Subject – Page 46 – iLearn Technology

ESA Kids

April 2, 2010Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3611 views

What it is: The European Space Agency (ESA) has a great website for kids. ESA Kids has fabulous, kid friendly information about the Universe (the story of the Universe, the sun, the planets and moons, the galaxies, comets and meteors), Life in Space (astronauts, space stations, life in space, exploration, are we alone?), Lift Off (launchers, orbits, mission control, spacecraft, new ways to space), Useful Space (TV and phone, know where you are, space spin-offs, weather, health), and Earth (climate change, natural disasters, protecting nature, water world). This site is absolutely packed full of information and awesome images. Students can “work in a lab” where they can build papercraft globes and spacecraft, try reading space maps, and learn fun space facts. Students will also enjoy the space themed games and puzzles, online coloring book, quizzes, and downloads. Each month, a new story about space is added to the News section, keeping students up to date about what is happening in space exploration.

How to integrate ESA Kids into the classroom: When I am hunting for space related websites, I usually begin with NASA. ESA Kids is being added to my must visit places for all things space. The site is organized well, very kid friendly, and has fun activities that students can take part in. Use ESA Kids for space research, when learning about the weather, climate change, and natural disasters. After students have some background knowledge about space and space exploration, have them visit the Lab and choose a papercraft spacecraft to print and build. Students can write a story about their spacecraft, including facts that they learned on the ESA Kids website. They may even write a fictional story about their visit to space that includes factual elements that they learned in the Life in Space section. Be sure to visit the Useful Space tab, I think students will be surprised at how many common items are linked to space and space exploration.

Tips: Be sure to visit this site often, the news is updated every month with current space events.

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

LEGO Smart Creativity Contest

April 1, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2291 views

What it is: LEGO Education is looking for 10,000 contestants for its 2010 LEGO Smart Creativity Contest. You can sign your classroom up to participate from now to July 2010, challenging your students to be LEGO Smart. When you sign up, you will receive a free LEGO Smart kit to use for the contest. Beginning in August 2010, your students will be challenged with a variety of activities that will encourage them to think creatively.

How to integrate LEGO Smart Creativity Contest into the classroom: Take a look at the activities from last year, there are math, geography, science, collaboration, and social studies projects. The activities are all a lot of fun. The contest is a fantastic way to get your students thinking outside the box, in new and creative ways, while working together to accomplish tasks. Your students will be working collaboratively, solving problems, and creating solutions. Students will be demonstrating their understanding of technology, math, engineering, science and math. I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t enjoy LEGOs.

Tips: For most of us, the contest won’t start until the next school year, sign up today and have some awesome activities ready for next year.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using LEGO Smart Creativity Contest in your classroom.

Webspiration Wednesday

March 31, 2010April 1, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments2860 views

I’ll be honest, today’s Webspiration Wednesday was a flop. I wanted to introduce teachers to Daniel Pink’s a Whole New Mind and did a quick video search to see what I could find. I came up with an interview that Oprah did with Daniel Pink about his book. It would have been great if Oprah wouldn’t have opened her mouth. I think she mentioned that she donated 4,500 books to Stanford grads no less than 50 times. The interview wasn’t great, Oprah didn’t focus enough on the book, she was leading the questions to get the answers that she wanted. A flop. On the upside, teachers got enough of a glimpse into the book that they were left wanting to read it. So even though the video was a flop, the inspiration was still there. Our local library offers digital downloads and A Whole New Mind is one of the audio books available for download. My hope is that the staff will listen to it and think about how it relates to our classrooms and education. Daniel Pink has a discussion guide for educators that is free to download on his website. In the next few weeks, I hope to show Daniel Pink’s TED Talk on his newest book Drive (also excellent).

