story – iLearn Technology

GeoGuessr- Build critical thinking skills with this map-based game

January 6, 2019Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment173046 views

GeoGuessr map game that builds critical thinking skills

What it is: GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.

How to integrate GeoGuessr into the classroom: GeoGuessr is a fun way to challenge your students to use context clues, think critically, ask questions, and learn geography. It’s also a great way to help them explore the world from your classroom! I think GeoGuessr is best as a small group or class activity where students can work collaboratively to solve the challenge together. Begin by exploring on a projector-connected computer or classroom devices. Ask students what they notice about where they’ve been dropped. What does the landscape look like? What natural features do they notice? What kind of climate would they guess they are in? What do the street signs look like? Do they see any clues that might help them? Next, invite students to ask questions (they don’t need any answers…sometimes the questioning process helps us ask better questions or notice new things!). Narrow down the part of the world students think they are in and make a guess. How close were they (this could lead to a mini-lesson on distance conversions)? GeoGuessr would make a great thinking prompt to start any class with. This exercise could take 10-15 minutes and jump-start your students in critical thinking and problem-solving. It’s a great way to model noticing, inquiry, using context clues, and thinking critically as they solve problems. All skills that are useful for any kind of learning!

GeoGuessr would also make a fun morning pages writing prompt. Students must write a story, poem, descriptive writing, etc. about where they’ve been dropped.

Tips: Want to create your own GeoGuessr challenges? You could create a challenge that reinforces any theme or topic. Sign up for a GeoGuessr Pro account.

Mathigon: engage, play, and explore math

July 11, 2017Kelly Tenkely4 Comments71620 views

Mathigon explore, engage, play with math

What it is: Today I was working on our inquiry block framework for the 2017/2018 school year and, as often happens with inquiry, fell down a wonderful rabbit hole that led me to this site. Mathigon is a fantastic *newish* math site (it’s still being built and added to) that brings textbooks to life. I know you’ve probably seen this claim before, but this is unlike the other online interactive textbooks I’ve seen. It’s more…alive. It’s like a personalized tutor, combined with story, and exploration. Really, textbook is the wrong word, because this is something totally new. A chat bot tutor makes Mathigon like having an additional team of teachers in the room, ready to answer questions and support your learners in real time. Real life application and narrative is part of the Mathigon DNA. This means that beyond learning the “rules” of math, learners are actually invited to engage the concepts, play with them, explore them in context, and find out what other concepts they are linked to. Rather than a linear approach, Mathigon lets students explore math in a more organic way through interest, linked ideas/concepts, and in a ‘down the rabbit hole’ approach. There are very few math sites that I’ve come across that truly support an inquiry approach to learning math, Mathigon is one such site.

How to integrate Mathigon into your classroom: There are several ways to use Mathigon. Students can get a personalized math curriculum that adapts to them and offers recommendations based on what they are interested in and their understanding of different concepts. They can begin from several places: exploring the applications of math in every day life, the link between math and origami, Eureka Magazine (published by Cambridge University), through problems and puzzles, through fractal fiction, or through courses for grades 6-college.

The Treasure Hunt is a complete PDF Kit that can be downloaded and printed out. Split your students into teams and send them on an epic math treasure hunt through your school (available in primary and secondary levels) where each of the clues leads them to another.

Fractal fiction is particularly cool because it lets students explore mathematical concepts through interactive narrative of popular films including Alice in Wonderland, Oceans 11, and Harry Potter (the latter two are coming soon). You really have to go experience these to really understand the brilliance of how Mathigon has combined story with math exploration. From the site: “The key to successful teaching is captivating storytelling – through real life applications, curious examples, historic background, or even fictional characters. These interactive slideshows combine an engaging narrative with beautiful graphics – explaining mathematical ideas in the context of popular stories and movies. They can be watched individually or be presented in classrooms.”

I cannot say enough about how impressed I am with the vastness of what this site brings to the classroom. Even if you don’t have the capacity for each of your students to have an account with Mathigon, the site can be easily adapted for the one computer classroom (as a center activity). Much of the content could also be explored as a whole class with a projector-connected computer.

