Grade Level – Page 68 – iLearn Technology

Pac Man Typing with Typing Master

September 15, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment18029 views

What it is: Typing Masters has a great typing game that your students can play for free to increase their typing skills. PacMan Typing gives students the familiar Pac Man game, instead of moving Pac Man with the arrow keys, students have to type letters to make him move. The faster students can type, the higher their score will be.

How to integrate Pac Man Typing into the classroom: Pac Man Typing is a great motivating typing game. Students will want to build up their touch typing skills to master this game. Hold a friendly competition in your class to see who can get high score in Pac Man Typing. This is another site that will build student typing skills through a fun game.

Tips: I learned about Pac Man Typing this morning on Twitter from @SheilaT, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…my PLN is the best!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Pac Man Typing in your classroom.

Geo Mysteries

September 14, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2126 views

What it is: Geo-mysteries are fun interactive mysteries about rocks, fossils, and minerals from the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Students can choose one of three Geo-mysteries to solve: The Mystery of the Floating Rock, The Mystery of the Broken Necklace, and The Mystery of the Golden Cube. Students work to help Rex the dinosaur solve the geography mystery by watching a short video clip, and then going through simulated experiments to solve the mystery. These are great short activities that will help your students understand properties of rocks, fossils, and minerals. Kids will have fun working as a detective to solve the mysteries.

How to integrate Geo Mysteries into the classroom: Geo Mysteries is a fun twist to learning about rocks, minerals and fossils. What I love about the site, is the way it makes students problem solvers and guides them through using clues and critical thinking to solve a mystery. This is a good site to use as a center during science, two or three students could visit the center at a time working to solve a mystery. After each group of students has been through the center, the whole class can come together and share their findings. If you have access to a projector or an interactive whiteboard, you can complete the mystery as a whole class. Invite students up to the board to interact with the material. This is also a great site for students to work through individually in a computer lab setting. In the computer lab setting, students can work through the material at their own pace.

Tips: The Geo Timeline on the Geo Mysteries site is fantastic, make sure to check it out and point it out for your students to explore.

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

iPlay Math Games

September 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3337 views

What it is: iPlay Math Games is an outstanding collection of printable math games for grades k-12. Math games can be searched by grade level or skill. These math games are printable pdf files and can be played with common items (dice, cards, and other manipulatives). iPlay Math Games helps students build math skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percents, algebra, long division, measurement, graphing and exponents, problem solving, puzzles and games, geometry, probability, reasoning, logic, numeration, patterns, and counting.

How to integrate iPlay Math Games into the classroom: iPlay Math Games is an excellent collection of printable math games that can be downloaded and printed out for the classroom. Use these games as math center activities, and to reinforce math skills being learned. These games are a great way for students to practice math skills sans worksheet.

Tips: iPlay Math Games has not always been a free resource, take advantage of the new free status!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using iPlay Math Games in your classroom.

Free 1 year subscription to Smilebox (Teacher Box)

September 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2351 views

What it is: I first blogged about Smilebox September of 2008. Smilebox is offering a free 1 year subscription to educators! Smilebox is a fun, easy way to send photos, videos, and information to students and parents securely. Smilebox lets you create very impressive looking multimedia presentations quickly and easily. The free subscription (a $39.99 value) gives you unlimited access to more than 900 Smilebox designs and lets you choose from thousands of music options (or upload your own). Finished Smilebox creations can be emailed, blogged, printed, burned to a DVD, or saved as jpeg images.

How to integrate Smilebox (Teacher Box) into the classroom: Smilebox is a great way for you to communicate with parents. Smilebox is perfect for newsletters, overviews of teaching units, performance and field trip recaps, classroom activities, school memory books, and more. Smilebox will make you look like a superstar, the results are SO impressive!

Tips: Be sure to sign up for Smile Box (Teacher Box) today, space in this program is limited!

