Category: Resource type

Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download5540 views

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What it is: I love iKeep Safe and have blogged about it in the past as an excellent introduction and support for Internet Safety.  I learned today about a new Faux Paw book and video called “Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download”.  In Faux Paw the Techno Cat’s new adventure, she learns that downloading is a great way to get information, but only when it is done the right way.  Faux Paw uses a risky new file sharing program to download a song and learns a lesson the hard way.  The video is extremely relevant to the online world that our kids live in and teaches a valuable lesson about illegal file sharing.  You can download the pdf version of the book or watch the video (created specifically for iPods but can be viewed with a Quick Time player as well).  Picture 1

How to integrate Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download into the classroom: This is a well made video, book, and story to share with elementary students.  The cartoon is easy to understand and will help younger students grasp the difficult concept of illegal downloading and the problems it can cause.  Often students can’t discern between safe and non-safe websites and why getting something for “free” isn’t always a good idea.  Use this video as part of your Internet safety unit, as an introduction to copyright, or as part of your character education program.

Tips: The Faux Paw series is worth owning.  You can purchase books and DVDs for your library.  Students will love being able to check out these books to read again and again.

Related Resources: iKeep Safe Faux Paw the Techno Cat Adventures in the Internet

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download in your classroom.

eduperience

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on eduperience2095 views

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What it is: eduperience is an easy blogging tool for students and teachers based on the WordPress platform.  “Start a blog in seconds with unlimited storage, bandwidth, premium themes and plugins.  It is too easy to publish Your academic calendar, newsletter, video, podcast, and photo.”  You can choose to use an eduperience sub domain or your own domain hosting.  Automated weekly and monthly backup of your blogs ensures safety.  You can choose to earn up to 90% revenue on advertisements shown on your blog.  eduperience is a great blogging platform for both students and teachers.

How to integrate eduperience into the classroom: eduperience is an easy way for you to get a classroom blog up and running.  Use a classroom blog to post current assignments, class discussions, calendars, links to other websites relevant to classroom learning, and notes to your students.  Students can use blogs as writing journals, an online portfolio of written work, or to collaborate with other students.  Students tend to write more and with higher quality in an online environment.  This is due in part to a greater sense of audience.  Students know that teachers, students, and parents may be reading their writing.  Blogs are also a great addition to the science classroom where students can reflect on experiments and labs.

Tips: eduperience offers outstanding 24/7 support.  This makes it simple to get started with blogging, even if you haven never done it before!

Related Resources: think.com, Live Binders, edWeb 2.0, Weebly, Word Press, Blogger,

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

DomoNation

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on DomoNation4334 views

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What it is: DomoNation is a free animation website that is powered by Go! Animate.  The site is very intuitive to use and makes impressive cartoon animations.  Students can create animations with backdrops, characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects.  Students can create on scene or several to make up their animation.    The interface is very simple to learn, the drag and drop platform will be familiar to students.  To make their cartoon come to life, each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by clicking on the character and choosing from a drop down menu.  Special effects, such as weather occurrences or zooming, are simple to add to the project.  Animations can be saved for personal or public view on the DomoNation site. This is an impressive little web application that makes students the director of their very own movie.

How to integrate DomoNation into the classroom: Allow students to present their knowledge creatively using DomoNation instead of requiring the traditional report, diorama, or poster plastered with pictures and information.  Students can create an impressive alternative book report by creating an animated book talk, interviewing a character from the story, or re-creating an important scene in the story.  Students can display their knowledge about a historical figure by “interviewing” the historical person of interest or an eye-witness of a historical event.  DomoNation would be a great platform for creating public service announcements (how about the importance of hand washing with the H1N1 outbreak?) or short video commercials that persuade in a debate. Students can write a screen play and then transform it into an  animation. Animations are also a great way to illustrate vocabulary words and story problems in math.  In the foreign language classroom, students can create short cartoons practicing the new vocabulary they are learning.   The possibilities are endless!  Hold a DomoNation premier party day in your classroom so that students can watch each other’s finished animations and learn from their peers.

Tips: Direct your students to the Create page of DomoNation, some of the content created by other users may not be appropriate for your school.

