Wixie - An Easier Way to AVID

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 By Koralina McKenna, OIT Teacher Specialist and Hybrid Science Teacher


I don’t know if it’s fair to say the year is winding down because my students seem to be winding up! Nevertheless, summer is close enough to start the countdown and with that countdown comes my annual reflection. I like to take a little time at the end of each year to look back at how I tweaked my lessons and activities; did they go well? Should I have left them alone? What am I definitely doing again next year?


One of my major changes this year was using Wixie. I had heard of Wixie before but had written it off as something elementary school teachers used [and loved] but it wasn’t for me, a middle school teacher. However, when I learned that it was available to all secondary students I couldn’t help but try it out. 


I work (and have always worked) at an AVID school and since year one, one-pagers have been a favorite assessment option. I love the creativity of them, how students can’t Google or chatGPT all the answers and how I can really gauge a students level of understanding by what they produce; each one is unique. In an attempt to move away from all-things-Google this year, I went in search of a digital option for one-pager creation and rediscovered Wixie! 


Of course, there was a learning curve for me and my students but I’m not looking back with any regrets. Wixie was simple, easy to differentiate and I loved how easy it was to assign from within Brightspace. I still had to do the whole split screen thing with my Brightspace Rubric on one side and Wixie on the other but the products made it worth it. My co-teacher already had access to my Wixie classes (so did all my students) and it was easy to add our TA and TSA’s. Group projects were a breeze and it was easy to see who worked with who in Wixie. The ability to add audio instructions and the built-in speech-to-text capabilities had my students working more independently. Students had the option to add their own audio or video to explain concepts or share their understanding. In terms of how they wanted to show their learning, Wixie put a lot of control in their hands. 


I couldn’t get over the built-in supports and co-teacher access. I was also able to limit the tools that students had access to so my ultra creatives couldn’t get too caught up in frivolous design rabbit holes and only had the necessary tools to complete the task at hand. I particularly liked being able to provide students with a blank page or a template from which to choose. As a teacher in the digital age, I appreciated the simplicity in finding and viewing students' work and easily being able to cruise through my entire class. I could also see all the work a student had created for my class and any other classes in one glance. 


We have a lot of creative options out there for student products but I encourage you to check out Wixie, you won’t be disappointed, in fact, I think you’ll find that what it offers is worth the hassle of learning something new. Just in case you need one.more.nudge. it’s almost the end of the year so why not try something different; even if it’s just one time, afterall, you can use summer to recover from any negative outcomes 😉

Learn more about using Wixie in your classroom.





Wixie

Google Slides

Audio Instructions

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Student audio recording

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Student video recording

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Speech-to-text

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Text/image-to-speech

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Image Web Search

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Student Groups

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Limit available tools

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Non-editable templates

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✅ only through edit theme

Student work visible regardless of submission 

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Brightspace Integration 

✅ super easy

✅ cumbersome

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