YackPack in Education

Lucy Gray invite me to participate in a YackPack Group called “Global Education Collaborative”. So I am diving a little into YackPack, trying to see how it works, getting comfortable with the design and functions and of course evaluating if this is a tool that I can use with my elementary school teachers and students.

More info directly from Yackpack:

YackPack for Education

YackPack can quickly improve educational communication. Motivate students, give quality feedback with ease and communicate clearly with students, parents and administrators.

YackPack’s simple and convenient interface allows students and teachers to focus on content and not be distracted by the underlying technology.

… it has been a little while since I started this post. I had not been back to Yackpack until last week, when I wanted to try to involve my adult Spanish students a little bit more during the rest of the week, when we are not meeting. Life gets so busy for all of us, that trying to think of Spanish (or any other foreign language you are trying to learn) gets really hard. I needed something easy and fun for them, that would get them thinking and talking in Spanish.

Creating a YackPack was very easy, just as it was inviting my students simply by entering their e-mail addresses. When our weekly class came around, I was so excited to introduce them to the tool, as well as practice during class to listen and to send voice messages.

Well… I did not practice what I preach…check your set-up and tools before (as far ahead as you possibly can….) you are going to present something. So I was surprised, when 5 minutes before my students walk in, I found out that YackPack was blocked by the firewall

I described to my students as best as I could what YackPack was and asked them to sign on from home and try to send a message from there. I had to think quick what to do with them for the class and decided to open up Audacity and have them record any question, then move on to the next computer, listen what the previous person had recorded and give them an appropriate answer. When everybody had made the round to everyone’s computer, we listened to all the conversations.

I requested for YackPack to be unblocked at school and hopefully we will be able to use it in class next week.