story – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

TimeMaps- History of World 3500BC to 2005AD in interactive maps

April 5, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment22194 views

What it is: TimeMaps is a fantastic site I learned about from an email I received today. TimeMaps lets students look at every nation, empire and civilization as one story through maps. This is the history of the world from 3500BC to 2005AD! There are pinpoints on the Atlas that let students drill down into specific areas, nations and civilizations. Students get a story about what is happening in this portion of the world, as well as opportunities to explore even further. Below the map, students can change the date on an interactive timeline.

I really like TimeMap as a way to explore history. As I have mentioned in the past, history was not my subject in school. I made good grades, but was never interested by it. It wasn’t until I was adult, that I began to appreciate history. In school, history was always just presented as a collection of facts. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around how they were all related or why I should take up valuable brain space memorizing them. As an adult, I came to realize that history is really all about stories. I love stories! TimeMap’s brilliance is in the way it unfolds the stories in history with the visual of the map. Not only are students getting a good understanding of how civilizations shaped the world, they are also learning geography.

How to integrate Time Maps into the classroom: The best way for students to interact with this site is to just give them the freedom to explore. I know for most, this isn’t always an option. There are certain time periods and portions of the world that you are responsible teaching in your grade level. For those that fall into that category, let students go to those specific places within TimeMap.

If you have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, you can explore as a whole class, reading the stories together. The nice thing about this option, is that you can pull in other videos, music and resources for the whole class to experience. How great would it be to combine this site with History for Music Lovers on YouTube? TimeMap will give students context for other exploration.

TimeMap can be set up on classroom computers for students to visit as a supplement to the other work they are doing. It can act as a research center for students to visit as they are working and learning.

If you teach World History, students could use TimeMap as a place to gather information. Each student could select a different civilization from one time period or explore the same place and the change throughout time. Students can create trading cards, videos, comics, non-fiction, a song, etc. to present their findings to the class. It would be fun to have a movie premier night or a read-in comic day to view all of the students projects.

Tips: I’m really impressed by the comprehensiveness of this site. The only thing that would make it better are images and video embedded with the map!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using TimeMap in your classroom!

BBC-History of the World

March 19, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment15334 views

What it is: The BBC is full of fantastic resources for learning. Recently, I came across the British Museum’s History of the World. It is WAY cool! This is like a fantastic virtual museum collection that makes it possible for students to see primary sources up close. Each piece in the collection adds a little bit to the story of the history of the world. The objects in the collection each have a quick overview about the piece, and the option of delving in deeper and learning more. Objects can be filtered by location, theme, culture, size, color, material, contributor and BBC area. This is a really neat way to view and explore world history. SO much better than the dry textbook fact collection that I had.

How to integrate BBC History of the World into the classroom: The BBC History of the World collection is a great way for students to explore and engage history. Being able to go through the objects and primary sources connects them to story and people from another time in a way a textbook just can’t touch. This is a fantastic place for students to begin an exploration of history; to find an object that “speaks” to them and learn more about the object and the people who created the object. This site gives students the opportunity to engage history.

Instead of starting a history course chronologically, let students select an object or piece from the collection that interests them. Let them learn more about the object, the people and the time period that the object was created in. Let them teach others about the object and its importance. How was it that this object was so well preserved? What does it tell us about that period? What stories does it tell? Give students creative license to do this. Do they want to make it a creative writing piece where the object is personified? Do they want to write a letter as if they were from that period of time explaining the object? Do they want to create a mockumentary about the object? Whatever they do, place the object, along with the others chosen by the class, on a timeline so that students can get a sense for where their object falls in history. Let the kids teach each other and explain why they chose the object they did. Not only will kids be exploring world history, they will be learning something about each other.

Write a class story with a common thread. Create a time traveling team as a class, these are the characters that visit the time period where they find the objects that they have chosen from the BBC History of the world site. Write the beginning and ending of the story as a whole class. Each student can be responsible for writing their own “chapter” where the time traveling team visits their time period.

I didn’t enjoy history when I was in school. It wasn’t ever presented as a story (which I love). Instead I got a collection of facts, dates and names to memorize for the next test. I had a really hard time understanding why anyone would be passionate about history. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that history is really just a set of rich stories that we try to piece together to help us understand who we are in place and time. That I enjoy. That I can get behind. Help your students discover the story in history!

Tips: At the bottom of the window, you will see a back and forward arrow. This lets students time travel.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using BBC History of the World in your classroom!