Tips: I’ve found that really well done content for grades 6-12 (and beyond) in math to be severely lacking. This is a welcome addition to the math teachers tool box of resources!

Get Qurious: Interactive and Digital Play Kit

April 10, 2017April 10, 2017Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment51146 views

What it is: Get Qurious is a company who’s goal is to keep kids curious, creative, and expressive by combining technology and play. The Get Qurious Maker Box is packed full of interactive play opportunities. In this box, the story of the Three Little Pigs comes to life in ways like never before with interactive games, puzzles, and activities that encourage creativity and discovery. Students can scan physical play pieces with the Get Qurious app and the play pieces come magically to life. In the box students will find story cards, masks, a puzzle, and a sticker book. Each piece comes to life when scanned in the app. The story cards help students sequence the story, and bring the story of the 3 Little Pigs into animated life. When students put on the masks, they become part of the story through augmented reality, students can tap the microphone button to record themselves as they re-inact the story. The puzzle building activity lets students build their own house. The pieces of the puzzle can be scanned to bring the house to life in 3D. The reusable stickers in the sticker book let kids create their own version of the Three Little Pigs.

How to integrate Get Qurious Maker Box into the classroom: The Get Qurious set brings the story of the Three Little Pigs alive in new and fun ways. I particularly like the way students are encouraged to think about story sequence, how they can remix the story to highlight a different point of view and characters, and the way they can become part of the story. This set is a wonderful way to bring the joy of reading to life. Students can interact with the familiar story as a center activity, or as a take-home kit. If you teach in the primary classroom, Get Qurious could be a great kit to send home with students throughout the year. A lot of times, parents may not have time to, or simply don’t, read with their children at home. The Get Qurious kit is engaging enough that you won’t have to “convince” your students to go home and read. The kit encourages exploration and discovery and combined with the app, leads students through the familiar story in new ways. For your struggling or reluctant readers, the Get Qurious app really shines because it offers immediate reading support as they scan story cards in the app. Students can record their reaction to the story, or expand on the story to tell it from a different point of view. They can also practice re-mixing the story using the re-usable sticker book and app.

Tips:

While I love the intent behind Get Qurious, a few cautions: 1) It is called the Get Qurious Maker Box. The name is a bit of a misnomer, it definitely isn’t what you think of when you think of the Maker Movement. While it does blend technology and play, I wouldn’t call it a Maker Box. If you are looking for resources for your Maker Space, this isn’t it. This kit is better billed as a blended learning play kit. 2) The recommended ages are 4-9 years old. I think it appeals more to the 3-7 age range. This is best for prek through second grade classes.

Get 20% off your purchase by signing up for the Get Qurious newsletter!

Get Qurious was generous enough to send me a kit to explore for this blog post. Thanks Get Qurious!

Post-it Plus: Digitize your Post-it Notes and take brainstorming with you!

November 18, 2014Kelly Tenkely2 Comments14996 views

What it is: Post-it Notes are among my very favorite office supplies. I use them for brainstorming, my calendar, to jot down reminders, and to collect the brilliant ideas that happen in the middle of the night. At Anastasis, we use Post It Notes constantly to help organize brainstorm sessions and lines of inquiry during an inquiry block. As you might imagine, we use TONS of Post-it Notes during any given week! They are hard not to love, brightly colored squares just waiting to collect brilliance and post it for the world to see. Recently, I stumbled on an app, Post-it Plus, that takes my love of sticky notes to a whole new level! Post-it Plus is an app that lets you snap pictures of a Post-it note brainstorm session, and then arrange, refine, and organize the notes on a virtual board. The newly organized digital board can then be shared out. Students can capture 50 Post-it notes at a time and collect and combine ideas from multiple categories. Notes can be organized on a grid, or free form any way that you would like. Boards can be shared via email, PowerPoint, Excel, Dropbox, by PDF, etc. After the work has been shared, anyone can help contribute and arrange the notes to create a great idea! The app is free and optimized for iOS 8.

