collaboration – Page 11 – iLearn Technology

My iPad Journey

July 29, 2010July 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely13 Comments3438 views

Open publication – Free publishing – More school

The story above is meant to be an illustration of the school/learning experience. The first explorer’s journey represents the traditional school model. Here, students are given set tools and led in one direction down a river of scripted curriculum and standardized tests. Some wonderful things are learned along the way, but there is little freedom to stop and explore more. This is further limited by the tools provided that allow for little or no discovery. On this journey there is a single goal in mind: graduation.

The second explorer represents a rich learning experience made available when the proper tools and experiences are made available. In this model, there is still a destination and objective, but the journey is one of discovery, adventure, and opportunity. On this journey, students are given the resources that will allow them to explore and learn at their own pace, deepening the learning experience and passion for a life of learning. While there are many resources that could enrich the learning experience and help students on this journey of discovery, the tool I am recommending is the iPad.

I choose the iPad over other devices (such as netbooks) because it is an intuitive device (particularly for the elementary level) that puts the focus on the journey unfolding. Other devices may be cheaper, or offer Flash, or allow multi-tasking but these devices get in the way of the journey because they must be learned before the journey can even begin. These type of devices can end up being THE journey because there is a learning curve for using the device. The iPad is brilliant in its simplicity. Students can pick it up and immediately understand how to navigate and use the device with little guidance. The iPad offers portability not available in other devices. It is the go-anywhere, all day learning device that allows students to explore, communicate, and collaborate at their own pace and in their own way.

In the current school system, students aren’t afforded the luxury of having the teacher to themselves all day. The iPad can fill some of this void by guiding learning, offering instant feedback, giving the ability to pause-rewind-replay learning, and allowing students to learn collaboratively. This frees the teacher to spend more time guiding students individually on their individual learning journey.

As I have written previously, one device may not make sense in every school, in every classroom. In another demographic, the cellphone may be the best portable learning device. I am proposing an iPad study pilot program because for my students at my school, the iPad is the right tool for the journey. I have had an average of 400 students each year. I know every one of them by name. I know many of their families. I know their hobbies, interests, fears, and passions. Being a computer has afforded me the opportunity to teach these kids every week of their elementary school lives. I know these kids. The iPad is the device that would make the second explorer’s journey possible for them.

Before the school year was over, an idea formed to start a 1-to-1 iPad pilot program in first and fifth grade (180 students). I decided to make this program a formal research study to find out what affect the device really had on student learning and achievement. I wanted the results of this program to be farther reaching than my school and my students. It is my hope that by turning this into a research study, not only would my students be given the best, but others could benefit from the results. Perhaps we could provide the road map of how to implement a 1-to-1 iPad program. I wrote out my proposal and immediately sent out a tweet asking if there were any research professors or graduate students who might be interested in something like this. Many from my PLN responded positively with help, Jason Schmidt was the one I chose. Then, I got the wild idea to take the study to another level and sent my proposal to Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering. They agreed to partner with us on research! The problem? We are still working out a way to fund this project.

Below is a pared down version of my proposal:

Objective/Purpose of Study
The purpose of this pilot program is to examine the effectiveness of the Apple iPad multi-touch, mobile device on student achievement and learning in a 1-to-1 environment. The iPad mobile device will be used to augment instruction, differentiation, inquiry learning, and innovative classroom practice with a focus on reading/English language arts and Math. Reading/English language arts and math are the primary focus of the study since these are the two subjects that all states have been required to develop assessments under the No Child Left Behind Act.1 The study will also seek to determine if instructional practices are influenced by the use of iPad mobile devices in the classroom.