Related Resources: Kerpoof, Shidonni, XtraNormal, DoInk

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

Reading Logs

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Reading Logs2518 views

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What it is: Reading Logs is a free website that makes reading, spelling, and vocabulary simplified.  Reading Logs is a great way to organize student reading, spelling, and vocabulary practice.  Learning material can be uploaded by teachers to be accessed by students online.  Once the material is online, students can use the electronic reading log, vocabulary card creator, and and use the listen and spell practice system.  Teachers can upload reading lists and reading goals for their class.  These can be weekly or monthly goals and can be set up to track the number of minutes or the number of books read.  Online competitions can be setup by the teacher (example: first student to read a certain number of minutes).  Teachers can quickly post a vocabulary list where students can look up words with the online dictionary and add definitions to the cards.  The cards can be studied online or downloaded as a pdf to print out.  With the listen and spell system, teachers can upload spelling lists for students to practice.  Students click on a button to listen to the spelling word and practice spelling it.  They receive immediate feedback from the program.  Reading Logs tracks students reading logs and updates teachers with progress.

How to integrate Reading Logs into the classroom: The Reading Logs website is a great place to organize your classroom.  It eliminates the need for paper spelling lists, vocabulary cards, and reading logs. Parents and students will appreciate the one stop shop for these common weekly tasks.  I am not normally a fan of reading logs, I think they can stress students out about reading unnecessarily (readicide!), but this online reading log works more as a motivator and goal setter for reading.  I like that the focus is not on the number of pages read but on what books that a student is reading.  This could encourage great conversation about reading between students who are reading similar books, or between the teacher and student.  The focus is on encouraging the love of reading and not on the task of reading.  The spelling practice center is great for vocabulary development, pronunciation, and self guided learning of spelling words.  The vocabulary card creator allows students to easily create vocabulary cards, look up words in the online dictionary, and practice the words.  I like this site for student and home connections and for the self guided learning and pacing.  The spelling portion of this site could be great for English language learners because they will hear the pronunciation of words and can look up the definitions within the program.

Tips: When you register for this free website, you will get some great printouts explaining the site to parents and students.

Related Resources: Spelling City, Shelfari, Book Adventure

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

Picturing the Thirties

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Picturing the Thirties2891 views

What it is: Picturing the Thirties is another great virtual web activity from the Smithsonian.  This virtual museum exhibit teaches students about the 1930’s through eight exhibitions.  Students will learn about the Great Depression, The New Deal, The Country, Industry, Labor, The City, Leisure, and American People in the 1930’s.  Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum are supplemented with other primary sources such as photographs, newsreels, and artist memorabilia.  Students can explore the virtual exhibits complete with museum guides that explain each exhibit to students.  The feature presentation of the museum is a series of interviews of abstract artists describing the 1930’s.  User created documentaries can be viewed from the theater’s balcony.  Students can visit the theater’s projection booth where they can find primary access and a movie making tutorial.

How to integrate Picturing the Thirties into the classroom: I am always amazed by the virtual content that the Smithsonian has produced.  Picturing the Thirties is an incredible virtual field trip to museum exhibits that will put your students face to face with primary resources that will help them understand the events and culture of the 1930’s.  This is SO much better than learning from a textbook!  This interactive site is a great way for students to explore the 1930’s and learn at their own pace.  This site is perfect for the computer lab environment where every student has access to a computer.  You could also take a class virtual field trip to the museum using an interactive whiteboard or a projector.

Tips: Make sure that students have headphones or speakers for this website, there is quite a bit of audio content.

Related Resources: Smithsonian Virtual Museum, UPM Virtual Forest, efield Trips

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Picturing the Thirties in your classroom.

Math Apprentice

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Math Apprentice1779 views

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What it is: Math Apprentice is an awesome flash site that shows kids how math is used in the real world, with real world jobs.  Students can explore math through games that feature bicycle designers, biologists, artists, mechanics, inventors, doctors, engineers, astronomers, game designers, programmers, chefs, veterinarians, sportscasters, and meteorologists.  Students can explore the math of these jobs as a math apprentice by selecting a character and cruising around a virtual world where they can visit places of business where math happens.  The character describes how they use math and provides a fun interactive activity that gives students a chance to practice using the math.

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How to integrate Math Apprentice into the classroom: Math Apprentice is a fantastic site that teaches students about how math is used in the real world.  Students are often asking “where will I use this?” of math.  This site answers those questions through a fun virtual world.  Kids can explore first hand how math is used and then act as an apprentice and solve problems.  Use this website in the computer lab where students can explore the virtual world individually and work through the math at their own pace.

Tips: To begin playing the Math Apprentice games, you have to click on “Explore the Math” button on the bottom of the homepage.

