Ideas for Using Kami

(Updated 8/2/2020)

Here's some ideas of how you can use Kami as a teacher and with students!  These ideas can be used in an assigned lesson, recorded lesson, interactive lesson, or live lesson.  Any of these ideas will work on any type of document - jpeg, Office Products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Mac (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), Google Docs (Doc, Sheet, Slides), PDFs, etc.  Everything noted below I have done in a Kindergarten classroom or in tutoring situations.

• Anything you do on paper you can do with Kami and go paperless!

(* means requires a paid subscription)

Ideas for Teacher Use

• Teacher Management / Work
• Assessments
• Upload any paper assessment and upload to Kami - use a different colors each time an  assessment is given like Concepts of Print, CORE Phonics Survey, Phonemic Awareness Assessments, Letter ID/Sounds assessments, etc.
• You will be able to track progress over time and all information is in one place, not on 3-4 sheets of paper for you to lose.  
• Progress Monitoring Data / Forms as part of SRBI/RTI - upload the form you use or create your own template in Google Slides or Powerpoint.  Annotate in a different color each time to help see progress over time.
• Collaborating with Colleagues - have a SPED student or students who go with Reading support?  Add them to the document or send them a link to the document so they can add their own data, notes, or observations.
• Class Assessments - have an extra tablet, phone, or computer?  Log in with your account and hand it to an aide, reading specialist, or math specialist.  They can be assessing one student on one side of the room while you are working with another student on the other side of the room.
• Progress Monitoring
• Sharing information on student progress with parents (Ex - sight words, letter ID).  Create a template in Google Slides or PowerPoint and share the link with the parent.  They can check anytime to see their child's progress on a skill or you send them a message when it's updated.
• Create your own progress monitoring forms and use it to track your students' progress.  Color code your notes or change the color for each day you take notes.
• Collaborating with Support Staff (Special Education, Reading + Math Support, etc) - share a document through Kami for them to collaborate with you about a specific student or small group of students.
• Behavior Charts
• Collaborating with Colleagues - each teacher has access to same chart throughout the day
• Sharing behavior charts with parents - parents can immediately see their child's behavior chart - no need to copy it or risk it getting lost on the way home!  
• *Reflection - student, teacher, or parent can add video comments to that day's behavior chart.
• Note Taking - Reading / Writing / Math / Phonics Workshops
• Create lesson plans for your aides or support staff to follow on their phone, laptop, or other tablets while they work in your classroom.
• Collaborate in real-time with other teachers supporting the class - have them take notes in the same document you are working on taking notes.  (This is a huge game changer).  You will need at least two devices.  Your aides and you can both be taking notes about students that are getting support in the classroom that day.  You can both see who has gotten support and who has been missed (for the next day).  You can see each other's notes to help continue to support what was said in a previous session with a student.  You can also see patterns over time with more students if you have all your notes on one page.  You can also leave specific notes for aides on what you want them to do with a student as well.  There's many more possibilities with this as well!
• By being in the cloud, you don't have to worry about logging around a bunch of clipboards or binders full of notes.  You can just open the file on your home computer or any device anytime anywhere.  You can also look back through your notes at anytime (really helpful during report card season).  
• Lesson Plans
• Create your own template or upload what you already use, then annotate over it during your lessons.  All your lessons are kept in the cloud and you can refer back to them at anytime (without having to carrying lesson plan binders home every night).  
• Parent-Teacher Communications Log
• Create your own log or upload one you found somewhere.  Record in it when you talk with a parent and any important notes.  Keeping it in Kami means you can access it anytime, anywhere and don't have to carry around a clipboard or binder!  
• If you have kids carrying a binder that you write daily notes in or for parents to write notes, you could switch this over to Kami.  Since it's cloud base, you can make notes on any device anywhere anytime.  You don't have to worry about grabbing a student's binder or worry about that student who never brings their binder back.  
• Creating Templates to be reused from year to year (modeled writing, shared writing, student books, teacher created books for students)
• Create Shared Writing Pieces or Shared Reading pieces as templates
• Import pictures from the class, grabbed from online, or handdraw using Kami!  
• If you have a story with the same scene, you can draw it once then copy-paste the scene onto each page!  This is a huge time saver both during an in-person lesson or if you are creating something to use in the classroom. 
• Create a basic storyline as a template to reuse year after year with your lessons -'make a copy' or print out the template to use with the students. 
• During a lesson
• You can use Kami to model the piece while it's displayed on a smartboard.
• You can use a 2nd device with pen to write on while it's displayed on a larger screen.  (This is also true with distant learning - students can see one thing on their screen that you share through Zoom while you annotate on the Kami 'document' with a different device.)
• Students can use a device or the smartboard to help contribute to the work.  
• When done - you can then print how ever many copies you need for each student.
• Share with Colleagues -  create a Google Drive folder (or any other web-based folder - OneDrive, Dropbox, etc) for you and your colleagues to share work you created for lessons.
• LMS Integration - Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas Integration* - (some more advanced features require the paid subscription).
• Create interactive lessons - can attach audio and/or video notes on the side!
• Grade students work / provide feedback - written, text comment, audio comment, video comment.  
• (Coming soon, ability to add stickers or using a comment bank!)
• Student responses - they can respond using handwriting on touch devices, text, audio, or video comments.  
• (Coming soon - teachers will be able to 'control' what tools students can use either to simplify the user experience or remove tools that teacher's don't want to be used in a testing situation!)
• Grading / Feedback
• Provide annotation, text, voice, or video* feedback on students' work.
• Attach additional links/videos to help support student learning.
• Grading Papers (text, voice, video*)
• Lesson Creation
• Modeling (all subject areas)
• Attach YouTube Videos to explain the lesson.
• Attach your own Videos to explain the lesson
• Attach voice memos to explain / read directions to students
• Attach you reading a given passage for students to listen to!
• Have students respond to worksheets - annotation or text boxes
• Have students respond or provide reflection with text, voice, video* comments.
• Collaboration - students collaborate on the same document / contribute to the same document.
• Distant Learning
• In addition to everything already mentioned - Kami can be used as an interactive whiteboard where multiple students and the teacher can all be looking at the same document and contributing to it.  The teacher can also create interactive activities for students to manipulate during a live lesson or on their own time.
• Subject Area Ideas
• Language Arts
• Highlighting key points in a text
• Have questions on the side and student highlight where it is in the text
• Group Discussions / Group Work
• Math
• Creating graphs / having students complete graphs
• Typing in equations / Math Problems for students to solve.
• Group Discussions / Group Work
• Use the graph paper feature to complete Math activities.
• Science
• Ability to put in complex formulas and symbols
• Group Discussions / Group Work
• Social Studies
• (See LA Ideas)
• Map labeling
• Explaining historical events on maps
• Group Discussions / Group Work
• Arts
• Recording singing / practice sessions
• Inserting pictures of student work
• Students ability to use Kami drawing tools to draw pictures
• Music - use the music lines to write your own music or have students write their own music!
• Group Discussions / Group Work