Goals
The goal of this pilot program is to provide a 1 to 1 mobile device learning environment which will:

Provide consistent access to technology for a fully integrated learning experience by providing each student with an iPad mobile learning device for use inside and outside the classroom.
Make provisions for on demand learning opportunities which will expand the reach of the classroom with the iPad learn-anywhere platform (applications, podcasts, video, e-books all selected for individual learning needs).
Allow for customized, individualized content to meet each student’s unique learning needs.4
Increase student motivation and engagement in learning.5
Increase collaboration among students and teachers resulting in improved achievement.6
Provide students with student-focused instruction that is multi-level (for different student abilities), multi-sensory (for different learning styles), and individualized.7
Provides students with immediate feedback on learning.8
Provides teachers with the ability for immediate and individualized learning assessments.

Questions to Address

How can the iPad mobile learning device influence student achievement?
How can use of the iPad improve student motivation, attitude, and interest in learning?
How can the iPad mobile learning device be introduced into curriculum and instruction effectively?
What learning strategies are most effective in instructional applications of the iPad?
How can the iPad be used to extend learning beyond the classroom and school day?
In what ways can implementation of the iPad be a catalyst for a restructuring of school?
What are effective ways of evaluating the impact of mobile learning devices on teaching and learning?
Will there be an increase in student ability to use classroom or computer lab computers?
Will there be a change in the way teachers think about the use of mobile technologies?
Will there be a change in the process of learning from being largely teacher centered, to student centered as a result of the introducing the iPad?
Will there be a greater sense of student ownership, responsibility, and empowerment in their own learning (how does this differ in 1st grade to 5th grade)?
Will students use technology more purposefully to complete a task or discover new information?
Will there be a change of teacher’s philosophy, pedagogy, or approach to the learning process?

Conclusion
The iPad pilot program offers something innovative in the classroom. It provides the potential to empower and uplift students in their learning. To maximize effectiveness, education in the 21st century has to be active, engaged, and customized for students. Students must have universal access to mobile technologies that will enable critical thinking, differentiation, and problem solving. It is our belief that the technology in Apple’s iPad meets these needs and more.

I tell you all of this because we are still searching for funding. We have applied for grants, talked with individuals, entered contests, emailed Steve Jobs, etc., etc., etc. I am stubborn. I refuse to believe that money is going to be the thing to stop us in our tracks. I refuse to believe that in all of my PLN, Twitter, and Facebook connections that there isn’t an answer. Surely Twitter shrinks the six degrees of separation between me and someone who can help get this moving. Surely someone knows someone, who knows someone who can make this happen.

So here is my plea:

Spread the word as often as you can to everyone you can.
Tweet like crazy!
Vote for us in the Kohl’s Cares $500,000 give away
Send me any ideas you may have!

I am convinced that with your help I can get this program started and that our ripples will be felt throughout the education community.

Answer Garden

July 26, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5178 views

What it is: I learned about Answer Garden from an interactive post on Suzanne Whitlow’s excellent blog, Suzanne’s Blog. Answer Garden is a “new minimalistic feedback tool.” It can be used as an online answer collection tool or embedded on a website or blog. An Answer Garden is created as easily as entering a question and clicking create, no registration needed. Embed the Answer Garden on any blog, website, or social network page using the embed code provided. You can also give students a direct link to the Answer Garden. Students can post answers to your questions by entering their own answers or by clicking on and submitting existing answers. All of the answers are represented in the form of a word cloud. 25 answers are visible per garden but as students submit the same answer, that word will grow bigger. Creating an Answer Garden is SO simple. Just type in your question or brainstorm statement and click create.

How to integrate Answer Garden into the classroom: Answer Garden is a fun way for students to brainstorm, plan, and work together. Pose open-ended thinking questions on your classroom blog or website for students to answers. Use Answer Garden to host a classroom poll. Create a geography Answer Garden that gives students a place that they can describe a state or country they are learning about. Use Answer Garden during reading as a place for students to reflect on different characters, plots, settings, and themes. In history, give students a date range, event, or historical figure and let them add words to the Answer Garden that describe. In the primary classroom, type in a phoneme combination and have students submit words that fit the phoneme rule. Create an answer garden to recognize VIP students in your classroom where each child can answer with a character quality that they appreciate about that student. The possibilities are endless! This tool is SO easy to use, try it out in the Answer Garden below.

