The Bitmoji craze is taking over the remote learning world as a fun, interactive way for teachers to engage their students when teaching remotely. Now obviously, it is important to note that once your Bitmoji classroom is built, you need to make sure that it is easy for students to navigate, not overwhelming and that the lessons linked to it are structured in solid pedagogy. But for the sake of this post, we are going to just have fun decorating and building a Bitmoji classroom. Here’s what you’ll learn about:
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Beginning a Bitmoji Classroom
Bitmoji classrooms can be built in PowerPoint or Google Slides and the process is the same for both. To begin building a Bitmoji Classroom, you need to start with a nice, calm background. You want the background to have as few objects in it as possible so that you can add in the personalized items you wish to have in your own room. Once you have found the background image you like, you want to save the image to your desktop and then add it to the background of your slide. That way it cannot be moved or layered among other smaller items.
Tip: When looking for backgrounds you can make your own with a few images and icons, or you can try searching for classroom/office images on google. Using the word screen savers or background helps!
Once you have chosen your background you can begin by finding the items you wish to add into it. The key is that the items need to be transparent—this means they have a clear background instead of the normal solid white of a jpeg image. You can do this in Google by typing the item you wish to look for into the search bar, and then clicking IMAGES under the bar.
Once you have clicked images, then hit TOOLS —> COLOUR —> TRANSPARENT. Once you find the image you’d like you simply copy it, and then paste it into your Bitmoji classroom.
Tip: Try adding your Bitmoji in first to get an idea of how large you would like the other items sized.
Bitmoji Classroom Resources
We know how hard it can be to build a Bitmoji classroom from scratch, so we partnered with our dear educational guru Holly Clark from the Infused Classroom, to give your somewhere to start. Simply click here and grab the entire deck of backgrounds and images to use as you get started. Please remember that this resource is to be used in the classroom, and not as something that will later be sold to other educators.
There are a lot of great websites to use when working on a Bitmoji Classroom and creating lessons for students working in a remote environment. We have so many applications we could recommend, but below are some of our favorite FREE applications that would fit into a Bitmoji classroom and accompany a virtual teaching environment nicely.
Flipgrid: A social learning platform where students engage with the teacher and peers through videos and demonstrate their knowledge by pressing record!
Wonderopolis: This online informational site that asks and answers interesting questions about the world. Every day, a new "Wonders of the Day" question is posted, and each is designed to get kids and families to think, talk, and find learning moments together in everyday life. With the integration of Immersive Reader, students can have articles read aloud to them making this a great remote learning website!
Wakelet: allows users to curate customizable content. It is also a great tool for keeping research projects interactive and social. Use it much like a virtual pin-board for class discussions, or group students and have them collaborate on an activity together.
Branching Bitmoji Classrooms
Once you get the hang of building a classroom setting, have fun leveling it up and linking one room to another. Try creating a sort of “homeroom” class where maybe students start off the day, but have it linked to a science lab, a math room and maybe a reading corner. This would allow you to have more resources available for students without cluttering one single slide up.
You can do this in two ways. You can create the slides in one deck and just link them together, or you can create a new deck for each “classroom”, where when students click it takes them out to that new room where all they can see is the new classroom slide.
If you are looking for more ideas about Bitmoji classrooms, check out our other related posts:
Creating a Virtual Classroom with Buncee (Free resource!)
How to Animate Yourself in a Bitmoji Classroom
Bitmoji Keychain Keepsakes
If you are looking for other ideas on how to make teaching and learning relevant and engaging through the use of technology, check out our book The InterACTIVE Class!
