Being in contact with students every day, there’s a good chance you’ve heard them talking about TikTok. While that’s not the subject of our newest Rising Resources post, it is comparable. This week, we explored Zigazoo, which has been dubbed the ‘TikTok for kids.’ With Zigazoo, students can create short-form videos and learn how to address key topic areas quickly. Best of all, it’s a legitimate educational tool—not just something to use for social purposes.
With Zigazoo, students can take pride in their learning by creating original content. Zigazoo serves as a response tool for them to create thoughtful responses to teacher-posed questions or challenges. Whether you’re discussing a historic event, teaching a new type of math, or simply want to allow students to be creative, Zigazoo can help. Rather than demonstrating understanding in the traditional way, Zigazoo truly allows students to get creative when showing what they know.
Zigazoo is a mobile app that’s available for download on mobile phones and tablets. It’s available as both an iOS and Android app. Once they have an account, students can find challenges from professionals at some of the world’s most well-known brands. Or, teachers can certainly assign them more targeted challenges based on what they’re learning in class. The activities are generally pretty open-ended, which allows students to get as creative as they’d like. Best of all, it’s meant to be educational and help them condense what they’re learning to allow them to identify the most important topics.
The videos students create should be short-form and shareable—just like on TikTok. Knowing how today’s students learn best, the Zigazoo team embodies cutting out the filler often found in lessons and assignments. Creating with Zigazoo allows students to focus only on what’s the most important. Beyond that, Zigazoo gives kids the power to create—a true 21st century skill. Whether they’re responding to challenges from stars they like, museum employees, or their teachers, students get the chance to express themselves.
Zigazoo is quite a new company and it has quickly become a valuable tool throughout the remote learning era. Besides fostering student creativity, it also helps them optimize their screen time with some guilt-free experiences. There’s also a family element to Zigazoo, which is important for students who are learning from home. Children and parents can try it together or kids can ask parents for feedback on the media they create.
The other key component to Zigazoo is the Zigazoo Global Community. This is where members of the Zigazoo team post their own challenges and prompts for students. There are hundreds of challenges to choose from and teachers could assign any that they’d like to their students. Once they have a video created, students can share it with their friends and the Zigazoo community. In a time in which personal connections aren’t all of what they once were, Zigazoo can help students reconnect with peers and bolster their own social-emotional health, too.
Also, the availability of Zigazoo Classrooms can now help educators even more. Teachers can sign each student in their class up for free and more easily assign challenges to each of them. This also makes it a bit easier for students to share responses and collaborate. With Zigazoo Classrooms, students can do more with collaboration and get a sense of what true peer-to-peer work is like—even if they’re learning remotely. Student responses appear in a social media-style feed, which helps them better engage with educational content!
In this era of disruption and wanting to get the key information as quickly as possible, Zigazoo is a valuable tool. Modeled on simplicity and helping to create connections, it can add enjoyment and enhance learning for students. To learn more about Zigazoo and its similarity to TikTok, visit their website or search your app store. After you’ve checked it out, be sure to visit our store, too. There, you’ll find all of the latest hands-on STEM tools for remote, hybrid, and in-person learning. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more!