Where will use Answer Garden?… at AnswerGarden.ch .

Tips: The default settings on Answer Garden only allows students to submit one answer. You can check the optional “Unlimited Answering” to give students multiple opportunities to submit answers.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Answer Garden in your classroom.

The Goal of Education

July 20, 2010Kelly Tenkely26 Comments10188 views

Tonight’s #edchat topic on Twitter was: Can we agree on a common goal of education?

My response:

The goal of education is to provide the conditions for learning. I think that it is a broad enough goal for everything else to fall into place. I engaged in some discussion about how current conditions keep us from that goal. While I agree to some extent, I think that excuses are an easy way to stay where we are. We can create conditions for learning without administrative support, without funding for technology, without the best conditions. How do I know this? Because I had teachers who did it for me. They used what they had, within the system they were in, to provide us with the conditions for learning. And guess what? We learned.

Now, this is not to say that the goal wouldn’t be more attainable if we weren’t mired in a system that is run by testing and policies. It is better to have ubiquitous use of technology and freedom within our classrooms. I believe that those things will come. But right now we are working within this system. For now we can create conditions of learning for our students using what we have available to us. Is it ideal? No. Is it possible? Of course. All it takes is some creativity.

I want to be clear, creating conditions for learning does not mean that every classroom looks the same. It means that the conditions created match that unique student population. The conditions that I learn best in may look different from the conditions that you learn best in. This means that teachers have to know and understand the needs of their students. The conditions of learning may change every year, every month, every day, and even every hour. We are human, our needs are constantly changing.

Someone mentioned during the #edchat, that it would be great to see how students answered this question. I actually know how my students answered this question, because I asked my 3rd-5th grade students to answer it last year. My students answered something like this: the goal of education is to get good grades and pass tests so you can go to college. Not the answer most of us would like to hear but there it is. Did we really expect differently? This is what our school system breaths. This is the current goal of education, to move students through so that they graduate and go to college.

Being the computer teacher has some major advantages, one of which is that there is no curriculum to follow. I write my own curriculum every year. I have a scope and sequence of skills that I want my students to gain and I use a different path to get there each and every year. I didn’t originally intend for this to be a year-long project, but that is what it became because it made my students think differently, creatively. It made them question, discuss, and debate. It was brilliant.

We had just finished learning the Internet safety rules, and were practicing netiquette. I wanted my students to have an authentic place to practice their newly acquired skills so I sent them on their way to write their first blog entry. The topic: Write about your dream school. If you could make a school look like whatever you wanted it to, what would it look like? How would learning happen there?

After the students had a chance to blog their dreams, I asked them to pick their favorite idea and add it to our class Wallwisher. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was with the answers. They were the most unimaginative answers I had ever seen. I’m talking zero in the creativity department. It was as if they were writing what they thought I wanted to hear. Then it hit me, they were writing what they thought I wanted to hear. Isn’t that what their education has primed them for? Guess what the teacher is thinking. There is only one right answer and then we move on to the next thing.

Not willing to let the project go, the next week I sat all of my students down and asked them again what their dream schools would look like. They hadn’t gotten more creative with their answers in the week they had to think about them. The look of utter confusion on their faces was obvious. They couldn’t figure out what the right answer was, the one that I wanted to hear that would move us on to the next topic. I showed my students pictures of the inside of Googleplex and Pixar. You have never heard so many “oohs” and “awwws”. By the end of the slide show, every kid was declaring that they were going to work at Google or Pixar some day. I asked them why they would want to work there?

“Because it is SO cool!”

“Did you see the Lego room?”

“They get to play all day!”

“It is so colorful.”

“It looks like a playground.”

“They have a chef that cooks lunch for them.”

