America’s biggest story time with Tim Tebow!
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Integrating technology in the classroom
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Today I created another speed booking site, this time for our JR. High teacher at Anastasis. Feel free to use it with your middle school students…make sure to create your OWN share page or I will get a whole lot of interesting responses from our Google form. You can create your own form using Google Docs.
Team Fink Extreme Speed Booking.
If you are unsure of what I am talking about here, you should check out this post for a full explanation.
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Please leave a comment and share how you are using We Give Books in your classroom!
Happy New Year!! You may have noticed…I took a tech break for the holidays! There may not have been an abundance of posts and sharing happening, but I was still collecting away and have more resources than ever to share in 2012. Thank you all for making my 2011 such a wonderful year to be a part of!
Tips: Embed the link to Living Math Book List on your class website or blog, this will make it easy for you, and your students, to find math-related books any time.
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Currently Zoo Whiz is in public beta. There are still some areas that are being developed and released. There are two versions of Zoo Whiz: a free account and a premium account that provides students with additional content and abilities within the game. In the public beta, both versions are free. While the site may have curricular material for students up to age 15+, I’m not sure a 15 year old student would spend any amount of time on this site. It is definitely more geared for the under 10 crowd.
Tips: I learned about Zoo Whiz from iLearn Technology reader, Tania. Thank you Tania! Zoo Whiz looks like a fun addition to the classroom. Be sure to let parents know about Zoo Whiz, this could be a fun way to continue practice at home.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zoo Whiz in your classroom!
What it is: eduify is an online tool that acts as a writing coach for students. As students write they have immediate access to tutorials and writing examples, the built in ability to discover and cite sources automatically, the ability to verify citations and safeguard against plagiarism, the ability to store, share and edit documents online, and the ability to get help from friends and experts. eduify takes all of the guess-work out of writing and puts the focus back on…well, writing. Students can focus on getting their thoughts out and expressing learning, eduify helps take care of those little details that hang students up. Students can even find quotes and additional sources for their writing directly within eduify.
How to integrate eduify into the classroom: eduify acts as another teacher in the writing classroom. Because we don’t have the ability to work one on one with every student at once, eduify steps in and guides students until we can offer personal support. Students don’t have to wait around for coaching, they can get help as they need it. Students working on writing from home also have access to that support. In my experience students are hindered in sharing their learning through writing by the writing “rules” and process itself. They are so stuck on form that they lose the content and passion about a topic along the way. eduify gets them out of the writing rut, giving them the freedom to focus on content and ideas first and form second. Like a writing wingman. Awesome. Where on earth was this when I was in school?
Use eduify as a writing platform in a one to one setting where every student has access to a computer. Students can store their papers safely online for easy access both at school and home. Papers can share their papers for review online with the teacher or with other students. In a one or two computer classroom, set up computers as an eduify center that students can visit for writing support as an editing center.
Tips: eduify is in beta right now. Students (and teachers) can request a beta invite code, mine came right away.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using eduify in your classroom!
What it is: Books Should Be Free is a fantastic collection of audio books that students can download and listen to for free from the public domain. Books are easily searchable by genre, keyword, title or author. Books can be downloaded as MP3 files, iPod or iTunes format. Each book includes a description of the book, full text from Project Gutenberg, a Wikipedia link, and the audio download. Students can play a snippet of the audio before deciding to download. The collection is pretty impressive, including my favorite classics.
How to integrate Books Should Be Free into the classroom: Not every child has an extensive collection of books at home, or parents who model a love of reading. Books Should Be Free expands every classroom and home library by giving students access to some of the most loved books of all time. Students can download both the audio and accompanying text for a read along or simply listen to the audio file. Audio books help students build comprehension, fluency and help students develop a love for story. Books Should Be Free is a great way to start a Reading Buddies program at your school with some MP3 players or iPods that can go home with students loaded up with good books.
Tips: Looking for some more ebooks to expand your classroom library? Check these out!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Books Should Be Free in your classroom!
What it is: Cyberkidz is a great new website packed full of great learning practice games for kids age 4 to 11. The games reinforce skills in a variety of disciplines including math, literacy, geography, creativity and science.
Math– amounts, pattern, scale, number recognition, counting, scale, sums to 10, sums to 20, weights, multiplication, telling time, money, measurement, calendar, volume, percentage, distance, division, mathmix, area
Literacy– letter recognition, alphabetical order, hangman, crosswords, typing, singular and plural words, sayings and quotes, learning Spanish, learning Dutch
Geography– America, state capitals, countries of the world, Asia, Africa, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, South Africa, Ireland, flags
Creative– painting, music, coloring, maze
Science– food for animals, skeletal system, body parts, animals, solar system, mammals, the eye
The games in each category are great for practice and skill building.
How to integrate Cyberkidz into the classroom: Cyberkidz is a fun place for students to work on the knowledge level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The music game is the only creative game that I would truly place in the “create” category of Bloom’s Taxonomy because it gives students free rein to explore music and create a recording. The majority of the games are designed to help students build skills and remember key concepts that are a necessary foundation for other learning. These are a nice alternative to worksheet skill practice. Students will enjoy the game quality of these practice activities. Each activity can be advanced through relatively quickly making them perfect as a center on classroom computers. Students can visit the game as a math, literacy, geography or science “practice” center before advancing to put those newly honed skills to work in a higher order thinking center.
These practice activities could also be completed as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. Split students into teams and rotate them up to the whiteboard for a class practice session.
Tips: On each game screen, students can scroll to the bottom for instructions on the game. Most of the games are pretty self-explanatory and kids will figure them out quickly.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Cyberkidz in your classroom!
What: The Michigan Reading Association is hosting an interactive virtual book club for anyone to join via Facebook. This is an opportunity to network with educators around the world and take charge of your own professional development. The first book is Readicide by Kelly Gallagher (who will be hosting the book club with the Michigan Reading Association). If you aren’t familiar with this book, you can read a post I wrote when the book was first released here. The idea behind the virtual book club is to give educators a place to connect with others, share ideas, reflect and improve your classroom.
Where: It is easy to join just click to view the Facebook invitation and select “I’m Attending.”
When: The book club will meet during the month of May. Login whenever you are available to browse posts and conversations and add your own thoughts. Each week there will be a post that outlines a general road map that chunks chapters so we are reading and reflecting at a similar pace.
How: Purchase Readicide, view Kelly’s website and follow him on Twitter, “attend” the facebook invitation, let the fun begin!
I really enjoyed reading Readicide and look forward to reading it again-this time with friends to reflect with! Who else will be joining us?
Thank you to Erin for inviting me!