Category: Grade Level

Toy Theater

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Toy Theater3402 views

 

What it is: Toy Theater is a fun place for students to practice math, reading, art, and music through puzzle type games.  Toy Theater encourages students in k-4 to get their problem solving brain cells working as they explore and discover the games in Toy Theater.  In the art section, students can animate their own cartoon character, put on a puppet show, or make a Matisse.  In the music section, students can make music with the Composer, interact with notes with The Music Maker, or go on a pounding mission with the Drum Beats, you will have miniature maestros in no time.  In Math students can practice math facts with flippy flashcards, or feeding Freddy, and take a math practice test to put those math skills to the test.  In the reading section students can enjoy a good joke, play with words with a sliding crossword puzzle (highly entertaining for teachers too), write their own road sign, or practice their typing skills.  In the puzzle section students brains gt put to the limit with tic tac toe and memory games.  In the playset section, students can create their very own virtual diorama about cars, sea creatures, plant, insects, ships, characters, aircraft, blocks, dinosaurs, and buildings.

How to integrate Toy Theater into the classroom: Toy Theater is a great website to use as a learning center in your classroom.  The short, easy to play games are perfect for short center activities.  I love the puzzle type environment that encourages problem solving and bends the brain a little.  The playset universe would be a great section to use with an interactive whiteboard, students could take turns creating a ‘universe’ to showcase learning on a topic such as ocean, plants, insects, dinosaurs, geometry, etc.  Students can work together to show what they know together.  After students create a playset, have them pull out a writing journal and journal about the playset the class created.  Being a computer teacher I am constantly looking for fun ways to let students practice typing skills.  In the read section you will find a game called letter fall, letter blocks fall from the sky, students have to type the letter before 5 blocks can stack up. There are multiple speeds to make the game a challenge for your different typing levels.  In the computer lab setting, see who can last the longest before 5 letter blocks stack up (there is a timer at the bottom of the screen).  

 

Tips:  This is a great site to send your students to when they finish work early and are asking “what can I do now?”  

 

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

The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower1588 views

 

What it is: Twitter is an amazing networking tool.  If you aren’t currently using Twitter, today is the day my friend!  If you aren’t familiar with Twitter take a look at my prior posts here or watch the Common Craft video above.  The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter follower is an “ethical bribe” to get people to follow Tim Ferris on Twitter.  Here’s how it works: for every new Twitter follower Tim gets before March 23, 2009, he will donate $1 to Donorschoose.org.  An anonymous supporter will then donate $2 for every dollar that Tim donates.  This means that for every follower of Tim, $3 are donated.  What is the donation going toward?  US Public School classrooms!  The goal is to directly help 25,000 US public school students in low income and high need areas in two weeks time.  I LOVE this idea!  After seeing what is happening with our stimulus money (going to AIG for bonuses and cutting back on education), I think creative ideas like The Tweet to Beat are going to be the catalyst for change in this world!

How to integrate The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower into the classroom: This is such a simple idea and yet the impact could be significant.  You can integrate Tweet to Beat into your classroom in a few ways.  First, if you are on Twitter, follow Tim today (go ahead you can do it right now, I’ll wait).  Second, if your students are on Twitter, encourage them to follow Tim.  Third, use Tweet to Beat as a real world math problem.  Ask questions such as how many followers does Tim need to raise $50,000?  $150,000.  Last, give older students (who have Facebook accounts) a homework assignment to post this story on their Facebook page to get others involved.  

 

Tips:  Twitter is a great way to communicate with families, build a personal learning network (PLN), communicate with other students around the world, and network.  You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Tweet to Beat  in your classroom.

Physics Games

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Physics Games2619 views

 

What it is:   Physics Games is a collection of fun online physics based games.  There are 57 physics inspired games in the collection that can be played on the website or embedded on a classroom website, blog, or wiki.  These games are great for any age, younger students will learn through exploration, trial, and error while older students will be able to understand the physics concepts behind the games.

How to integrate Physics Games into the classroom:  Physics Games is a great interactive site to use in the science classroom.  It encourages students to start exploring concepts such as energy, force, velocity, gravity, etc.  Younger students can interact with the games successfully even without the background knowledge.  Each of the games encourages trial and error learning.  Older students can play games and write about the physics concepts that the game introduces and explore the ‘accuracy’ of the game to display the physics concept. If you have a class website, blog, or wiki, these games would be fun to embed in your site for easy access.

 

Tips:  I learned about Physics Games from a Tweet and blog post by Mr. Byrne who writes Free Technology for Teachers.

