What kind of technology do you use in your classroom? Are you a parent or guardian who is looking for fun educational activities for your kids? Do you know about digital task cards?Have you heard of Boom Learning?
At boomlearning.com, you will be able to find a plethora of self-checking, easy to use digital task cards created by teachers and authors all over the world. It's a growing platform and once you get a little taste of it, you will find yourself immersed in technology that you will find so useful in your classroom. What I like most is that you can even make your own digital card sets, too!
Let me share with you what I love the most about using Boom Cards.
1. It’s interactive and fun.
2. It’s no-prep.
3. It’s paperless. (Happy Earth!)
4. It’s self-checking. (Yes! Kids will get immediate feedback.)
5. No more grading! (You will get detailed reports so it'll be super easy to monitor your students’ progress.)
6. It’s easy to access.
7. You can utilize it using many different devices
Finding this platform was probably one of the most wonderful things that happened to me as a teacher, and it made technology move up a notch in our classroom. Boom cards are practically the same thing as task cards, but they are completely digital, self-checking, and require no-prep. On top of that, teachers can get a report immediately on how their students performed when working on a specific set of cards. You can display it on the whiteboard or a smartboard and work as a whole-group, work in small groups using a laptop or iPads, or have a digital literacy center for students to work independently. It's great that these cards can be played like games and your students will be asking for more!
Here’s a little video I made to explain what Boom Cards are:
Where and how do I sign up?
First and foremost, you need to create a free account at boomlearning.com. After that, you can decide what kind of membership you’d like to get depending on your need. You will be given four choices:
Starter- (FREE) You can choose this if you’re planning to make a few decks and play what others have created without tracking student performance. It’s perfect if you are just using it for your family or a few tutees, or if you are only using it as a whole class activity on a smartboard.
Basic- You can monitor up to 50 students and create a few decks of your own.
Power- You can monitor up to 150 students and create unlimited decks.
Ultimate- You can monitor up to 200 students and can create unlimited decks AND sell in the marketplace.
You can check out the details here.
How do I buy them?
You can buy Boom decks with points on BoomLearning.com. You can acquire points when you buy a membership, and you can buy an additional Points Package if you want to purchase more decks.
You can also buy Boom decks on TeachersPayTeachers.com. In your download, you will find a link that will direct you to the Boom cards you purchased.
Can I test it out first?
So you want to give it a try, but you’re not sure you want to buy one yet? I felt the same way, because it was a totally new thing. If you are like me, you should try a freebie first. On the website, you will also be able to find many great free decks by other authors too!
How can I set up a class and manage it?
If you already have a membership and you want to learn how to set-up your virtual classroom, watch the video below. I tried to be as informative as possible. In the video, I will also show you how you can get student reports and how to differentiate learning. It’s extremely easy. IT’S AMAZING :)
How can I use these in my classroom?
There are several ways you can use digital task cards. I’ll list everything that I can think of below, and if you’d like to share more ideas, please feel free to comment!
Centers: You can play them in centers for individual or pair work.
Early Finishers: You can have your early finishers work on assigned decks.
Whole Class Lesson: You can use an interactive whiteboard to play the decks as a whole group.
Small Group Instruction: If you group your students into levels, you can use these cards during your small group meetings.
Assessments: When you assign students, you can easily get reports on the decks that your students complete.
Differentiate Learning: You have the option to assign the same deck to everyone or individualize learning by assigning different decks to different students.
Homework: You can have you students sign in on a computer at home to complete assigned decks if the technology is available at home. Vacation homework is also agood idea.
A Little Tip
If you have computer/tablet stations, you can log into your classroom, so that all your students have to do is click their name and type their password in to access their Boom cards. So, what do you think? I hope you give it try! Here are some of the Boom Cards that are available in my store.
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