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

eField Trips

September 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2231 views

What it is: eField Trips are a neat idea for students to ‘travel’ virtually to learn about the world. These virtual eTrips are composed of 4 parts. The first part is a pdf called the Trip Journal. Teachers download and print out the trip journal to guide students on their journey and to give them a place to record what they are learning on their trip. Second is the virtual visit, this is a flash video where students go on the actual trip at their own pace. Generally trips take about 15 minutes to complete. Third is a form where students can ask experts questions they have about the trip they took. Actual experts will respond to the question in 1 to 2 days. The fourth is a live chat. These chats allow students to interact with the experts in a live session at a scheduled time. Available eField Trips include: Pearl Harbor, bats, underwater ecosystems, brown vs. board of education, butterflies, western exploration, caves, climbing Denali, desert dwellers, Dred Scott, Earthquakes, mountains, and glaciers, fires roll in an ecosystem, Glacier Bay, Grand Tetons, invasive species, whales, renewable energy, sea turtles, mammals of Denali, manatee, reptiles and amphibians, wetlands, and more. I would categorize eField Trips more like a webquest than a virtual field trip. These are great webquests!

How to integrate eField Trips into the classroom: These eField Trips would be an excellent extension (or replacement) for text book reading. Students can work through the eField Trip at their own pace in the computer lab setting. I like the Trip Journals that guide students on their journey and keep them thinking critically about what they are encountering. For younger students, take an eField Trip as a whole class using a projector or an interactive whiteboard. Each student could still fill out a Trip Journal as the class goes on the journey. Because the etrips require reading, struggling readers may be paired up with confident readers or a helper. I really like the interaction that students get with experts after the field trip. As students are going on their journey, they are bound to come up with additional questions. Students always love sending and getting mail, eField Trips gives students the opportunity to do both.

Tips: One thing that I don’t love about this site, it is hard to navigate back to the homepage. This isn’t a problem for students completing the trips, but it is a little frustrating as a teacher planning a trip.

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

The Carbon Cycle Game

September 12, 2009September 12, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1882 views

What it is: The Carbon Cycle Game is a free online game that teaches students about how carbon cycles through the Earth system. It is appropriate for 4th-9th grade students learning about the carbon cycle. As students play the game, they will learn that carbon cycles naturally through living and non-living parts of the Earth system in a complex, non-linear way, that burning fossil fuels adds carbon to the cycle, the impact of additional carbon dioxide on global warming, and that carbon is essential for living things. Students will travel around the game as a little carbon atom. They will stop at key places on the game board and get a pop-up of information about the carbon cycle. At any point students can click on key words in the pop-up and will be directed to a page with additional information. Students will also land on question marks that pop-up questions testing students about what they have learned so far. When students answer questions correctly they earn game points.

How to integrate The Carbon Cycle Game into the classroom: The Carbon Cycle Game would be best played individually in the computer lab setting or on classroom computers in groups of two. The site says that this game is appropriate for grades 4th-9th but I found the vocabulary and reading to be a little advanced for fourth grade students. If using the site with younger students, I would recommend visiting it in pairs of students or as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard. If you play the Carbon Cycle Game as a whole class, split your students into two teams so that each team can take turns answering the questions in the game. The Carbon Cycle Game is a good way for students to learn about the Carbon Cycle and the questions ensure that students are understanding the reading.

Tips: Check out the teacher section for some great lesson plan ideas using the Carbon Cycle Game.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Carbon Cycle Game in your classroom.

Keyboard Climber

September 10, 2009Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3922 views

What it is: Keyboarding is a necessary evil in the computer classroom. I say this because truly mastering touch typing takes practice, a lot of it. However, I don’t want to spend all my class time in the computer lab teaching kids to type. There is SO much more that our brand new iMacs can do. To use them as typewriters feels ridiculous. Combine that with my 35 minutes once a week with students and keyboarding really becomes a necessary evil. In my classroom, I focus on typing practice very little. I encourage my students to practice keyboarding at home with fun online typing games. Keyboard Climber is one of these games. It is a fun little game that helps students build those touch typing skills in or out of the classroom. In Keyboard Climber, the goal is to help a monkey climb up a tree and score bananas by typing letters. If the student types the incorrect letter, a coconut falls on the monkey’s head and he falls down to a lower level. There is fun music and sound effects that accompany the game, kids love it, I find it a bit too monotonous. The only other thing that I don’t love about the game is that all of the letters are displayed as capital letters. However, students never have to actually type a capital letter (with shift or caps lock).