 

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

AR Sights

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on AR Sights3797 views

What it is:  Augmented Reality, how cool is that technology?  Dialing up the awesome factor a couple of notches is AR Sights.  AR Sights is a company who makes it possible to view Google Earth right in a web browser and then zoom into places of interest (Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, etc) and take a look at them augmented reality style.  The site brings landmarks to life in four easy steps.  Download the browser add-on, download some points of interest, print out the AR Sights marker, and zoom into Google Earth and take a look.  I am amazed at what this technology provides for students!  Students can zoom right in and manipulate the landmark by moving the paper around.  Now for the downfalls, AR Sights only works on PC’s right now, us Mac folks will have to hunt down a PC or wait until it is available for the Mac.  The other downfall is the downloads, they require administrative rights (some of you may have to convince your IT to let you download this goody).  After you print off the AR Sights marker, you hold it up to your camera and up pops the landmark you have chosen in Google Earth, as you twist, tilt, and move the paper the landmark moves accordingly.  This is SO outstanding!

How to integrate AR Sights into the classroom:  AR Sights makes virtual field trips so impressive!  As your students are studying geography, allow them to travel around Google Earth and take a look at the landmarks.  Use AR Sights with a projector or Interactive whiteboard to show your whole class landmarks at the same time.  Create a travel center on your computers where students can travel around and learn about the world.  AR Sights is a great way to bring geography alive!  AR Sights also has a download to use with Google Sketch-up 3-D drawing program (free from Google).  Older students can create their own 3-D augmented reality landmarks.  Students could draw places of interest, your school, etc. and view them with AR Sights as augmented reality.  Talented high-school and college age students (or ambitious teachers) could create Sketch-up models that can be used in education such as the skeletal system, a beating heart, the solar system, historical landmarks, etc. for students to interact with in 3-D augmented reality.  The possibilities with this could be endless!!

 

Tips:  I learned about AR Sights from a wonderful blog that my friend Raul writes from Spain called technoTIC, check it out!  Thanks Raul!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using AR Sights in your classroom.  If you or one of your students creates a Sketch Up model for AR Sights let us know about it!

Virtual Apple 2: Oregon Trail

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Virtual Apple 2: Oregon Trail7369 views

What it is:  Those of you who were in school or teaching just as schools were starting to get computer labs will appreciate this post.  Remember Oregon Trail?  The original Oregon Trail?  It still exists!!  Virtual Apple 2 has an online space where you can play games from the Apple 2 days.  I loved Oregon Trail as a student and now it is back in all of its glory.  No need for a mouse you type in a number to make selections, or “Y” for yes and “N” for no.  I can’t tell you how excited I was to find this great game just the way I remember it!  For those of you not familiar with Oregon Trail, this is a game designed to teach kids about pioneer life.  The player assumes the role of wagon leader and builds a team and purchases supplies that will help to make it from Independence Missouri to Oregon by way of covered wagon in 1848.  It was a great role playing game that had a lot of learning packed in!

How to integrate Virtual Apple 2: Oregon Trail into the classroom:  Students today aren’t nearly as impressed with this game as I was/am.  At first, they will not appreciate playing the game for the sake of playing the game.  In my classroom, I like to introduce this site to students to give them an idea of the history of technology and what computer graphics and games looked like when I was a student.  They enjoy comparing and contrasting Apple 2 Oregon Trail with the games that they like to play today.  This site is a great way to start discussions with students about where technology has come from and where they predict it will go.  (What will games look like when they have kids?)  After knowing the history of this game, my students appreciate it SO much more.  They really get into it and ask the same questions I asked as a kid, “what is yellow fever?”.    The difference being that today they can go to Wikipedia or World Book Online and discover their own answers.  

 

Tips:  Virtual Apple 2 has all of those games that you remember playing when having a colored screen instead of orange or green was really something.  Take a look through and re-discover those games again!

 

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

Tikatok

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Tikatok5303 views

 

 

What it is:  Tikatok is a great website to excite your students about writing.  With Tikatok each of your students can become a published author, create, share, and gain an authentic audience for their writing and illustrations, and receive writing support through the StorySparks system.  StorySparks are a framework that gives students prompts at the bottom of their screen as they are writing their story.  They are tips such as “the beginning of the story is where we define a setting, where does your story take place?”  StorySparks come in different levels depending on your student ability.  Using Tikatok, students can build literacy skills such as: writing, story structure, reading, comprehension, imagination, creativity, character development, story development, critical thinking, organization, drafting, and technology skills (typing, uploading pictures, saving, collaboration, and communication).  Students have options when creating a story, they can choose a topic and idea to start a story or they can start from scratch with a blank story.  The first option allows students to get help with the hardest part of story creation, thinking of an idea and beginning a story.  Students fill in blanks about their story and get a basic story that they can embellish and add to.  In the second option, students create a story from scratch.  Teachers can register classes and keep track of the stories their students are creating.  Teachers can also send students messages and comment on stories.  There is also an option for students to work collaboratively on a story.  Students can adjust their stories template, colors, text, and images.  When students are finished, their story can be viewed online, printed out from a PDF file, or published and purchased for $15-20.

