Subject – Page 24 – iLearn Technology

Make your own QR Code Scavenger Hunt!

August 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely35 Comments36089 views

Today was the first day of school. Ever. It was pretty epic. Since the students didn’t know where things were located in the building yet, I thought we would have some fun locating them with a QR code scavenger hunt. It was SO easy to do, I thought I would share the process here.

1. First I made a new website where each page of the website contained a clue. I made my site with Weebly.com because it is SO easy to use. I made the entire site in under 10 minutes.

2. Next I used goo.gl URL shortener to shorten the URL of each webpage and generate a QR code. Just copy and paste the long Weebly URL into the goo.gl shortener and voila. A short Googlefied (that is a technical term) URL. Click on “Details” next to the shortened URL to view your QR code. I just dragged and dropped these QR codes into a Pages document so that they were all in one place for easy printing/copying.

3. Print out QR code sheet and make enough copies for each classroom. Because we have a 10-1 student-teacher ratio, I made up 10 clues to find. Each student was in charge of one clue. I cut up the QR code sheet so that each student had a little QR code clue card.

4. Set students out on their mission. Each student takes a turn using the Scan app to uncover the clue. They read the clue out loud to their group and brainstorm what the answer could be. When they thought they had the answer, they went to that place and took a picture of it using the camera app. For example, one of our clues was: “The Grub Hub”, students went down to the kitchen and took a picture.

5. When all pictures have been collected, students gather and add up the points they won.

*Below is my example of the QR code and website they were connected to.

This was a really easy activity to prepare for from a teacher perspective. The impact was huge with the students. They had a great time with this!

We used this hunt as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the layout of the new school but it would also be a great activity for a math scavenger hunt “Find an item that represents three times four”, or colors in art “This is the color you get when you mix yellow and blue”, or literature “find an object that represents this character in our novel”. The list could go on and on if you use your imagination! The QR codes are so easy to generate, students could use these for almost anything!

Math Pickle: Put your students in a pickle encouraging genuine problem solving!

August 9, 2011August 9, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments11662 views

What it is: Math Pickle is a FABULOUS site for mathematics inspiration that I learned about from @davidwees Reform Symposium session. Math Pickle features mathematics videos for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The videos feature real students engaging in inspiring math problems and puzzles. The videos often speak to unsolved math problems throughout history that students work to solve. In the unsolved problem, students must use developmental level appropriate math to work out the problem. Math Pickle is the brain child of Dr. Gordon Hamilton who wants to abolish elementary mathematics as a subject and push the idea that problem solving is at the very heart of mathematics. The videos featured on Math Pickle do just that, put your students in a math “pickle”. If you think about the purpose of mathematics, this makes perfect sense. What we really want is students who are great problem solvers and can use mathematics to help solve those problems.

How to integrate Math Pickle into the classroom: Math Pickle is the most excellent mathematics inspiration I have come across. It approaches mathematics from the standpoint of a problem solver instead of from the standpoint of a rules follower. Already that shift in thinking makes my brain happy. Brilliant. Math Pickle has problems and videos for every grade kindergarten through twelfth.

Use these videos to pump some inspiration into the way you approach and teach math or show them to your students and encourage them to continue solving the problems. Don’t forget to film your students working through their own math pickles!

The Inspired page of Math Pickle is a must see. Students can take a look at what mathematicians do in real life. They can also learn about the source of Math Pickle problems.

Tips: Be sure to check out Muse, news and reviews for additional ideas, puzzles and reviews of math products, puzzles and games for the classroom.

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

27 days of professional development: Day 2 Multimedia and Interactivity in Mathematics

August 9, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments6155 views

To keep the Reform Symposium learning and inspiration going I decided to do a 27 days of professional development series. Day 1 was my Keynote about how a blog post and a Twitter conversation started a school. Today is Multimedia and Interactivity in Mathematics by David Wees.

In this session, David examined the role of multimedia and interactivity in mathematics education. I love the way that David looked at how photography can make such an impact (particularly for visual learners) in the math classroom. Capturing math in the world around us can help students view math differently. Toward the end of the session I asked David if he had created a Flickr group for math photos…working on twisting his arm to start that one for all of us. 🙂

This was a fantastic session!! During the session, David mentioned Math Pickle. Math Pickle is such a great math website that I’m going to do a second review post just for it.

To view David’s session, click the link to the right: Multimedia and Interactivity in Mathematics*

*This link is to an Elluminate recording, it will ask to download the session to your computer and requires a Java plugin to run. Well worth the effort to open it because you get to see everything (chat included) as it happened live!