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

Flight Day with Google Earth

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Flight Day with Google Earth2939 views

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What it is: Every year the second grade students at CHC participate in Flight Day.  Each class ‘flies’ to a different country where they learn about the customs, architecture, and geographical landmarks of the country.  This year we spruced up flight day with Google Earth.  I created tours in Google Earth so that our students could virtually ‘fly’ from Denver International Airport to their destination (France, Germany, and Mexico).  Before landing in the destination country, we toured famous buildings, landmarks, and points of interest in the destination country.  Flight day begins with a re-arranging of the classroom.  Chairs are arranged in rows to simulate an airplane.  Desks surround the chairs and act as the airplane enclosure.  Students prepare for flight day by creating suitcases (that looks like the flag of the destination country) and passports for their travel.  Students have to go through security before they can board the plane.  There bags are searched and they have to take off their shoes and be wanded.  We have amazing parents who volunteer to act as the pilots of the plane and stewardesses on the flight.  The parents are great sports dressing the part and following a script we have written.  The Promethean boards displayed the Google Earth tour that I pre recorded for teachers.  Each flight leaves from our airport.  The features in Google Earth are incredible, using the 3D buildings option in Google Earth, students could actually see the white peaks of DIA as they waited on the tarmac.  The plane picks them up from a terminal and the flight begins.  Before flight day I had teachers create an itinerary of places they would like to see before the plane landed.   I based all tours on this itinerary.  Students flew to destinations in France such as the Eiffel Tower, Arch De Triumph, Notre Dame, Versailles, Saint Chappelle Cathedral, and the Louvre.  With the 3D buildings and Google Street view options selected, we were able to see each place in 3D and then see a real 360* panorama view of each stop.  During the flight, we provided students with in flight entertainment videos.  Our videos came from Discovery Streaming and the links were embedded right in Google Earth.  The videos were all related to the final destination country, we found some great videos of kids talking about what school is like in each country.  Students were also served an in flight meal.  Students traveling to France enjoyed a croissant, baguette with brie cheese, grapes, and sparkling lemonade.  Each meal came served in a little box topped with the flag of the destination country and a note that said “Thank you for flying Air France.”  When the flight ended, our Google Earth tour finished by landing at the airport of the destination country.  Students disembarked the plane and got their passports stamped.  Students then pretended to visit the local library and were read a story about the country.  The students who ‘traveled’ to Mexico were greeted by Spanish speakers and singers as they exited the plane (our 7th grade Spanish students came down to make the experience more authentic).  This was a very neat day for our students and is SO much better than reading about the countries they visited from a social studies text book.  Tomorrow students will create crafts of the country and sample some of the local cuisine.  They will watch some more clips from Discovery Streaming, learn a few phrases in new languages, and see some more pictures of the places they are visiting.  You can view our tour of France here:  France (To get the full effect make sure that you have turned on the 3D Buildings, Street view, Borders and Labels, and Terrain under Layers in Google Earth.)

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How to create a Google Earth Tour: Google Earth is a truly incredible tool.  If you aren’t using Google Earth in your classroom, you should be!  It is a free download here: Google Earth 5. To create a tour of your own:  Before you begin, come up with an itinerary of places you would like to visit.

1.  Open Google Earth (I worked in Google Earth 5) and create a new Folder under “Places” 2.  Under the Search type in your first destination. (Ours was DIA, our local airport).  You can search by business name, city, or specific address.  Google Earth will search for places that match your search criteria and drop place markers on the map.  When you find the place that you want to add, zoom in and click on the “add placemark button” (the yellow pushpin in the top menu).

3.  When you add a pushpin, the place will show up under your places folder as your first destination.  Continue searching and adding placemarks for each of the stops you would like to make on your journey.  You can add notes, links, etc. when you create a placemark.  Make sure that the view of the feature is exactly the way you would like students to view it when they play the tour.  In other words, if you want students to actually see the 3D model of the Eiffel tower, make sure that when you place your placemark you have zoomed into the map and adjusted the screen.

4.  Under “Layers” you can select the features you would like to show up on your map.  For our flight day I wanted students to be able to see the 3D buildings, Street View, Borders and Labels, and Terrain.  You can select as many or few layers as you would like.

5.  Finally you will play and record your tour.  To play the tour click on the video camera play button which is located directly under the Places panel.  This will automatically play your journey.  To record your tour, click on the “record” button which is located in the top menu button and looks like a video camera with a red record dot.  As I recorded, I would pause the play back of the tour and zoom in and around buildings and feature landmarks.  When you press play again, the tour continues.

6.  Play the tour for students.  When we played the tour for students we paused often so that we could talk about the different architecture and land features that we were seeing.  Pausing also gave us the opportunity to “fly” into the street view so that students could see what it would look like to actually stand on the street corner and look around.  Amazing is the only word that comes to mind!  (As a side note, the Louvre has an incredible 360* tour, be sure to check it out!)

