One of the ways teachers kick off the year or semester is by having the students introduce themselves to the class. For some students, talking about themselves in front of people they don’t know can be extremely painful. Technology can help students introduce themselves in a creative manner while not having to stand and say something in front of the class. Here are seven ways students can use tech to break the ice in the classroom:

1. Explain Everything: Using the Explain Everything app for iOS or Chrome OS, students can tell the class about themselves by recording a presentation wherein they can draw things that are important to them. Students can also incorporate family pictures or pictures they’ve downloaded that show their interests and hobbies all while including a narration of their presentation.

2. Clips: Clips is an iOS app wherein students can create and share videos about themselves. The cool thing about Clips is that students can create videos about themselves using various pieces of video and pictures. Clips is great in an EL classroom because captions are included. Speak it, and it appears in the presentation. And, Clips allows students to be creative with their videos in that they can change the font of the caption and adjust the video to your creative heart’s content.

3. iMovie: Apple’s iMovie could be considered the big brother of Clips. One of the ways a teacher can use iMovie is by having the students create movie trailers about themselves — making it appear that there is a grand blockbuster about themselves. Of course, with iMovie, students can incorporate various photos and video of themselves all with the music of their choice and style that suits them.

4. Book Creator: Book Creator is not only available on an iPad, but there is a web version as well for those with Chromebooks. Teachers can ask their students to create a comic book about themselves while including various pictures about their family and interests.

5. Presentation Apps: The old stand by presentation apps such as Keynote, Google’s Slides, or Microsoft’s PowerPoint can be another way for students to creatively introduce themselves. With these presentation apps, students can include video, pictures, drawings, and whatever else they can think up to include into their presentations. Simply ask the students to keep it to a limit, and set the presentations to auto play (saving the students the terror of presenting in front of unknown classmates).

6. Pinterest: Have students create a board and insert pictures that represent who they are. Pictures could include their favorite places, foods, movies/books, music, and anything else that represents who they are. Then share the boards with the class.

7. Flipgrid: Flipgrid is great as it allows students to speak to their classmates without having to stand up in front of class. Ask students to create a Flipgrid video about themselves. Then, ask students to respond to videos by pointing out what they find interesting or ask questions they might have.