Moneyville: Economics and money virtual world for elementary students

August 4, 2011August 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2742 views

What it is: Moneyville is a fantastic site I learned about from iLearn Technology reader Tania. This is an impressive site from the UK that teaches young kids (5-9 years old) about money and economic principles. Moneyville is a fun interactive environment/virtual world where students can explore where money comes from, what money is worth and how they can prioritize spending and save (perhaps the US government should be playing this game?). Throughout the game, students are asked to make a number of decisions that can affect their finances for the year. In Moneyville students can make money by picking apples and selling apple juice, work at the post office to sort packages according to value, work at the city gates where they can earn money by painting, purchase items for their virtual room with the money they have earned, visit with a wizard who can reveal a secret treasure and add items to a wish jar where students can place items they are saving for. Students will also find a time machine in Moneyville where they can journey to ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, or to the time of the dinosaurs. The money in Moneyville is generic so it can help students of any country the principles of where money comes from, how to prioritize money, the value of money, and why it is important to save.

How to integrate Moneyville into the classroom: Moneyville is a fun way to help young students understand the basics of money and economics. The site is a fun way for students to explore economic principles. It provides a great place to start discussions about what it takes to make money (work), why money is important, why saving is important and how the economic cycle works. Moneyville would be a great site for students to play on individually in a lab setting at the beginning of a money/economics unit. Expand the game into other disciplines. Students can learn about persuasion and advertising by creating advertisements for their businesses in Moneyville using a paint or word processing program.

Don’t have time/resources at school for students to play Moneyville in the classroom? Introduce them to the game using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. This is the type of site that my students begged to be able to continue on at home. I never made it homework but rarely had a student who didn’t play at home! If you do have an IWB or projector, create a class Moneyville account. Let students take turns making decisions in Moneyville and talk as a class about the consequences (and unintended consequences) of those decisions.

Tips: Students create a username and password so that they can play in Moneyville with all of their progress and money saved.

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

Science Toy Maker

August 2, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2683 views

What it is: Science Toy Maker is a teacher-created website with fantastic instructions and ideas for science toys and projects. These are mysterious, kinetic, noisy, do-it-yourself science projects that spur scientific investigation. The science toys and projects are inexpensive (seriously so cheap that anyone can make them!) and don’t require special skills, tools, materials, or work space. Each toy or project has a “more about” page that includes explanations, historical context, related activities, and high-quality links for more research. Each toy/project also has a clear step-by-step video directions or text instructions with helpful pictures. This is a GREAT resource for the classroom, for students interested in science and for parents.

How to integrate Science Toy Maker into the classroom: Science Toy Maker is a fantastic place to visit for fun science projects and inspiration. These simple toys/projects demonstrate powerful science concepts and can be used as an introduction to a new concept or an illustration of a concept. They are easy enough to follow for kids to do them independently making this a great stop for a center activity.

Do you have students who just can’t get enough science? Send them to Science Toy Maker to continue that passion inside and outside of school. Parents will appreciate the resource to keep their kids learning and students will enjoy the continued exploration and creating.

I love sites like this one, it may not be the most visually appealing site, but the content and ideas behind it are wonderful. Why not have your students create their own science experiment site? Throughout the year, students can record science experiments with photos or videos and add information and research they have gathered. This can be added to a class wiki for reference later in the year and to share with other students.

Tips: The most developed projects and toys are at the top of the site with those that are still a work in progress toward the bottom.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Science Toy Maker your classroom!

Visual.ly- Infographics Galore!

July 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2847 views

What it is: I am a geek for infographics. I love the way they convey ideas so clearly (especially for visual learners like me!). Visual.ly is infographic geek heaven. At Visual.ly you can search all the best infographics from the web in one convenient place. Do you (or your students) have infographics to share? Upload your infographics to Visual.ly and share them with others. Visual.ly even has a lab where you can create your own infographics! Way cool! Right now the create feature is limited to a Twitter infographic.

How to integrate Visual.ly into the classroom: Visual.ly is a great place to find infographics on any subject. Search infographics by subject or keyword. Use infographics to introduce new concepts, to begin a research project (is the infographic accurate?) or for review. Infographics are brilliant in the way that they help communicate complex ideas in a clear, compact and visually appealing way.

Visual.ly can help students better understand infographics so they can create their own. Right now Visual.ly only has the option for creating a Twitter related infographic (see mine below). This is great if your class has a Twitter account, students can see what their connections online look like (of course just part of the story!). You don’t have to wait on Visual.ly to finish their creation tool, use Excel, Numbers, Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, etc. to create your own infographics! Any time data is involved (science, math, geography, economics, history, government) students can create an infographic to visualize the learning. It would be fun to create a class infographic bulletin board for the first weeks of school. Collect data about students and use picture, shapes, etc. to create a customized infographic. If you do this, come back and share pictures!!