How to integrate Tikatok into the classroom:  Tikatok is an excellent tool to bring into your writing classroom.  It can be used as a publishing center for finished pieces of writing, as a collaborative writing project, or as a place to keep all written work.  The ability for students to use story starters is outstanding for those kiddos who are forever saying “I don’t know what to write about”.  They absolutely won’t be able to use that excuse here!  Even if you don’t have the ability for all of your students to write stories on Tikatok because of limited computer access, use the story idea starters using a projector as students write in journals.  I love the ability for teachers to keep track of all student writing in one place.  Since Tikatok is online, students can work on their stories from any Internet connected computer making it especially useful for those students who are slow or those students who like to write novels.  🙂   When students are finished writing stories, have a reading day where students can read other student stories and leave comments and feedback.  Only have access to one or two classroom computers?  Have the whole class take part in a collaborative story.    I love Tikatok for several reasons but the ability to view ‘published’ work online in book form is handy for the environment (it is green), for families who want to see their childs work, and the sense of authentic audience that it brings students.  Student work is always higher quality when they know their audience base is larger than the teacher!  I also love that the stories can be saved as PDF files and printed for classroom libraries or the school library.  The ability to purchase bound books is motivating for many students and parents love to have their kids work officially published.   In my classroom I will leave the stories online and send home a flier to parents about how to purchase a bound book if they would like to.  So neat!

 

Tips:  Tikatok has the ability to upload student illustrations, if you don’t have a scanner at your school, students artwork can be sent to Tikatok and will be uploaded within 24 hours.  I like the idea of using a computer based drawing tool like Skitch for illustrations.  Sign up for a teacher account today, it is so simple to get started!

 

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

GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality!

Kelly Tenkely8 Comments on GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality!3188 views

 

What it is:   Okay, sometimes I just have to share things because they are off the charts amazing.  Augmented reality is something I was introduced to by my graphic artist husband.  Until I found this GE Smart Grid site, I wasn’t able to share it with others and let students play with it.  What is augmented reality?  Basically you print off a sheet from the website that has a bold graphic on it.  When you hold up this graphic to a web cam, a 3-D model is produced on screen, by moving the paper you can look at different views of the 3-D model, zoom in and out, and in some cases cause the model to react to other inputs (like blowing into the microphone).  The GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality shows a digital hologram of smart grid technology in the form of wind turbines and solar energy.

How to integrate GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality into the classroom:  I am introducing this site to my students as a discussion starter for where technology is going and brainstorming what augmented reality could be used for.  The Smart Grid site can also be used when teaching students about alternative energy sources like wind turbines and solar energy.  They can actually see 3-D models of each and interact with them.  This would be a great introduction and attention grabber for an energy unit in science classes.

 

Tips:  Augmented reality is still relatively new technology, it is starting to pop up in the advertising world and in baseball trading cards.  Hopefully the education sector will jump on this technology, how amazing would it be to hold up a science worksheet to the computer and be able to see a 3-D model of a skeleton, or a beating heart?!  (I’ll see if I can talk my husband into working on a few augmented reality education goodies). 🙂   Mac users, if you can’t get it to pick up your camera, ctrl + click on the popup window and choose the USB camera option.  Enjoy!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality  in your classroom.

SM@RT Education Technology Services Inc. Education 1 to 1

Kelly Tenkely5 Comments on SM@RT Education Technology Services Inc. Education 1 to 116460 views

What it is:  Today I was truly inspired by a fellow blogger.  Mike Summers is relatively new to the educational blogging scene and even relatively new to the education scene, but as I read his posts I was inspired for change.  Mike has written 23 posts and after I read his first three I couldn’t help but spend the next hour (and every 5 min. break between classes) to read all 23.  As I read the posts on his blog, SM@RT Education Technology Services Inc. Education 1 to 1,  I kept saying aloud, “exactly! This is right on with what I have been thinking, this is what keeps me up at night.”  After getting through about half of the posts it was time for lunch, I joined my colleagues in the teachers lounge and reiterated what I  had been reading.  It started an amazing discussion with those who were present.  When I finished reading I was ready to take on the world.  If there are so many like-minded educators and people who are passionate about education succeeding, why are we stuck in the rut we are in?

How to integrate Education 1 to 1 into the classroom:  This is a blog that you should take the time to read and respond to.  I am passionate about technology and technology integration in the classroom, but I know that putting the best technology in the world into the classroom is not going to change education.  Education needs to change on a foundational level.  We need to transform the way we are teaching from the 3 R’s  “RAM, Remember, Regurgitate” and teach our students how to think critically, creatively, and collaboratively.  We need students who are problem solvers.  Technology is always going to feel forced in the traditional classroom because it invites students to create, solve problems, and work together.  In the traditional classroom technology acts as a replacement for a chalk board but does essentially the same old thing.  It may be  more visually appealing but it is not transforming our students.  (More of this in my next issue of iLearn ezine…taking longer to complete than expected!)  Read Mike’s blog, it will inspire you, it will change the way you approach technology, your students, and your classroom.  Next, start a conversation with other educators.  There has got to be a way that we can change education and shape it into something that we can be proud of.  Something that will benefit our students and make them better human beings.  Isn’t that why we entered education in the first place?

 

Tips:  I would love to hear from those of you who read Mike’s blog, what do you think, did it start conversations?   

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Education 1 to 1  in your classroom.