.com. If you like to sports the show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit. Buy me a coffee.com/smartinwi or visit smartinwi.com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup.
[00:15:55] Shanna Martin: Your donations help keep the show going. New episodes, not what next week, but the following. Thanks for listening, who educate and innovate.
[00:16:04] Fuzz Martin: The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast and the smartinwi.com website are those of the author Shanna Martin and not a firm employer. Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations.
[00:16:15] Fuzz Martin: This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described. Well, we sure hope they do.
Sh.