Tips: Because infographics are user-created, some may not be appropriate for all classrooms. If your students are going to spend time on Visual.ly, make sure you preview first!

**By the way, Visual.ly if you are listening, it would be AWESOME if you had an education version!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Visual.ly in your classroom!

Brown Sharpie: Mathematical Cartoons Inspired by Sharpie Fumes

July 21, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3773 views

What it is: Math geeks, eat your heart out…Brown Sharpie is for you! I found Brown Sharpie by accident today as I was perusing the app store in iTunes. Brown Sharpie is a collection of “mathematical cartoons inspired by sharpie fumes” drawn by Courtney Gibbons. Gibbons is an aspiring mathematician and the cartoons were created as she completed her undergraduate and graduate degree. Many of the cartoons reference higher math and may be too complex to use in the k-8 classroom. There are a few here and there that could be used with younger students with a little explanation. High school, college math students and math geeks are the main demographic for these cartoons. The cartoons are shared blog-style so you can search through them using the “next” and “previous” buttons or you can view by tags using the “view by…” word cloud in the right side bar.

How to integrate Brown Sharpie into the classroom: The Brown Sharpie cartoons would be a fun start to math class. Put a cartoon up on a projector-connected computer each day for a little math humor to kick off class. The cartoons will give you the opportunity to discuss current math topics as well as give an introduction to math concepts not yet touched on.

Why not hold your own Brown Sharpie day? Give each student a brown fine-tipped sharpie to create their own math cartoons? These can be shared on a class blog, website or wiki. This will help your visual learners and artists think about math in a whole new way! Students of any age can create a Brown Sharpie cartoon of their own!

In addition to the blog, Brown Sharpie is also a free app in the iTunes app store.

Tips: Some of the cartoons are PG-13 with alcohol or relationship references. Best to preview the cartoon before displaying before your class. 🙂

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

PBS Learning Media 14,000+ k-12 resources!

July 20, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2675 views

What it is: PBS Learning Media is a fabulous collection of 14,000+ resources that are separated by subject area. The collection reminds me a lot of the popular Discovery Streaming with one big difference- the resources on PBS Learning Media are free to use! Resources can be searched by grade level, media type (document, image, interactive or video), language (English, French, Spanish) and accessibility (caption, full mouse control, display, transcript). Resources include great descriptions of the resource, the grade level appropriateness and the ability to add the resource to your favorites. PBS Learning Media is a great stop for high quality resources that will meet the learning needs of your students. Many of the resources have associated support materials for both students and teachers.

How to integrate PBS Learning Media into the classroom: The resources in PBS Learning Media are wonderful for all grade levels. The site is easy to search and “favorite” so that the resources you need for your classroom are always at your finger tips. PBS Learning Media is a great place to find videos that enrich learning in the classroom, can be used for anticipatory sets to introduce a concept or to illustrate a difficult concept. The interactive resources are the high-quality games you find on the PBS and PBS Kids websites. Some of the games are appropriate for an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer and played with the whole class, while others work well in a computer lab or computer center activity.

PBS Learning Media would make a good media center on classroom computers for students to explore areas of interest in learning, research and make connections in learning.

Tips: If you don’t already have a PBS account, register for a free account to gain access to more than 5 resources at a time. 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using PBS Learning Media your classroom!

History Buff: Primary source newspapers, historic panoramas, audio

July 18, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment15557 views

What it is: I’ll admit it, when it comes to websites, I’m a judge-a-book-by-it’s-cover kind of gal. If the website isn’t user-friendly and visually appealing it is an almost guaranteed skip for me. History Buff is one of those forgettable websites. It isn’t overly visually appealing, it isn’t even really obvious how to get started. I nearly skipped it. History Buff has something going for it though: thousands of primary source newspaper made available digitally. Students can search through newspapers from the 1700 all the way until 2004 and see the scanned version of it digitally. I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be able to “hold” history in your hands that way. To interact with the “actual” newspaper is pretty neat…worth the lack luster of the site even. To search for articles, students just need to choose a time period folder, choose a subfolder and go to exploring these primary source documents. History Buff also boasts historic panoramas. Students can view a virtual tour of Colonial America, the Henry Clay Ashland Estate, the William Henry Harrison Homestead, Daniel Boons gravesite, Davy Crockett’s childhood home, Anna Jarvis Home, the site that marked the end of the Civil War, historic sites for Abraham Lincoln, the national historic site for James Garfield, the William McKinley monument, the birthplace of Thomas Edison, Warren G. Harding’s Tomb, and the homestead of William Howard Taft. A reference library on History Buff contains articles and audio on a variety of events and even hoaxes in the news. Students can also find facts about any state and interactive quizzes.