In A Whole New Mind, Pink asks us to consider the world that we are living in. He calls the age we find ourselves in the Conceptual age. In this age, many left brain jobs are disappearing. If a computer can do it faster, someone overseas can do it cheaper, or what you are offering isn’t in demand in this age of abundance, the job will become obsolete. So then, creativity becomes the competitive difference that can differentiate commodities. Pink outlines six essential senses that need to be developed:

Design – Moving beyond function to engage the senses.
Story – Narrative added to products and services.
Symphony – Adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus).
Empathy – Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.
Play – Bringing humor and lightheartedness to business and products.
Meaning – the purpose is the journey, give meaning to life from inside yourself.

As an educator, I am interested in how we can help our students develop these senses so that they can be prepared for the world ahead of them. Here is a clue: it has nothing to do with standardized testing!

Have you read A Whole New Mind? What take aways do you have for us?

If you haven’t read A Whole New Mind, I highly recommend it.

Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb

March 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments6158 views

What it is: Phineas and Ferb are popular Disney channel characters. They have a new short video to help students learn cyberspace rules and online safety tips. Disney, together with Common Sense Media, created this fun short film to get kids thinking about cyber safety. Tips in the video include: Be careful what you put online, you never know who is going to see it; just because it’s online, doesn’t mean it’s true; not everyone is who they say they are; if you wouldn’t do it in person, you shouldn’t do it online; and get outside and spend time with real friends. These are great tips, but delivered by Phineas and Ferb they will be remembered by your students.

How to integrate Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb into the classroom: Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb is an excellent place to get the discussion about online safety and netiquette started in your classroom. The short video gives them a great jumping off point for thinking about the time they spend online. Your students could “Laser inscribe” some additional tips in a paint or word processing program. Post your students tips for online safety and cyberspace rules on a classroom bulletin board or on a Wallwisher wall. I like how short and sweet this video is, every classroom can fit in a short lesson (or several) during the year. Below the video, you can download a question sheet for students to quiz their parents about. This extends the conversation at home and encourages parents to think about their child’s online safety.

Tips: If you have colleagues that are good sports, your students could also quiz other teachers in the building with the Phineas and Ferb Cyberspace Rules of the Road quiz.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb in your classroom.

My Hippo Has the Hiccups

March 27, 2010March 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4042 views

What it is: In honor of national poetry month (April), Kenn Nesbitt is offering his book “My Hippo Has the Hiccups” as a free ebook. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I just opened a “happy spring” present! If you aren’t familiar with Kenn Nesbitt, he writes poetry that hooks kids and makes them instant fans of poetry. It is funny and engaging for readers of all ages. The ebook is available to view online or to download (can you believe it?!).

How to integrate My Hippo Has the Hiccups into the classroom: This ebook is a winner no matter what age group you teach. You can read the poems as a class using an interactive whiteboard or a projector connected computer. Because you can download the ebook, it would also be a wonderful addition to your classroom library on the classroom computers. Students can visit classroom computers with My Hippo Has the Hiccups as a poetry inspiration station. Invite your students to create their own silly Kenn Nesbitt inspired poetry. Make a class book of the silly poems and post them as a class ebook on Issuu.

Tips: You have to have the Zino Reader installed to view this ebook, it is a simple click and download.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using My Hippo Has the Hiccups in your classroom.

The Zimmer Twins

March 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5451 views

What it is: Who are the Zimmer Twins, you might ask? Edgar and Eva Zimmer are 12 year old twins who appear normal but have developed psychic powers. Strange things began to happen when the twins adopted a black cat named 13. On the Zimmer Twins website, students can create their own cartoon movie endings to a story starter or create their own animated movie from scratch. Students can create and edit movies solo or “Collab-o-write” and work together creating a collaborative movie. Zimmer Twins runs well in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari making it easy to get to and use in any classroom setting. You will need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly.