Special Education / ELL / Teacher of Deaf or Hard of Hearing / Visually Impaired Teachers

• Text-to-Speech
• Voice Typing
• Dictionary (Spanish Version coming soon!)
• Video Comment - Provide visual directions through sign-language
• Insert YouTube tutorials / lesson materials
• Insert videos you made to support the lesson
• Collaboration with classroom teacher on notes, goals, and assessments.

Ideas from the Student Perspective

• Annotation on Documents - written or through text boxes
• Explaining thinking (text, voice, video*).
• Providing reflection (text, voice, video*).
• Highlighting key points 
• Importing images of work*
• Completing Worksheets digitally
• Lesson Adaptation - Speech to Text*, Text to Speech*, Dictionary*

Upcoming Updates for Fall 2020 (I don't know if these will be in the free version or the paid version.)

• Recording Videos Improvements
• Being extended to 20 mins in length
• Ability to reuse videos across Kami documents
• Improved recording controls (including pause and restart).  
• Be able to embed your webcam in the recording
• Provide Effective Feedback
• Canned Messages Feature / Comment Box
• Stickers
• Grading with Schoology - will be more seemless (Canvas coming later).
• Better integration with pictures.
• Assessments / Control
• Ability to turn on/off certain tools for student access (especially for testing situations).
• Ability to limit the tools students have access to.
• Microsoft Integration (for districts who are Microsoft, not Google based)
• iPad Improvements - making it easier for students with iPads to complete work in Kami