How to integrate History Buff into the classroom: History Buff is a website that can help history come to life through story, virtual tours, audio and primary source news papers. I suspect that most students fall into the judge-a-site-by-it’s-cover category like me. For this reason, if I was using it in my classroom, I wouldn’t send students directly to the website to do a lot of digging on their own. Instead, I might direct them to the portion of the site I knew we would be using through a classroom website, wiki, blog or use a Weblist or Symbaloo to link to them. It is amazing how changing something as small as the entry point into a site can change a students attitude about the site (heck, I’m like that too!).

Once I got into History Buff, I really appreciated the connection to primary sources and the way that the “actual” newspapers bring history to life. I REALLY liked the hoaxes in news section and suspect that students will get a kick out of it to. Your kids will be asking, how can people be SO gullible? These kinds of stories are wonderful discussion starters and will make students think critically about their own news media. As a fun extension, have your students write their own hoax news stories.

Okay, now for demystifying the navigation of this site. See the itty bitty brown words in the left sidebar that are all squished together? That is the navigation. For real. I didn’t notice it at first either! Go ahead and click on one to test it out…not so bad when you know what you are looking for, right? Right. For your convenience, I’m linking to each page of the site below so you can easily find what you are looking for. 🙂

Tips: History Buff has a newsletter you can subscribe to if you are, you know, a history buff. Just enter your email in that box under the header and click “subscribe” and you are on your way to becoming even history buffier…or something like that.

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

Automatoon: Create HTML5 animations

July 13, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment15125 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I’m slowly but surely making my way through my Google Reader and stumbled on a post by @rmbyrne on his EXCELLENT blog Free Tech 4 Teachers about Automatoon. I immediately started playing with Automatoon and cannot say enough about how COOL it is! Automatoon makes it simple for students (or teachers) to create animations within a web browser. My very favorite part? It was built-in HTML5!! Do you know what that means? It works on iDevices (like the iPad and iPod touch). A non-flash animations site! Pure genius. This is one of the easiest animation programs I have seen. Students can draw characters in pieces (kind of like a puppet or paper doll) and then create points where the pieces connect. The drawings can animate by moving, bending or adding pieces to the picture. SO cool! After watching the demo video, I think even young students could have Automatoon mastered in no time. The tools built into Automatoon are pretty robust for what a simple program it is to use. Your students will look like animation masters, bringing their creations to life. When students are finished creating their animations, they can download them as a zip file to be uploaded to any site. There are two ways to login, students can login with a “throwaway” login that will not save their animation (but will let them create and download a quick animation) or login with a Google account. This is fantastic for schools that take advantage of Google apps for education!

How to integrate Automatoon into the classroom: Kids of all ages love cartoons and animations, Automatoon gives them the tools to be the creator of those cartoon animations. Students can create animations to animate processes in science (think the water cycle, plant life cycle, rock cycle, etc.), vocabulary words (in either native language or a second language), animate a piece of creative writing, animate a persuasive argument (think advertisement), animate a “book report”, animate solving a math problem, animate a story problem or animate an event in history. The possibilities are really endless on this one, students will only be limited by their imaginations.

Automatoon is easy enough to use that with a little pre-planning, students could create animations in 5-10 minutes. This is handy for those situations where you have one or two computers in the classroom or a limited time in a computer lab. After learning how to use Automatoon, students can quickly create animations to illustrate learning. Automatoon is a FANTASTIC little tool for your visual learners…they will “get” it.

Are your students having a hard time understanding a math or science concept or a vocabulary word? Why not create an animation that illustrates the concept/word and share it on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer? The animation can be saved on the classroom website so that students can go back and access it throughout the year.

If you have a classroom website or wiki you could create a classroom animation collection. Students can upload their creations to the class site for a great collection of learning. It would be neat to animate sight words (Snapwords style), math or science vocabulary and create a visual “glossary” online that all of your students have contributed to. Classes can add to it every year or you can work with other classes around the world to create a collaborative glossary. This would also be a great tool to aid students in creating their own “e-textbooks” about any subject. Students can create animations to embed in their other research, reflections and links.

Way cool.

Tips: Be sure to watch the intro video (above) to get a 5 minute low down on how to use Automatoon…very useful!

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