Draw a Stickman has a new episode!

March 16, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3075 views

What it is: Draw a Stickman is a fun little site that I wrote about last year here. They have a brand new episode of our little stickman friend! For those of you who haven’t seen it (or don’t remember), Draw a Stickman is a delightful place for kids to be creative, read, imagine and draw. Students are given sets of directions that they must complete to help out the hero of the story, a stickman figure that they created. Everything that they draw comes to life and interacts with the rest of what is on the screen. Brilliant! These mini interactive stories that have students reading and following directions, solving mysteries, thinking creatively and solving problems. The new episode is just as charming as the last!

How to integrate Draw a Stickman into the classroom:Draw a Stickman is a fun interactive site that uses student creations to tell a story. Students can complete the interactive on individual computers, iDevices (the site works great!), interactive whiteboards, or classroom computers.

Aside from just fun practice at following instructions, Draw a Stickman would be a great fictional story prompt. Students have the bones of a story and can fill in details, vivid verbs, adjectives, etc. to tell the story. Students can focus on fleshing out their hero, the plot of the story, the details, the setting, etc. Students can come up with a moral of a story that they add in the customized ending. This link can be sent as a tweet, facebook link, or in an email to accompany the story they have created. These stories would be fun to share as a class…how many different stories did students come up with using the same base?

On an interactive whiteboard, students can go through the story together, labeling the different parts of the story (beginning, problem, climax, resolution, ending). This interactive can help students identify parts in a story including setting, characters and plot.

Tips: After you have gone through Draw a Stickman, you can personalize the message at the end and share. Add any two lines of text that you wish. This could be a fun way to reveal messages to your students!

Draw a Stickman is also in the App store on iTunes!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ClassConnect in your classroom!

America’s biggest story time with Tim Tebow!

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3901 views

What it is: Book-it and Suessville have teamed up to do a live read-aloud story time with Tim Tebow. On February 15, 2012, Tim Tebow will be live in a webcast reading Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham. This is especially exciting for our Colorado kids who are huge Tebow fans-HUGE. There are lots of fun printables to pump your students up for the big-day including some tail gate party fun. There are coloring pages, bookmarks, graphing activities, green activities, games and more.

How to integrate America’s Biggest Story Time into the classroom: Set up a reminder for this one, it is sure to be a good time. You just can’t beat a good story…Green Egg and Ham is a classic! Hold a reading party in your classroom, using this event to kick it off. Start by holding a tail gate party complete with fun snacks, a book exchange, etc. Watch Tim Tebow read Green Egg and Ham live in the webcast on an interactive whiteboard or on a projector-connected computer. Set up tents, pillows and blankets around the room where students can choose a cozy spot for a day of reading. This is a fun way to celebrate the joy of reading.

Here are some more ideas I have been collecting on Pinterest for your read-in book party:

Screen Shot 2012-01-30 at 9.10.18 PM — Book cakeBook party inviteBubble Gum TimerCaterpillar kabobs

Screen Shot 2012-01-30 at 9.11.51 PM — Book cakeBook party inviteBubble Gum TimerCaterpillar kabobs

Tips: Sign up for an email reminder for this event on the Book It website! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you should be on Pinterest.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using America’s Biggest Story Time with Tim Tebow in your classroom!

Moglue: Create interactive ebooks and release as apps!

October 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments10961 views

What it is: Moglue is an interactive ebook builder that helps students create and share their stories on mobile devices as an app. This download desktop platform makes it a snap for students to create interactive ebooks and release them as apps for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch), Android tablets and Android phones. Students only need to build the content once and Moglue makes it compatible with each user interface seamlessly. No programming is required, this is a great creation platform for all classrooms! Using a simple drag and drop interface, students can make their stories come to life. Every child is enabled to be an artist now.

How to integrate Moglue into the classroom: I think tools that make content creation simple are absolute genius. As much as I would love for every student (and myself) to know how to program, it takes quite a bit of know-how before students can make their stories and ideas come to life. The intuitive interface of tools like Moglue let students focus on breathing life into their creations and not on the technology tools used to build them. Tools like Moglue are wonderful for the classroom where students are often short on time and resources (someone to teach them programming). Because the interface is so easy to use, students can focus on telling a story, releasing their inner artist, and letting their creativity shine.