How to integrate Keyboard Climber into the classroom: Keyboard Climber is a fun little game to help students practice typing. Use it in the computer classroom as a short warm up and see how many points students can accumulate in a set amount of time. Hopefully this number will increase throughout the year. Encourage students to play Keyboard Climber at home to practice typing. I have students take a screen shot of their highest level and points to post on one of my bulletin boards.

Tips: I learned about Keyboard Climber from @techfacil, thanks for the tip Julie!

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

Science Bob

September 9, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2649 views

What it is: Science Bob is a great resource library for the elementary science classroom. It is an excellent place for students to explore science concepts. Students can get some fun science fair ideas, experiments (that can be done offline), research helpers, science questions/answers, and science videos.

How to integrate Science Bob into the classroom: Science Bob is a great anticipatory site to use with students. Videos can be watched as a class to introduce a new science topic or just to build a little excitement in the science class. Let students explore the experiment section and choose an experiment to perform. Each student can choose a different experiment to test at home. Hold a class science day where students can share the experiment with the class. Let them be the science ‘expert’. As students conduct experiments, they can practice going through the scientific method. Science Bob is a great stop for parents and students looking for science fair projects. Start each science class with a fun science fact in the science question and answer section. This is a great site to get your students excited about science and ready to learn more.

Tips: The “research” section of Science Bob is packed full of other amazing science websites. They are organized by topic for simple searching.

I am often asked where I learn about all of these educational websites. I have a variety of sources (RSS feeds, searches, books) but my favorite source is my OUTSTANDING PLN on Twitter. If you aren’t on Twitter, I highly recommend it. I have created a page where you can see all of the wonderful people in my PLN on Twitter. This is a great place to start your own Twitter powerhouse.

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

Meet Me at the Corner

September 8, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments1706 views

What it is: Meet Me at the Corner is an inventive site that seeks to take students on virtual field trips through videos created by students. The site started with video podcasts of the history and people of New York City. As the site grows through student submissions, people and events of other towns, cities, and nations will be highlighted. Currently there are video podcasts from Colorado, California, North Carolina, Texas, and Maryland. Through the Meet Me at the Corner videos, students can learn about people, jobs, and places around the country and soon around the world. Students can also submit videos from their corner of the world. Meet Me at the Corner also has video book reviews that can motivate students to read books they may not have considered.

How to integrate Meet Me at the Corner into the classroom: Meet Me at the Corner is a great new resource for introducing your students to the wider world. Students can take a virtual field trip to different states through videos, learning about people, their jobs, and where they live. These videos give your students a better understanding of the world they live in. Meet Me at the Corner encourages student video submissions. Consider creating a class video about your city/state/school to submit to Meet Me at the Corner. It would be great for students to get a first hand look at schools and students from around the world.

Tips: Meet Me at the Corner has a contest section with contests that students can take part in. These contests are updated regularly so be sure to check them out.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Meet Me at the Corner in your classroom.

Storybird

September 8, 2009Kelly Tenkely5 Comments20185 views

What it is: Storybird is a fun new collaborative storytelling website. Storybird makes it easy to create and tell stories digitally. Students and teachers can create stories together by combining imaginative artwork and text. The final product can be printed, watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared in an online library with the world. “Storybird promotes imagination, literacy, and self-confidence.” Creating, sharing, and reading Storybird stories is free.

How to integrate Storybird into the classroom: Storybird is an excellent way to get your students enthusiastically writing. The imaginative artwork will have your students creating stories in no time. Storybird stories are meant to be collaborative. Students can work together in teams to create stories. This type of learning through play reminds me of the “lets pretend” stories that students create on the playground. Students will feed off of each others ideas, creating more creative stories and learning together. Storybird is also a fantastic place to create a classroom story, each student can contribute pages to the story. The final product can be easily shared with families and friends in the online library. Storybird can be used by teachers to make ‘special’ stories for students. They can include students as characters, emphasize classroom themes or curriculum, and be created for specific reading levels. Encourage your students to create and share their stories on Storybird, open up your classroom computer during DEAR time for students to read stories their classmates have created.

Tips: Storybird is currently in an open Beta version. Right now all features on Storybird are free. Storybird plans to keep story creation, reading, and sharing as free features. Premium (pay-for) features will be added.

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