We talked about why Googleplex and Pixar look the way they do and the philosophy that each company has. We talked about what it means to be creative and the things that help us get in that creative element. Then I showed them some pictures of schools, one had a slide in the building, another had students singing and dancing on top of desks, another of students sitting on exercise balls instead of chairs. The common phrase uttered was “they are so lucky!” I also showed them the YouTube video of the piano stairs.

I asked them to go back to their seats and blog about their dream school again. I told them that there was no right answer. The right answer was their answer. The sky was the limit. This time the ideas were infinitely more exciting. Some students still played it safe and stuck to what was possible in the confines of the school system they knew. Others wanted anti-gravity classrooms. There were common threads in every one of my students blog posts: they all wanted flexible learning spaces, they all wanted more hands on/active learning, they wanted school to feel like play, and they all wanted animals to be involved in some fashion.

You can see some of their answers on these Wallwishers:

My students got so excited about this little blogging activity that they continued to post about what their dream schools would look like (even though I hadn’t assigned it). I had students stop by my classroom and tell me another idea they had for a dream school. Then I had students start asking if I would ask the administration to make our school a dream school. I can only imagine how that would go, so instead I expanded the project.

I asked my students to imagine that they actually got the go ahead for their school, and now they had to advertise for it. They had to convince me to send my imaginary children to their imaginary school. They had to make a convincing case for why their school made the best place to learn. Each student made a brochure advertising their school. They highlighted the features of their school, promised amazing things, and sold it! I am telling you, I have never seen such amazing work out of my students! I would have sent my imaginary kids to any one of their schools. Boy did they sell it! The brochures looked amazing. I brought them into the teacher’s lounge to pass around. The teachers couldn’t believe what their students were capable of. It was great! A few of the kids brought the brochure they created to the administration to show off.

The kids hadn’t had enough, they wanted to explore the idea further. I had them create commercials for their school. I showed them the Kaplan University commercials and told them they could be inspiring like Kaplan, factual, funny, or any combination of the three. They set to work using their method of choice. Some used Keynote, others recorded in Photobooth and edited in iMovie, some used Xtranormal, some GoAnimate, and others used the ZimmerTwins. The commercials were fabulous.

Toward the end of the year I had the kids create websites for their imaginary dream schools. They used Weebly to create the websites. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with the level of creativity, innovation, and fun that showed up on those sites. The kids were convincing, but more than that, they were right. They may have started with every student having a laptop, pony, and anti-gravity rooms, but where they ended was with rich learning experiences. At the core what our students want is an opportunity to discover, play, and experiment with their learning. They want to feel safe. They want to be active. I wish I could share the finished sites and commercials with you, I can’t because they contain pictures of students and other identifying information.

I learned a lot from my students as a result of the project, at the heart of it is this: provide conditions where we can learn.

Free virtual e-conference: Reform Symposium

July 16, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3173 views

Over the past few months I have been working with Shelly Terrell, Jason Bedell, and Chris Rogers on a secret project. 🙂 I am happy to say that I don’t have to keep the secret any longer but can share the project with all of you! In two weeks (July 31st and August 1st, 2010), we will be holding a worldwide virtual e-conference for free! The conference is called Reform Symposium and it is a conference for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. This year the conference is focused on innovative practices in education and what role these practices can play in educational reform.

We have an incredible lineup of presenters and keynote speakers that you can see here. We hope that no matter where you are in the world, you will join us for parts or all of the conference on these days.

What you can do:

Mark your calendars for July 31st and August 1st 2010
Tweet about the conference using the #rscon10 hashtag so we can follow everyone’s tweets.
Invite your friends, both those you know online and off.
Blog about the conference and then tell us about your blog post on Twitter using the #rscon10 hash tag.
Join the conversations and fun on the Reform Symposium website. You can add friends, start conversations, and chat about the sessions.
Add me as your friend on the website.
Add the Reform Symposium badge to your blog or website to let others know you will be attending.