Students (or classes) can use Moglue to:

Tell a fractured fairy tale
Create a choose your own adventure story
Demonstrate science concepts in an interactive “glossary”
Create a class dictionary of math, science, economics or geography words
Write creatively
Create an interactive “textbook”
Create an illustrated dictionary for a second language
Create an interactive “travel-the-world” geography book

This is a neat way for students to publish their work and share with others!

Tips: The Moglue builder can be downloaded on Mac or Windows computers and has a great tutorial to get your students started!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Moglue in your classroom!

Draw a Stickman

October 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments5849 views

What it is: Draw a Stickman is a delightful site that I learned about from @amandacdykes on her blog Upside Down Education. On Draw a Stickman, students are prompted to draw a stick figure, the figure they draw springs to life and is faced with several challenges, students must follow directions and draw several props for their stick figure to interact with. This is a mini interactive story that has students reading and following directions, solving mysteries, thinking creatively and solving problems. Students will love the hero of the story (the character they created) and the villain (a dragon).

How to integrate the Draw a Stickman site into the classroom: Draw a Stickman is a fun interactive site that uses student creations to tell a story. Students can complete the interactive on individual computers, iDevices (the site works great!), interactive whiteboards, or classroom computers.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Draw a Stickman in your classroom!

Current.im: a private daily journal 140 characters at a time

June 14, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3335 views

What it is: Current.im is a site I learned about from @MZimmer557 on his excellent blog, The Weekly Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. Current.im let’s students keep a private online journal 140 characters each day. The journal couldn’t be easier to use, students login with a username and password that they create, and type their 140 characters for the day. Current.im keeps a daily record of these bits of writing along with a time stamp. The Current.im is truly private, this isn’t a social sharing site where students (or teachers) are writing for an audience. It is a wonderfully simple tool created for one thing: recording daily thoughts.

How to integrate Current.im into the classroom: Current.im is an easy way to record writing daily. The limit is 140 characters making it easy to keep up with and add to everyday without being overwhelmed by the blank sheet of paper. Current.im can be used as a journal where students reflect on daily learning, a year-long creative writing project that students add to 140 characters at a time each day or a personal journal. Because students are only responsible for 140 characters a day, this is a fast activity that could be completed as a center on classroom computers. If your students don’t have access to computers where they can keep their own Current.im accounts, keep a class journal/story/reflection by compiling thoughts together using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.

One of my favorite year-long projects in the computer lab was having students take a picture of themselves using PhotoBooth every computer class. At the end of the year, students took all of their pictures and created a stop-motion type video combining all of the pictures into a movie. The result was a short movie where they could see themselves grow up that school year. Current.im would be a fantastic addition to this project. Students could start each class period with a picture of themselves and a quick 140 character update to go with the picture. At the end of the year not only will they be able to see their growth, they will be able to read reflections and thoughts they had throughout the year. This is great for one school year but can you imagine doing this EVERY year of school from k-12 as part of a digital portfolio? How neat would that be?! This is truly a 2 min. time commitment each day. Easy.

As a teacher, Current.im can be used to reflect on teaching practice, to record daily classroom (or student) observations or to record daily success (we all need to record those!). I always joked that I should write a book about funny student antics. Of course I never wrote all of these funny stories down so alas, I have no book. Had I known about Current.im, I could have recorded these stories everyday and had the book written for me by the end of the year!

Tips: Current.im doesn’t include any terms of service so I assume it is okay for all students to use. Registration for an account does require an email address. The email address doesn’t need to be confirmed so if you have students without email addresses, they can use an @tempinbox or @mailinator account (just add tempinbox or mailiator to the end of any word to instantly create an account).

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Current.im in your classroom!

Storify: Turn social media into a story

April 25, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2409 views

What it is: Storify has just been released to the public! I have been playing with this site for a few months and am excited that I finally get to share it with all of you. 🙂 Storify lets you create stories based on Tweets, photos and videos. You can search multiple social networks from one place, and drag elements into your story. Re-order elements and add text as needed. Storify lets you take those little bits of information shared over time and turn them into a story.

How to integrate Storify into the classroom: If you are using social media in the classroom, Storify is a fantastic addition. Use Storify to create weekly stories of tweets, pictures and videos from your classroom that can be sent home to parents. Create a story of learning based on a collaboration between classrooms as a way to chronicle and reflect on the collaboration. Build a semester or year-long story as a sort of online scrapbook that can be shared with families. Invite other classrooms to take part in writing a collaborative story 140 characters at a time using Twitter. At the end of the project, each class can use Storify to create an original story from the tweets. Send out links, book recommendations, and other resources used throughout the week using Twitter. At the end of the week, create a resource Storify for students to access.