How to integrate Zimmer Twins into the classroom: Your students are going to love this site! They can direct and produce their very own animated movies. The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter. Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like. The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class. Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie. These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video. To use as a story starter, show the beginning of the short animation to your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector, then let students take over on classroom computers, working together, or writing a journal entry. After your students are familiar with the Zimmer Twins website, they can start a story from scratch. Students could direct “screen plays” of their writing, as a way to publish their finished work. Zimmer Twins would make an excellent alternative to the traditional book report. Students could create a movie where the main character is being interviewed, the story is being summarized, or retold. Students could also create movies about historical events, describing a science experiment or concept, in math as a story problem, to demonstrate understanding of character education or for vocabulary practice. My students have really enjoyed creating movies to show what they have learned on any topic, it is always a sure winner! Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Why not create a Zimmer Twins original yourself to introduce a new topic. If you are looking for more great ideas for using Zimmer Twins in your classroom, be sure to check out the lesson plans on the teacher page, there are some good ones.

Tips: Students can create a movie on Zimmer Twins without registering; however, they will not be able to save their creation. Creating an account requires an email address. If this presents a problem in your classroom you can do a few things: 1. create a classroom account that every student logs into and saves their videos on. Students will need to include their first name or a class number in the title of their video to differentiate it from others in the class. 2. Set up an account for each student using your email account. You will have to check this email account to provide your students with their passwords. 3. Ask parents to set up accounts for their kids to use at school.

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

Fotobabble

March 23, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments6210 views

What it is: Fotobabble seems to be everywhere I am lately, and now that I have had a minute to play with it, I can see why. Just upload a photo, record your voice, and send or embed away. It is very simple to use and has really fun results! The only downside for use in education are: 1. on the home page of Fotobabble you can see other members creations, at the time of writing they are all clean but I would hate to send my kids here without knowing exactly what content they would run into; 2. To use Fotobabble as a student, you must first sign up. This requires an email address 🙁 Which means that under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, that children under the age of 13 cannot sign up for an account on the site for their own creations. I would love to see Fotobabble create an education version that can be used by students under 13 if monitored and signed up by an adult, and without the other user generated content on the home page. That being said, Fotobabble is a fantastic tool for the classroom.

How to integrate Fotobabble into the classroom: Fotobabble can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. For students over 13, it is a great creation tool. Students could take pictures, or find creative commons images that illustrate vocabulary that they are learning and record themselves saying the definition and using the word in a sentence. Students could collect and trade Fotobabble vocabulary with other students in the class and embed them in a blog or wiki to create their own visual talking dictionary. If you teach students younger than 13, have teachers or parent helpers build audio visual dictionaries that can be added to throughout the year. How neat would it be to have a talking, visual word wall?! This would be helpful for math, science, social studies, history, and regular vocabulary words that students learn. The format will be so valuable to your audio and visual learners. Did you take pictures of that field trip? Upload them to Fotobabble and students can record thoughts, observations, and lessons they learned on the field trip. Consider creating a class Fotobabble account that you (the teacher) are in charge of. Upload student illustrations and record a story that they have written using their own voice. This is the perfect type of project to share at parent teacher conference time. Parents can get a good idea of their child’s writing, reading, and fine motor skills all in one spot. If you complete a similar project several times through the year, both students and parents can see the growth and progress that has been made during the school year. Fotobabbles are an outstanding way to send your young students on an Internet scavenger hunt. Along the way, record directions with Fotobabble and embed on your class website, wiki, or blog. Non-readers will be able to listen to, and follow directions for any assignment. Upload a picture of a landmark or map and have students record fun facts that they have learned about the place. Send special messages from your class home to parents in the weekly newsletter. Take a picture of a project that the class has done, or of a fun activity from the week. Students can record a message about upcoming events, fun highlights of the week in learning, and a list of helpers who have signed up for the week. Parents will love hearing their kids give the news updates for the week! Are you wracking your brain for a fun Mother’s/Father’s day activity? Why not record the kids leaving a special message to their parent with a special picture made just for them? Now that is a keepsake!

Tips: Because younger students can’t sign up for their own Fotobabble account, consider creating a class account that you can be in control of. For younger students, having a Fotobabble recording center set up on one of the classroom computers might be appropriate. Since you will control the account, you will be in charge of what content is added by students.