This conference is for you! We hope that you will join us for fun, learning, collaboration, and maybe even a few prizes. See you there!

TED Talk Tuesday: Tom Wujec Build a Tower, Build a Team

June 22, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2597 views

The group that consistently fails at the marshmallow task: recent graduates of business school.
Business students are trained to find the single right plan and then execute it. The problem with this strategy is that they wait for the last minute to add their marshmallow to the top of the structure and when their plan fails, it is a crisis.
The group that consistently succeeds at the marshmallow task: recent graduates of kindergarten.
Kindergarten students start with a model and they build successive prototypes of their structure. They always keep their marshmallow on top. They have multiple opportunities to refine their structure until it is working. With each version of the prototype, students are getting instant feedback about what works and what doesn’t and they can adjust accordingly.
Kids don’t spend time trying to be CEO of Spaghetti Inc. They aren’t jockeying for power, they are working together creatively and having fun.

What stands out to me about the data that Tom Wujec shares, is not that architects and engineers build the best towers (as he says, we would expect that), but that kindergartners are not very far behind. This makes me wonder about what important things we are deprogramming kids to do as we send them through the education system. If the education system was really working, I would expect that adults would be able to construct the best, highest towers. I would expect that those with the most education would build the best towers. But as we see, this isn’t the case. In school we teach students that everything has a correct answer. Sometimes that answer means filling in the “c” on a bubble test, and sometimes it means getting your teacher to nod and say “that’s right”. School has become a game of “guess what the teacher is thinking”. As a result, we have students who can come up with one correct solution to any problem. In the real world, we often need more than one right solution. Many times we need several solutions and creative thinking applied to the problem. Our most recent example of this is the BP oil spill. I can’t help but wonder what great solutions kindergartners would come up with that adults aren’t even considering because we have been deprogrammed to think that way.
What does this mean for schools? It means that we need more opportunities for students to explore multiple solutions to a problem, it means that we offer kids the chance to discuss and stop asking the one answer questions all the time. Sometimes there is one correct answer, but in life that isn’t always the case. Students need to be given the chance to explore both options.

(As a side note, it is interesting to me that when the incentive of a prize was offered, not one team had a standing structure. I am working my way through Daniel Pink’s book Drive right now and it mirrors what he says in the book.)

TED Talk Tuesday: Tim Brown urges designers to think big

June 15, 2010June 15, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3314 views

Today’s #edchat discussion on Twitter was all about training kids as critical thinkers. I believe that we are losing students as critical thinkers because in our current model of education, where we are standardizing education with tests, we teach kids that there is one correct answer to every question. We limit their thinking to what we have already determined is an acceptable answer to the question. This is extremely limiting. Critical thinking means that we aren’t satisfied with the easy answer, we think about multiple solutions to the problem and even think of additional questions. We approach a problem differently, more creatively.

In today’s TED Talk, Tim Brown talks about his journey in design and his tendency to think about problems on a small scale, limiting himself to the obvious answers and a single solution. Design wasn’t always this way, design used to be big. Design thinking solves problems and works to create world changing innovations. It seems to me that there is a strong correlation with what Tim refers to as Design Thinking and what we call critical thinking. Roger Martin calls this integrative thinking, the ability to exploit opposing ideas and opposing constraints to create new solutions. Isn’t this what we are asking our students to do when we are looking for critical thinking? What we really want students to do is think as designers. When I watch children who haven’t yet entered the classroom, I notice a strong correlation between the way a child thinks and the way a designer thinks. They are questioners, tinkerers, and are never satisfied with one solution.

Design thinking could be our model for critical thinking in the classroom, but beyond that design thinking could be our solution to reform in education. Exploiting opposing ideas and opposing constraints to create new solutions.