Storify makes it simple to create and share social media stories. Storify stories can be shared with a unique link, emailed or embedded in a blog or website. Very cool!

Unsure about how to use Twitter in the classroom? Check out my posts on it here, here and here.

Tips: Because Storify is based on social media, anyone can add to your stories!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Storify in your classroom!

Story Time for Me: Digital Children’s Books

April 11, 2011April 11, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3560 views

What it is: Story Time for Me is a beautiful collection of digital children’s books for primary students in kindergarten through second grade. Each story includes charming illustrations, animation and professional narration with music and sound effects. Activities accompany every story that encourage imagination and creativity (these are coming soon!). The stories have been developed to teach important values through positive moral themes. Story Time for Me currently has a library of over 30 books and growing. Next Friday (April 22, 2011) Story Time for Me will be launching free personalized activity books where students can become the star of a book.

Students can choose to read each story with or without narration, with or without animation and choose to highlight the words as they are read.

I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this free digital story site. It expands your classroom library, encourages a focus on character development and invigorates children to read more.

How to integrate Story Time for Me into the classroom: Story Time for Me expands your classroom library with winsome digital stories that your students will love. Story Time for Me makes a great reading center on classroom computers. Because students have the option to read with narration or independently, it meets the needs of both strong and developing. Each story reinforces positive character education values often dealing with friendship. These stories are a wonderful way to begin class discussions about friendship and empathy with students. If you have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, the stories can be used as a whole-class “big book”.

When the personalized versions are available, give your students the opportunity to star in their own story. These personalized stories would make a fun beginning of the year activity as a way to welcome students to a new grade, or end the school year with a personalized story they can enjoy all summer.

Tips: I learned about Story Time for Me from @2sparkley’s blog, Bits and Pieces Place. If it isn’t a blog you subscribe to, it should be!

Story Time for Me is completely free, the more visitors they can attract the more stories they will be able to add to the library. You can help them by spreading the word to family and friends on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Story Time for Me in your classroom!

Little Bird Tales

February 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4140 views

What it is: I am late on this post, but it is too good to skip a mention! Little Bird Tales is a new way to digital story tell with primary students. With Little Bird Tales, students can upload their own artwork, record their voice, add text and email their finished creations to family and friends. Sign up on Little Bird Tales requires an email address for verification purposes. This can be a parent or teacher email address (the site is geared for 3 to 14-year-old children so a student address is not necessary). Little Bird Tales includes a built-in art pad where students can create pictures online. They also have the option to upload photographs and images they have created offline. Each page give students a place to add a picture, text and voice recording. Finished books can be saved and accessed online or sent via email.

How to integrate Little Bird Tales into the classroom: Little Bird Tales is a brilliant option for digital storytelling in the primary classroom. I love that it includes both online and offline student creations, as well as student voice recordings. Students can use Little Bird Tales for creative writing and imaginative stories, as a way to reflect on learning, or as a keepsake for parents. Students can take pictures of science experiments and create a digital science journal detailing the experiment with text and student voice reflections included.

Use Little Bird Tales to create whole class stories where each student contributes a page. This type of book can be made over a few weeks using classroom computers as a writing center. This would be a fun way to create an A to Z type book of learning, reflections by students after a unit, a 100 day book, fact vs. opinion book, an interactive glossary, a class book of poems, a phonics book, or a class book about a field trip that students took. The finished product can be shared with parents and families easily through an email. For a back to school night activity, take a picture of each student to add to a class book and record students sharing what their favorite part of the school day is. This same idea could be used in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. Students can upload pictures of their best school work, record thoughts about why they are proud of the work they did, and add reflections in the text field. These can be shared as a starting point for conferences, at the end of the conference, parents have a keepsake.

Because of the voice recording capabilities, Little Bird Tales, would be a great way for students to practice a foreign language. They can illustrate a word or phrase accompanied by the audio. Classes could work together to create a “living” digital glossary.

Do you have a planned absence coming? Why not create a digital story that your substitute can share with students? Upload pictures that support learning, text, and your voice.

Tips: If you have parent email addresses in Google, Yahoo, or Outlook, they can be directly imported into Little Bird Tales as contacts.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Little Bird Tales in your classroom!