Teaching had been moving towards digital even before 2020, and nowadays classrooms can range anywhere from entirely physical (ok, maybe not right now) to entirely digital. There are many apps and tools to make your classroom more digital, but today I’ll be sharing ways to use French Boom Cards for distance learning.
Boom Cards: what are they?
But before we get started, let’s recap what Boom Cards are in case you haven’t heard of them, or haven’t used them before.
Boom Cards are digital exercises that kids can complete on computers, tablets, smartphones, and even some kinds of Kindle. They require an Internet connection and an up-to-date browser.
Check out the video below for a look at Boom Cards in action.
Kids can play as many times as wanted or needed and they’ll know if they’re doing well because the cards are self-correcting.
Some cards include audio (most of mine do), so students can hear a French speaker, other than you, speaking the language.
And, if you have the right kind of Boom membership, you can track students’ progress even if they’re playing the cards in their homes.
Ways to use French Boom Cards for distance learning
Assign Boom Cards as complementary work or homework
You’ll need something that supports independent at-home practice for students. It’d be great if you could help them yourself one-on-one, but it’s just not possible.
So what can you do? Well, you can assign Boom Cards for students to work on independently. As the cards are self-correcting, you’d be making sure kids are not “practicing it wrong”.
With a free Boom membership, you’ll be able to generate links that let you share the cards with students for them to play.
With paid Boom memberships, you’ll be able to track progress and generate reports to see exactly what your students got right/wrong, how many times they played, etc. In addition, students can earn digital rewards by playing the cards. With the coins they earn, they can “buy” new avatars.
For more information about Boom memberships, click here.
Use Boom Cards during synchronous online meetings
Whether you’re using Zoom, Google Meets, or whichever platform your school/board decides to implement, you’ll most likely be able screen-share the cards on your computer and have kiddos work through the exercises along with you. If you’re on Zoom and your students are on computers, you can ever give kiddos control over your mouth so they can complete the tasks themselves, one at a time.
You can also use digital manipulatives to have your students play games. For example, I’ve created a FREE deck of Boom Cards with manipulative tic-tac-toe pieces. There are no questions, but you’d screen-share the pieces (or show the pieces on your tablet) and have them play the game. You can read more about it here.
Create a virtual real-time centre with live-monitoring
You can have students use Boom Cards while you live-monitor them.
You might be thinking: “Lucy, what is live-monitoring?”
Well, it’s a way for you to see real-time results from the cards your kiddos are playing.
So you get your students to play at the same time and you’ll see what they’re doing.
For example, you could instruct students to start playing the decks you assigned them a few minutes before you start the live online lesson. You’ll be able to see if they’re getting something wrong and start the lesson with a quick review of that topic based on the mistakes they made.
Live-monitoring would also work well if you’re in the classroom but you need to keep students distant from one another. They could each play the cards in their own physical spaces, e.g. their desks, but they’d all the working on the same deck of cards and you could see which students might need extra help.
Use Boom Cards to keep students engaged during distance learning
One thing some teachers felt is that engagement decreased overtime during distance learning.
In the beginning of distance learning, around March/April 2020, students were showing up and participating whereas they’d be “ghosting” the teacher and not turning in work around May/June 2020.
Boom Cards can help you keep students engaged if you create incentives based on their Boom usage, i.e. how many cards and how many decks they play.
You could create a list of rewards your kiddos or your classroom would get for achieving certain numbers. And don’t worry, I’m not suggesting rewarding them on the correct answers they get. I suggest rewarding them based on the number of cards/decks they play. It’s all about effort and participation!
When you check out “Reports” in your Boom account, you’ll be able to see how each student is doing.
Check out the image below to see what I’m talking about:
NOTE: you’ll only be able to see reports if you have a paid Boom membership.
I’ll be writing more about Boom Learning’s student progress reports soon!
And these are some of the ways to use French Boom Cards!
How do YOU use Boom Cards for distance learning?
Thank you for stopping by!
Lucy
Read: French Distance Learning Games
Read: Teaching French to Anglophone Students