Design is human centered, it starts with what humans need or might need. It means understanding culture and context. From destination to active participation that is meaningful and productive. Value is added through collaborative experiences and not through monetary gains alone (think Twitter). In times of change we need new thinking and new ideas. We are in the midst of massive change and we need to rethink what we accept as basic fundamentals. We need new choices because our current options are becoming obsolete. We need to take a divergent approach and come up with something that hasn’t been done before. What is the question we are trying to answer? What is the design brief for education.

The first step is to start asking the right questions. (I think #edchat does an honorable job of this!) What are the right questions?

iLearn Technology Edublogger Alliance #2

June 14, 2010June 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3671 views

Setting a deadline at the end of the school year was a BAD idea. It seemed feasible when I set the deadline but soon I was packing away 7 years of classroom… stuff, and sorting through 7 years of digital mess. Alas, the release of the second edublogger alliance is a little later than I had hoped. Better late than never, right? (If you joined the alliance and didn’t receive an email from me today, I have an email address from you that is invalid. Send me an email through my contact form with your correct email address so that I can re-send that email.)

As I compiled the second alliance and sorted through blogs, I was again reminded of the greatness I am surrounded by in the educational blogger community. Every time I read your blogs, I am overwhelmed with a sense of hope that together we can solve the problems of the educational system. With amazing educators like you there is nothing stopping us!

If you aren’t currently reading and following educational blogs, I highly recommend it. Nothing will boost your learning, enthusiasm, and professional development like subscribing to some good educational blogs. To subscribe, simply click on the link below and then choose the “subscribe” button. The blogs will be added to your Google Reader account.

Edublogger Alliance #2

The Original Edublogger Alliance

If you are new to Google Reader, here are some great keyboard shortcuts that will have you navigating quickly through those blogs in no time:

n- view the next post

p- view the previous post

v- view the original post (this is helpful when you want to comment on the post)

s- stars an item for your favorites

shift d- share the item with a note

r- refresh

a- add a subscription

If you come across a blog that is in another language, you can easily have Google Reader translate the subscription so that each time you get a new feed, it is automatically translated. To translate a blog, click on “Feed Settings” and choose “Translate into my language”. Easy!

Finally, the educators who participate in the educators blogging alliance are also great Tweeters. You can follow the educators who participate in the alliance by following these Twitter Lists

edublogger alliance 2

edublogger alliance

Thank you for all who are participating and to those who join us as readers. If you are wondering how you can encourage an educational blogger, there is no higher praise than Tweeting about our posts or leaving us a comment!

Math-A-Thon

May 24, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3181 views

What it is: Math-A-Thon is an excellent math site with a good cause. “Math-A-Thon is a volunteer-based fundraising program for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The program includes a free math curriculum supplement for grades K-8 that students complete after obtaining sponsorships from family and friends.” Students work on math and comprehension skills, age appropriate math problems while building empathy and character. By practicing math, students can raise money and awareness for St. Jude patients who are battling cancer and various other childhood diseases. In addition to the free curriculum and math fun books, Math-A-Thon has entertaining online math games and math character profiles. The Numerators are a math superhero team that is made up of Minus, Symmetry, Octagon and Fraction. The characters have math super powers that will help students as they solve problems in their Funbook and work at defeating evil robots. Each character has a fantastic character description (these remind me of the characters on Grammaropolis). Games on Math-A-Thon include Add Like Mad, Subtraction Action, and Bubble Bugs. Bubble Bugs is an enchanting game where students catch bugs inside bubbles, they practice counting, mouse control, and fine motor skills.

How to integrate Math-A-Thon into the classroom: Math-A-Thon is a website that will help get your students fired up and excited about math and helping others. The games are available for play whether or not you sign up for the full Math-A-Thon challenge. Students in kindergarten through eighth grade can work together to help other kids by working on their math skills. Challenge your class or whole school to raise money for other kids using math as the vehicle. Add Like Mad and Subtraction Action would be fun games for a math center on classroom computers or as a whole class game using an interactive whiteboard. To play either game with the whole class, divide your students into two (or more) teams. Team 1 lines up at the IWB, the first person in the line completes the first problem and then passes play to the next student in line relay style. Teams try to clear the tiles in the least amount of time. After Team 1 has a final time, Team 2 tries to beat it. My students love this kind of friendly competition.