How to integrate Post-it Plus in your classroom: Post-it Plus is a great way for students to capture their brainstorms and group work so that they can take it with them.

Collaboratively brainstorm with your class or explore some different lines of inquiry and record each new thought on a sticky note. Students can then take a picture of the group on their iOS devices and arrange and group in a way that best makes sense to them. Now all of your students can manipulate the sticky notes individually and bring their learning with them.

As students are writing (either creative or informational), they can write each new idea or paragraph on a different sticky note. Then they can arrange their notes and take a picture. As they create different arrangements, they can use the digital version to compare with the original to make decisions about the flow of their writing.

Teach young students? Write down the different parts of a story (beginning, middle, supporting details, end) on several sticky notes. Students can snap a picture of the notes and practice sequencing the story. Each student has the digital version, so each can practice ordering and you can quickly assess their understanding.

Post-it Plus could also be used for phonics work. Write phonemes on individual sticky notes and ask students to take pictures of each phoneme with the app. Then call out words that students can create with their phonemes in the app.

Post-it Plus is also fantastic for students learning math processes (order of operations anyone?) and algebraic thinking. Write each part of an equation down and students can manipulate the digital sticky notes to show process.

Students can also use Post-it Plus to categorize and organize ideas and events in history, science, government, etc. How We Got to Now anyone? 🙂

Tips: I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve been to that we used Sticky notes to brainstorm ideas. Post-it Plus makes it easy to take that thinking and learning with you in a very practical form that you can interact with later! Speaking of conferences, the 5 Sigma Edu Conference is a great one to test out this app!

Google Story Builder: Create a video story Google style

March 18, 2014Kelly Tenkely3 Comments17973 views

What it is: I can’t help but love Google’s commercials. They are brilliant in their simplicity and weave together a story beautifully. In the past, Google let you build a story by way of a Google search. Now with Google Story Builder, you can build a video story that looks like it is being typed live between two collaborators in a Google doc. SO very happy! It couldn’t be simpler, any age could create a fantastic little video with this tool! Students create some “characters” for their story. These characters are the Google Doc collaborators. Next, students type text for each collaborator to add to the doc. Finally, students choose music to accompany their video. That is it! When students are finished with their video, they can share it via a weblink.

How to use Google Story Builder in your classroom: Google Story Builder is an outstanding little tool for sharing a story or learning. It allows students to demonstrate learning or understanding in a fun, easy way. A lot of tools can become THE focus of a project. You know how this goes, as soon as you mention that students will be creating a video project all of the learning journey goes out the window and immediately the focus is on the hilarious video they are going to create. The learning can become an after thought. With Google Story Builder, this isn’t the case. The outcome is going to look similar for everyone so the focus is the learning and story. Creativity comes through the story and the music chosen. This is the best kind of creativity, it requires students to know the topic or subject well enough to create a mini parody of it.

Students could use Google Story Builder as a book report. Students can think about major themes or the climax of a story and retell it through the collaboration the story characters in this Google Doc. How awesome would it be to have Romeo and Juliet creating a document together? How about Junie B. Jones and That Jim I Hate? The Little Red Hen asking for collaborators for her latest cooking project?

As students learn about major players in history, they can create a Google Story about those historical figures and their interaction if they had a shared Google Doc. For example students might imagine the writers of the US constitution drafting the constitution as a Google Doc. Or Galileo arguing with the “church” (the story I told in my video).

Students could personify any inanimate object or idea as a character in a Google Story. How about parts of speech arguing which part of speech is the best or should be used in the sentence being typed? Countries of the world telling all about what they are known for? Periods of history as characters? Science ideas (evolution vs. creation)? Math stories including characters like Odd Todd and Even Steven? The possibilities are as varied as your student’s imaginations!

Teachers can create a Google Story to help their kids with inference. Create a story between two characters and ask students to infer about context. What is happening? Do you think the characters are friends or foe? Why? What do you think they are working on together?

Tips: I created the Google Story above as an example. What will you use Google Story Builder for in your classroom?