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

Heifer International: Game for Change

March 22, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2839 views

What it is: Heifer International works with communities to end hunger, poverty, and care for the earth. Heifer International does not give hand-outs, they offer hand ups. Transforming lives of hunger and poverty, into sustained lives of hope. Using gifts of livestock and training, Heifer International helps families improve nutrition and generate sustainable income. I have written about a program that Heifer International has before, called Read to Feed. I highly recommend that you take a look at the Read to Feed program if you haven’t seen it before. Heifer International has partnered with BeaconFire and ForgeFX to create an interactive 3D game that teaches students about hunger and poverty in a virtual world. Through Heifer International: Game for Change, students will learn about real world conditions of poverty and how communities can create sustainable solutions. Through game play, students will learn about sustainable options for help. In the game, students take on the role of a 12 year old Nepalese girl in a village that struggles with poverty and hunger. There are four tasks/missions that students must complete in the current (beta) version of the game. Each task offers an activity that teaches a core principle. One example is a task where students learn about deforestation that makes it more difficult to collect firewood used to cook dinner. The lessons in the game mirror real-life happenings in Nepal with Heifer International’s partners. The game is currently in Beta version and the creators are asking for suggestions here.

How to integrate Heifer International: Game for Change into the classroom: Heifer International: Game for Change is an excellent way to offer your students global education, awareness, and encourage them to action. Students will learn important lessons about issues like poverty and environmental degradation in a real, hands on, manner. Start out with a geography lesson, encouraging students to find Nepal on a map or globe. Use Google Earth or Scribble Maps to put a place marker on Nepal and a place marker where they live. Talk with students about issues of poverty and hunger, exploring the Heifer International site for students where they can watch videos, do experiments, and play games. Next, allow your students to step into the story by taking the role of a Nepalese girl living in an impoverished village. Students should work to complete all 4 tasks in the game and keep a journal (online or off) of their thoughts as they complete the game. Was it hard to find food, wood, water? There are a lot of lessons packed in here, from geography and social studies, to reading and following directions and character education.

As an extension activity, students could create VoiceThreads or Animoto videos about Heifer International. Tie in the Read to Feed program so that your students can get hands on with Heifer International. Use their completed VoiceThreads or Animoto videos as “advertisements” for the Read to Feed program.

If your students are anything like mine, they will have definite opinions about the game. Why not take advantage of that, and have them offer suggestions and praise that can be used by the creators? Have students craft their ideas and send them here.

Tips: If you haven’t signed up for the Read to Feed program, it is an outstanding program. It includes free DVD, leaders guide, poster, storybook (Beatrice’s Goat), brochures, bookmarks, student rewards, and standard based curriculum. Get your students excited about reading and involved in their global community, it is never too early to get your students thinking about others!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Heifer International: Game for Change in your classroom.

Webspiration Wednesday

March 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3000 views

Last week, I instituted Webspiration Wednesday at CHC. To find out what exactly Webspiration Wednesday is, check out my original post here.

Today we gathered over a TED Talk by Tim Brown on Creativity and Play.

Tim reminded me of something very important, there comes a point in schooling where we begin discouraging play. We ask students to sit in their seats, to fill in the circles completely with a number two pencil, and to stay on task. There is very little time in schools for play. I think that by making schools void of play, we harm our students. There is a lot of important learning that happens during play and discovery.