Use the Numerators team characters to learn about math concepts and vocabulary. There are four members of the current team, encourage your students to add to the superhero team with additional math team members. Students can create character profiles and back stories about their math operation superhero. Students could create individual baseball trading cards of their math superhero team member.

Tips: Download a free Funbook sample, these are high quality math workbooks that will have your students problem solving and having fun with math.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math-A-Thon in your classroom.

Edistorm

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4441 views

What it is: The name Edistorm is a mash-up of the name Thomas Edison and brainstorm, it is inspired by Edison’s idea factories. Edistorm is an incredible brainstorming and collaboration tool that, on the surface, reminds me of Wallwisher. Edistorm has some additional features and abilities that make it very useful in the classroom. Just like Wallwisher, you brainstorm and collaborate using virtual sticky notes. Edistorm gives you a place to organize ideas in a real-time interactive wall. Virtual sticky notes can teach have their own color and can be organized in vertical or horizontal groupings. Edistorms can be created independently or with others in a collaborative effort. Edistorm features an idea bot that works at the bottom of the screen offering suggested ideas based on what students add to the sticky notes in the work space. There are a variety of bots including a rhyming bot, thesaurus, and related words. Public and solo Edistorms are free to create, premium accounts are available for private Edistorms.

How to integrate Edistorm into the classroom: Edistorm offers an exceptional opportunity for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and group ideas. Students can use Edistorm to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, for grouping ideas, and collaborating on group projects. Create an Edistorm for your students and ask them to group like ideas, sort, and expand on thoughts. This could be done for any historical event, literature, science concept, and even phonics. Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Then, they can group words by spelling pattern or common phoneme blends. Create an Edistorm of sticky notes with English words and sticky notes with a foreign language word on them. Students can work together to group words with their meanings. In math, create Edistorms with word problems on one color of sticky note and answers on another set of sticky notes. Students can work to create groups of problems and their solutions. Edistorm can be used for whole class activities using an interactive whiteboard, the class can brainstorm together and collect ideas or use the grouping feature in an activity created by the teacher or students.

Tips: Edistorm requires an email address for sign up. If you teach younger students, you may want to create classroom Edistorm sessions that you have control over.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Edistorm in your classroom.

Chess Kid

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3020 views

What it is: Chess Kid is a fantastic way for kids to learn to play the game of chess and then practice their game against kids from around the world. The Chess Kid environment is safe and secure for kids, students have no contact with strangers. A parent or a teacher manages all access and friendships online and can easily monitor all activity. On Chess Kid students learn the rules and strategies of chess and work to improve their game, memorization skills, patience, and sportsmanship. Students can train with tactic puzzles and exercises, view video lessons, practice tactic against the computer, or read chess articles. Chess games can be played online against other kids from around the world, in online tournaments, blitz chess, or against the computer.

How to integrate Chess Kid into the classroom: Chess is a great game that is packed full of skills that help students in other disciplines such as math. Students must use problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, deductive and inductive reasoning, and the ability to make accurate judgments and estimates as they play. Chess makes for a great mental workout and develops skills necessary for solving other problems. Chess Kid is a place where students can learn how to play the game of chess, and then practice through play with kids from around the world or the computer. Chess Kid can be used with the whole class for lessons and learning the how-to aspect of chess on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Students can then play on classroom computers, as a math center, or individually in a computer lab setting.

Tips: The American Chess Foundation published that chess can improve a child’s visual memory, attention span, spatial reasoning skills, capacity to predict and anticipate consequences, and the ability to use criteria to drive decision making and evaluate alternatives.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Chess Kid in your classroom.