Buncee: Digital Creation tool

January 16, 2014February 10, 2014Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4913 views

Okay, it is 2014…time to kick it into gear and get back to blogging. The awesomeness of what exists in educational technology is stacking up and NEEDS to be shared. I’m on it!

What it is: Buncee is a super cool creation and presentation tool. Buncee is useful for students and teachers alike as a digital canvas. Students can use Buncee to create neat interactive presentations and stories. Teachers can use it to help teach new concepts, in a flipped classroom, or to share information with families. There are three account types to choose from within Buncee. The free account lets students and teachers share finished presentations with social media, upload your own photos, create Buncees with two slides, offers 500mb of storage, and lets you save the Buncee as a jpeg. The education version cost $9.99/month or $59.99 for the year and includes: sharing to social media, uploading of files (audio, media, image), record audio, create Buncees with unlimited slides, storage of 2G, ability to save as a clickable pdf or jpeg, 1 teacher account to create and manage 30 student accounts, create and post assignments, and view/grade student submissions.

How to use Buncee into your classroom: Buncee is a great creation webapp. As a teacher, use Buncee to assist guided reading by recording a read aloud. Use the recording as part of a classroom reading center where struggling or emerging readers can get a customized lesson. Stop during the reading just like you would if you were doing a read along sitting with the child. Include slides with questions that students can answer, ways that they can reflect on the story, etc. While you are working with a small group of students on close reading, other students can still get some great reading support. This is also great for those kids who don’t have a parent at home that can read with them- you can “go home” with your students every day! Buncee can also be used for guided learning. Create your own digital “textbooks” complete with multimedia, images, audio, and text. I’ve often been let down by what a boxed curriculum provides for students, create your own resources for students to access. This is especially helpful for young students who won’t be able to independently research using the Internet on their own.
Buncee could be a great help for the flipped classroom model. Send students with learning to complete at home in preparation for a project or activity that will be done at school with your support.

Students can use Buncee for multimedia presentations to demonstrate learning. Students can create interactive presentations when learning a foreign language connecting vocabulary words with meaning. Because it is so easy to combine multimedia types, students can create their own digital “textbooks” where they collect learning in history, government, geography, science, social studies, etc. and present it in new and meaningful ways. These digital “textbooks” can be shared and commented on by other students.

Buncee could be a great way for students to reflect on a book that they have finished. They can complete character sketches, retell, or combine media types to create a book review.

If you have a digital camera (built in or separate), students can take pictures of a science experiment and create a digital review of the experiment including any hypothesis and conclusions.

Tips: With the education version, students can submit their work and it can be graded and commented on directly in Buncee. This could be a really great way for students to keep a digital portfolio that you, and parents, can comment on throughout the year.

Tynker: Computer programming for kids

November 22, 2013November 16, 2013Kelly Tenkely9 Comments7976 views

What it is: Tynker is about the coolest way for kids to learn how to computer program- absolutely NO prior programming experience is needed! Tynker leads kids through design thinking through interactive courses where kids can learn how to program at their own pace.

Anyone can teach kids how to program (no really!) because with Tynker, you don’t need any prior knowledge or understanding. Tynker provides teachers with tools, curriculum and project ideas that will have your kids programming in no time! The Tynker curriculum pack starts with 6 lessons. Each one is appropriate for a 45 minute work period. Through the teacher dashboard, you can assign lessons to your students. A built-in tutor provides step-by-step instructions that guides students toward creating a working project. The teacher dashboard also helps you track student progress as they learn and master concepts. No data entry is required, students login and the teacher dashboard auto-magically populates.

When students have completed projects, they can publish them to the class showcase and be shared with family and friends through email, Google+, Twitter or Facebook.

Happily, Tynker works entirely in your web browser. There is nothing to install or setup. It is good to go right away! Equally happily, Tynker is FREE for your school! Woot!