In the video, Tim shows some pictures inside some major design firms (Pixar and Google). At the beginning of the year, I asked students to describe what their dream school would look like. I was very sad to learn that most of them couldn’t conceive of a school that looked different. In our first brainstorming session, most of them talked about having more recess or a longer lunch and that was the extent of their wishes. I really tried to impress on them that their school could look and be structured any way they wanted. I was met with blank stares and confused looks. The problem in the first brainstorming session was that students were doing what they do all day long in school. They were trying to guess what I was thinking. They wanted to give me the right answer. But in this instance, there wasn’t a right answer, every answer was right. I showed my students pictures of Googleplex and Pixar and explained that there was a lot of work and creativity that came out of both companies. What they saw was a playland. Nearly all of my students declared that they would work at Google or Pixar when they got out of school. One of my students asked if I would help her write a resume so that Google would have it on file when she was ready to work there (she is 9). We brainstormed a dream school again. This time the students understood that there wasn’t a right answer, that the sky was the limit. Few of them included desks in their dream school, nearly all of them included animals of some kind, and most of them wanted slides and piano stairs to get from one floor to another. We collaborated on Wallwisher and dreamed together. At the beginning of the project, I told the kids the school could look like, and operate, any way that they wanted, but there were two restrictions: 1. it had to be a place of learning, and 2. they had to justify why they included everything in their school. Most of them cited an increase in creativity and innovation (we learned that word as we looked at pictures of Googleplex). One of my students wanted a huge cylinder tropical fish tank in the lobby with clear pipes branching out and winding around the school and through the classroom. She thought the fish would be interesting to study and an inspiration for learning. Another student wished for swing chairs hanging from the ceiling so that they could move while they learned. Several kids wanted dogs in the school that they could read to because, “dogs won’t make fun of you when you make a mistake reading out loud.” Once the students felt comfortable with not having one right answer, they let their imaginations run wild and came up with excellent ideas and suggestions.

We need to help kids understand that there usually isn’t only one right answer. They have been so primed to believe that every problem has one correct answer because we overload them with tests and worksheets that tell them that it is so. We squash creativity. Pretty soon they become adults who don’t know how to play and as a result, aren’t creative. How do you encourage creativity and outside the box thinking in your classroom?

Grammaropolis

March 16, 2010March 23, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments5044 views

What it is: Grammaropolis is a fun find that helps students learn the parts of speech. In Grammaropolis, all of the characters are a different part of speech. Students will “meet” Adverb, Linking Verb, Pronoun, Adjective, Preposition, Slang, Noun, Conjunction, Interjection, and Action Verb. Each character is personified with personalities inspired by their grammatical roles in a sentence. The characters interact with each other the same way that parts of speech interact in a sentence, brilliant! Each character has a character card that tells a story about them. Students can watch short Grammaropolis videos starring the characters (parts of speech) that live there. Students can take Grammaropolis quizzes, complete word sorts, and color the characters of Grammaropolis in an online coloring book in the games section. Students will enjoy the fun Grammaropolis song featuring all of the characters of Grammaropolis. Coming soon, students will be able to read a book series starring the Grammaropolis characters.

How to integrate Grammaropolis into the classroom: Visual learners will absolutely love this site that personifies the parts of speech. All learners will appreciate the stories about the parts of speech. We learn best through story. Story gives us a framework for our understanding of new concepts and helps us to use those new concepts. Grammar is often a subject that is taught purely through memorization of rules and drill and skill exercises. This makes it difficult for students to really understand grammar. Grammaropolis is an excellent solution to this problem. Use the Grammaropolis character cards to introduce students to new parts of speech. Watch the videos and listen to the song as a class to delve deeper into the character traits that each part of speech has. The books on Grammaropolis are coming soon, while students await these, why not encourage your students to write their own stories that include the characters of Grammaropolis? Do you have older students that could use a parts of speech refresher? Have them create stories using the characters for younger students. The characters have already been developed for them! Print out the character cards and post them around the classroom. This will help your visual learners, when you talk about “Pronoun” they will be able to associate it with a character and story. Set up the Grammaropolis games on classroom computers as a literacy center that students can visit to practice their understanding of the parts of speech.

Tips: Grammaropolis is currently holding a contest. Helping Verb is lost, students can draw what they think Helping Verb should look like. Submissions will be accepted until March 31, 2010 (so start this contest with your students today!). Five finalists will be posted on the Grammaropolis blog on April 7 with a winner announced April 22. The winner will recieve a gift pack, there character drawn by a professional and added to the Grammaropolis team, and receive a 20″x30″ poster featuring their character singed by the Powerhouse animators that make the Grammaropolis videos. The winning character will debut in Action Verb’s book in the book series.

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