The Benefits of a Bitmoji

I’m going to be 100% transparent here.  A couple months ago I had NO idea what a Bitmoji was or what it was used for.  But when a teacher who has been teaching for 27 years is suddenly thrust into a pandemic with a whole new way of teaching online, I realized it was time to get on board with new and exciting ways to motivate and connect with my students.  When I have a room full of students in front of me, the connection is there, and student engagement is high. Distance learning is completely different.  It was time to teach myself something new!

An idea occurred to me, what better way to reach my kids than to go to their home?  Now I know what you’re thinking…” that’s unsafe, you cant do that!”  You’re right, I can’t go to their homes, but Mini-Me can!! That’s where this adorable Bitmoji thing I kept hearing about comes into play.  I did a little research and created my very first Bitmoji. I must admit, I loved it!  I can make myself look fabulous.  No wrinkles, thick flowing hair, lose a few pounds…the list goes on.  But even better than that, I could send myself to my students!  What better way to motivate and connect with them than to have me right there in front of them!

Once I made my Bitmoji, “Mini Mrs. Weink” went to visit my students through snail mail, along with a choice board of activities to do with Mini-Me, and a writing assignment with a thinking map (sneak that writing in where you can). Their assignment was to cut out my Bitmoji and do a fun activity from the choice board with “me” once a week. They could also come up with their own activities if they had creative ideas.  Then they had to use a flow map to organize their thinking (they already knew how to do this independently, but I sent a blank flow map template anyway), and then write a narrative paragraph about what we did.  Once they were finished, they needed to send me a picture through Class Dojo of us doing our activity as well as a picture of their writing assignment.  Talk about engagement!!!  Suddenly, every child was responding and sending pictures of our fun!

The pictures the kids sent me were adorable, but the stories just melted my heart!  So I took it a step further, I decided to up the engagement piece even more.  On our next zoom, I told the kids they had to present their story and picture to the class (sneaking in a little VAPA here).  As I shared the screen one picture at a time, that student had to read their narrative paragraph about what we did and then elaborate in their own words about our adventures.  My kids know that elaborate means they had to “tell me more” about the picture and keep talking until their time was up.  It was a little bit of Kagan Timed Round Robin, distance style.  This worked so well,  I was reluctant to tell them that their time was up and they had to stop adding more details about all the great things we did together. But even more important, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT was engaged from afar!

As you click through my slides above, I hope the pictures inspire you to try a “Mini-Me” with your students.  My favorite is the picture in the first slide. If you look very carefully, my adorable student dyed her hair pink at the bottom, and she “dyed” my hair pink too by coloring it pink on the Bitmoji. I also really loved the third slide where my friend was teaching me how to box.  I had to ask him, "You didn't knock me out did you?"  That got a lot of laughs and put smiles on all their faces!!

In my quest to engage my students, I learned how to make a Bitmoji and used it to inspire my students to write a narrative paragraph and present their writing to the class.  Now they are asking to present their paragraphs every week.  It sounds like a win-win to me…engagement, excitement about learning, and a love for writing!  I guess I’m starting to figure out this whole Distance Learning thing after all!

Teaching in the Virtual World,

Roni Weink