Oct. 12, 2020 - When it comes to learning software, there are a number of options available to implement within your classroom, but that creates another challenge—what should you use? If you’re looking for a software system to utilize in your school, consider Snowflake. Snowflake software not only provides a wide variety of pre-built apps, but allows educators to build their own lesson activities, engage students and promote student learning—all in one system.
What is Snowflake Software?
Snowflake software comes bundled on your Clear Touch panel, and is a suite of more than 30 pre-built applications designed specifically for use on interactive touchscreen panels, providing a lesson activity toolkit for educators using the interactive touchscreen panels. While Snowflake allows educators to build their own applications and lessons for use within the classroom based on the needs of their students, teachers can also select from curated lesson activities by both grade level and state standards. And because you can use Snowflake on your desktop as well as the interactive panel, it makes it that much easier to develop and implement lesson plans—whatever they may be.
What apps does Snowflake have?
Not only does Snowflake have a built-in inventory of classroom-ready applications (including Google Doc integration), it also allows teachers to build their own lesson activities and incorporate dynamic content into the Lessons app—meaning that teachers can utilize the best parts of their interactive panel for students of all ages—from early education to high school and beyond.
As part of Snowflake’s extensive catalogue, you’ll find features such as:
Language support – change text into multiple languages
Interactive apps – Your students can enjoy apps such as puzzles, match it games, piano, drums, STEM activities, and more
Media – show photos, videos and more on the large screen.
Nodes– a mind-mapping application for brainstorming and organizing content that combines video, pdfs, text and more.
Zones – divide your board into multiple spaces, allowing each “zone” to operate with its own touchpoints and applications.
Clear Touch Canvas – within Snowflake is the proprietary Clear Touch Canvas™ that allows you to access whiteboard features that include features only found with Snowflake on Clear Touch panels such as unlimited live browsers and math and science tools. This application also allows you to pull in live YouTube videos without ads, or live browsers directly onto the whiteboard so you have easy access to all parts of your lesson activities in once place.
3 Reasons To Use Snowflake Software in Education
There are a number of reasons to utilize Snowflake software in your classroom, and a number of ways that the software can augment your current curriculum or lesson plans. At its most basic level, we’ll break it down into three prime reasons you should choose Snowflake for your interactive panel.
1. Ease of Use
One of the biggest challenges to new technology in a classroom is implementation—how easy is it to learn and use? With Snowflake software, this isn’t a problem, as most apps are ones that students are already familiar with; those new apps have a consistently user-friendly interface. Because of this ease of use, getting started with Snowflake doesn’t require a lot of training or onboarding, and most teachers will find it intuitive to begin implementation within classroom lessons immediately.
2. Capabilities
Because of the vast array of pre-built applications available on Snowflake, alongside the ability for educators to build their own lesson activities into the system, the capabilities truly are unlimited. Additionally, due to the “Zones” app, which divides the interactive panel into separate sections, a multi-touch interactive panel can easily become an interactive table for multiple students or groups of students—allowing teachers to reach and engage more students within each class period for individualized learning opportunities. Finally, due to its flexibility, Snowflake can incorporate nearly every form of media available—opening up a world of opportunities for students and instructors alike.
3. Benefits
When implementing educational technology into the classroom, there are a number of benefits. The capacity for personalized learning—to that of your classroom or even individual students, you can create differentiated activities for small groups that specifically target the needs of your learners. Because of this, you can also expect to see an increase in engagement, as today’s students are naturally immersed in the world of touchscreens and application use, and tend to thrive under personalized information.
As a result, with this increase in engagement and use, you will likely also notice a decrease in distraction among students, as they thrive in the group-focused, collaborative environment. As an added benefit to those instructing virtual students, or operating a hybrid learning environment, Snowflake not only allows you to email lesson activities directly to students, but Snowflake web grades the activity, sends the student results to the teacher, and the teacher can download student results to see how each student performed. S/he can then send individualized feedback directly to the student using text, voice or video. This feature removes the burden of grading so many activities, thereby allowing the teacher to spend time working with students individually and use the data they receive to drive instruction.
As an educator, you have a number of options when it comes to providing your students with technology options that serve their educational track, and we know it can be a lot to digest. That’s why our Clear Touch team is always here to offer assistance, no matter your questions or concerns. Schedule a demo with us to learn more about Snowflake and how it can help you bring a higher level of personalized interactivity to your classroom.