How to integrate Tynker into your classroom: Not only will students learn the basics of programming with Tynker, they can use it to demonstrate their learning through their creations. Students can compose stories and comics that retell a story, historical event, recent field trip, fiction or non-fiction. Using the physics features, students can learn some basics about physics and cause the games they create to be more realistic. They can also demonstrate understanding of physics principles through their creations.

Students can use Tynker to create their own apps to show off their understanding of new math/science/social studies vocabulary, math or science concepts, retell stories, character sketches, games, animations and more. In addition to being able to create stories, games, and slideshow- students can also program original music and create computer art.

Don’t think you have time in your curriculum? Take a look around Tynker and think about natural ways you could use it to enhance your curriculum. Instead of asking your students to create a book report, have them program a retell using Tynker. This will take some additional background knowledge (they will need to go through a Tynker tutorial or two) BUT the outcome is well worth it. You will have asked your students to learn something new semi-independently, beefed up logical/mathematical thinking skills through programming, and invited students to think critically about what they read to tell the story to others through a program. Worth the additional 45 min! Students could demonstrate a math concept, show the steps in a science experiment, retell an event in history, and even compose their own music through program. When you start thinking like a maker as you play with Tynker, you will realize there are infinite opportunities for including Tynker in your curriculum. If you are still convinced that you can’t find the time in your heavily scheduled (sometimes scripted-sad) day, why not start a before or after school program, summer camp, lunch club, etc.?

At Anastasis, we have Crave classes every Wednesday. These classes are offered by our teachers every 5 weeks. Teachers choose an area of learning that they crave and create a class based on that (we have everything from programming, to cooking, to forensic science, hockey history, junk orchestra, iPad rock band, to chess and da Vinci art). Students get a list of classes at the beginning of a new block, and get to choose a class that they crave. The result is a wonderful mixed age (k-8) class of passions colliding. The kids LOVE Wednesdays for this awesome hour of our day. I’m excited to offer a Tynker class for our next block of classes (along with playing with our new Romo robot!), I think this is going to be a popular class!

Tips: If your school uses Google apps for education like we do, your students can log in with their Google information.

What do you think of Tynker? How do you plan to use it in your classroom?

Addison Tales: Ignite Your Student’s Imagination

October 17, 2013Kelly Tenkely6 Comments10364 views

What it is: Addison Tales is an interesting interactive site that asks your students to contribute content. This ongoing competition challenges students to invent an imaginative story character for Addison’s Tales. When students visit the site, they will be introduced to Mr. Cornelius Addison. If students click on the sparkly stars, they can visit the story’s characters. When students click on Mr. Cornelius Addison, they will be taken to a story called “The Dream”. The story is about Mack’s wild and imaginative store where he sells characters. The story urges students to add characters to the store and then to “trap” their characters inside finished stories so that they don’t just remain figments of the imagination. When students create their own characters, they make them “real” like the solid characters in the cottage that can be discovered inside the apps that are available from Addison tales in the app store. The challenge is for students to write and draw interesting characters.

How to integrate Addison Tales into your classroom: I think the way that Addison Tales combines technology, writing, drawing, story and imagination is brilliant! Read “The Dream” with your students using classroom computers, an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. For those of you with iPads in the classroom, “The Dream” is also available as a free app. After reading the story, talk about the types of characters described in “The Dream.” This is a great way to get your students thinking about description and imagery! Ask students to write down the adjectives and descriptive words that they remember from the story. Students can choose a character from the story to draw. For a fun class activity, invite students to all draw the same character and see what similarities and differences exist between student drawings. (This can lead to some fun discussion about artistic license!)

After students try their hand at describing characters from the story, they can work on creating their own character. Students should think carefully about word choice and imagery. Through December (2013) Addison Tales is running a competition where students can submit their characters. Each week, Mr. Addison will frame a select number of characters on his wall with the artist’s nickname, country and character name for everyone to see. At the end of the month, one of the most curious of the characters submitted will be turned into a plush toy and sent to the lucky artist. Pretty great reward!

Tips: The contest portion runs every month through the end of December. Even without the contest, the site offers a great way to introduce your kids to descriptive writing and imagery!

