A Guide to Using Emojis in the Classroom
As I was scrolling through my Twitter feed yesterday, I noticed a post by Lisa Johnson aka @Techchef4u that highlighted using Google Docs and emojis to write book summaries.
Well, the truth is... I'm slightly obsessed with emojis. There. I said it.
👏🏽😯🍕🎊🐸💃🌸👫🎈🌚🎓😛💁👍😱💗✨
So, I got to thinking... How can we use emojis in the classroom? And TADA! My blog post idea for today was solidified: #EmojiEDU
62% of our learners claim to learn better visually. Combine that with the 92% of people who regularly use emojis, and you've got a winning combination.
Here is my list of ways YOU can use emojis in the classroom!
1. Writing Prompts- Use emojis to get students to write short stories.
2. Back to School: About Me- Create an about me in emojis. Have students translate what the emojis say about you! Why not create a Kahoot! game all about you using emojis? 💁
3. Translate Famous Speeches/Quotes- Group students to translate famous speeches, first lines of novels, or quotes in emoji! Each group would produce something unique as an expression of their personality and would display some killer visual literacy skills! See if you can guess these famous first lines!
4. Word Puzzles- Take note from iOS games like What's The Emoji and create word puzzles. Try to get students to guess some of those famous quotes or literature!
5. Emoji Poetry- Translate poetry into emoji, create poetry with emojis, or add visual representation after each line like this tweet demonstrates.
6. Teach with Emoji Literature- Check out Penguin Random House's series OMG Shakespeare. Learning classic literature just got a whole lot more fun!
7. Emoji Word Problems- Introduce younger kiddos to math using pictures!
Have older students create their own problems or collect data using emojis!
8. Warm Up/Bell Ringer- Hook students by creating a bell ringer written in emojis. Students can translate the emoji sentence and gain insight into the day's lesson! Talk about grabbing their attention!
Resources:
Check out Emoji Translate. Just type in a word or phrase and it will translate it into emoji like magic!
Use Emojipedia to understand the meaning of various emojis and to try and keep up with the changes in emojis!
Try the Bitmoji keyboard and make an avatar of yourself to use as an emoji! Check out my Bitmoji at the top of the page!
Got any more ideas? I would love to hear about them!