What do you think of Addison Tales? How do you plan to use it in your classroom?

myHistro: timeline/story/map/picture mashups created by you!

October 23, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments8259 views

What it is: myHistro is a really great site (and app!) that lets students combine maps and timelines seamlessly into one great presentation of information and understanding. myHistro is more than just data collection, it is a way to share stories. With myHistro, students can create a rich timeline/map mashup complete with additional text, pictures and video. The result is truly incredible! It is easy to get started, just create an event and associate it with a time and place. Events can be gathered together and turned into stories. Stories, in turn, can be used together to create a collection. Stories can be viewed in multiple ways, by events on a timeline, in chronological order with a page flip feature like an album, or as a story summary of chronological events. Create as many events as you would like and add as many photos as you like, all for free! The finished product can even be downloaded into Google Earth format for offline storage. Completed Histros can be embedded in other blogs and websites for maximum usability.

How to integrate myHistro into the classroom: myHistro has SO many uses! At Anastasis, we just completed an inquiry unit on who we are. myHistro was a perfect tie in for students exploring family histories, heritage and tradition. Students could add pictures, and stories along with the interactive map of where events were taking place and a timeline where they could see it all unfold chronologically. This is like a family tree on steroids. Pretty outstanding. Even better? It ties directly into Geni (blogged about here).

myHistro isn’t just for family trees. It could be used for students mapping out history chronologically, mapping out a fictional story, creating a story map for their own writing, mapping how ideas and invention spread, looking at explorers, migration, etc. As I said, the options are endless!

myHistro is collaborative, students can create projects together and even invite parents to join in the learning. Pretty cool!

As a teacher, you can ditch the text book and help students really visualize that history in new ways. A completed myHistro can be embedded in your class blog or website for students to access without having to visit multiple sites or login.

There are a number of fabulous myHistro stories that you can borrow to share with your students. They can view these to learn more about events in history, or they can go on a fact checking mission to double check the validity of the stories created by others. Definitely worth doing!

Tips: myHistro also happens to be an app. Find it in the iTunes store. This can be your first download on your new iPad mini 😉

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using myHistro in your classroom.

Help me personalize education for EVERY child! Donate (even just your coffee money!) and spread the word about the Learning Genome Project.

PowToon: AMAZING free animation tool

August 16, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4144 views

What it is: I have discovered my new favorite creation site. Holy wow this is a cool tool. Basically, it makes you (and your students) look like rockstars when they present. You know all of those super cool animated videos that tell a story through drawings on a whiteboard? Now you can make those all on your own with a super simple drag-drop tool. Meet PowToon. It is awesome. I’m a little addicted to playing with video creation…no joke.

PowToon has a great mission: “to address all the frustrations that people have with power point and keynote and add animation and killer design.” You don’t have to be super tech savvy or design skills to create spectacular animated presentations. The goal here is to help people communicate in a way that conveys ideas. Best of all…it is FREE! Woot! Also, PowToon loves education, they want to help teachers and students create great content that is visually engaging, captivating and fun to make.

Right now PowToon has 5 design styles (with more coming). Added with your student’s creativity, these animations are going to be fabulous. Finished videos can be shared all over: YouTube, Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, exported or embedded.

PowToon is currently in Beta version. Sign up for an early look at this super cool creation tool. I got my invitation within a few hours. #bam

How to integrate PowToon into your curriculum: PowToon is a fantastic way to share ideas and story. Communication is a vital skill. The ability to express ideas and story in a succinct, clear manner is crucial. Today, students have another facet of communication to learn…visual communication.

PowToon would be a great addition to the design thinking routine. Students can use PowToon to share their ideas or to “prototype” an idea. Students can create videos to show math processes, explanations of complex concepts, review new learning, teach others, explain processes, tell stories, or present research. The possibilities are really endless and students will come up with hundreds of other creative uses.

Teachers can use PowToon to create animations for students. This is a great way to present new information or ideas for discussion.

Tips: The PowToon Interactive Tour and How to Create series are very helpful to watch prior to creating your first animations.

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