Tips: Google Earth is preset to ‘fly’ quickly between destinations, because we wanted the students to feel like they were actually on a flight, and to get a feel for flying over the ocean to reach a destination I changed the Preferences in Google Earth.  I delayed the amount of time that it took to reach the destination and tweaked a few other settings to get the tour to run the way we needed it to.  The tours can be saved as a place and even emailed to other team teachers directly from Google Earth.

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

Story Cove

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Story Cove2648 views

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What it is: Story Cove- A World of Stories is an excellent collection of stories from around the world.  The folktales come from a variety of cultures and places sharing timeless lessons and universal values.  The stories are shared in two ways, as an audio story only, or as a movie.  The stories have been collected from countries around the world including: Africa, Asia, Americas, Australia, and Europe.  Students can explore the world through the stories told there.    Each story is accompanied by a variety of activities including coloring pages, mazes, printable masks, etc.  There is a teacher page where you can find lesson plans for each story that extend the story elements to explore the original story with projects and activities that encourage interaction with other students, parents, and teachers.  Each story has a lesson for students in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade.

How to integrate Story Cove- A World of Stories into the classroom: Story Cove- A World of Stories is a fun way for students to learn about other cultures and countries through the stories told there.  It provides a great tie in between geography, language arts, and social studies.  As you are teaching about other countries, use Story Cove as a way for students to understand more about the people who live there.  Because the stories have universal values, students will be able to relate them to their own lives.  Story Cove can be used with a projector or interactive whiteboard for whole class participation or set up as a story center on classroom computers.  These stories are great for building reading strategies like making connections, summarizing, synthesizing, questioning, and evaluating.  They are also helpful for language and vocabulary building.

Tips: If you can’t find a place to directly tie in Story Cove in your curriculum, consider introducing a new folktale to students each week of the school year.  Use the Story Cove story as a writing prompt for journal writing.

Related Resources: Speakaboos

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

Rhyme Race

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Rhyme Race2232 views

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What it is: Rhyme Race is a four player (or four team) interactive rhyming game that helps promote a better understanding of rhyming.  Players roll a die to move around the game board.  Along the way, students are asked to come up with rhyming words. If the player lands on a spot of the same color as their game piece, they are given an audio rhyming word.  A sound recording of a word is played and the player has to come up with a rhyming word.  If the player lands on a purple space they are given a picture rhyme clue.  A picture of a word is shown and the player must come up with a rhyming word.  The first player (or team) to land on an end space wins.

How to integrate Rhyme Race into the classroom: Rhyme Race is an excellent interactive game for an interactive whiteboard.  Split students into 4 teams, students in each team will rotate rolling the die and answering with a rhyme. This is also a great way for students to practice rhyming in small groups at a classroom computer as a center activity.  If you have students who are struggling with rhyming, they can play this game as a single player.

Tips: Rhyme Race is a Flash game.  Make sure that your Flash player is up-to-date before playing with students.

Related Resources: Little Animals Activity Centre, Rhymer

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

5 Best Virtual Field Trips

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on 5 Best Virtual Field Trips2822 views

Cross posted at:

5 BEST Virtual Field Trips

Kelly Tenkely | TheApple.com

Field trips can be amazing learning experiences.   They provide students with the opportunity to actively participate in education, offering learning possibilities that aren’t readily available in the classroom.  Unfortunately, it isn’t always practical or possible to take students on field trips.  Tight budgets, location, transportation, time, and resource restrictions can keep your students school-bound.  Virtual field trips can fill this void.  Virtual field trips have come a long way from the page of links they used to be.  Now students can explore the world with simulations that are so realistic, they will believe they have left the classroom.  Below are five of the best virtual field trips on the web:

Virtual Field Trip #1:
Smithsonian Museum

Not all cities have access to an incredible natural history museum like the Smithsonian.  This virtual tour is the next best thing to taking an actual field trip to the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian Virtual Museum is truly remarkable.  Students can ‘step’ into the exhibits and take a tour through the entire museum in a 360 degree environment.  The virtual museum is made up of panoramic pictures of the actual exhibits inside the Smithsonian.  Using their mouse, students “walk” through the museum room by room. They can zoom in, look left and right, look up and down, and walk forward or backward.  Camera icons throughout the museum show students hot spots where they can get close to an exhibit panel.  As students explore the museum, they will see: the ocean hall, ancient seas, dinosaurs, early life, fossils, plants, mammals, African cultures, the Ice Age, Western cultures, reptiles, insects, butterflies, bones, geology, gems, and minerals.

Students can explore the various exhibits on individual computers in a computer lab setting or life size with an interactive whiteboard or a projector.  Split your students into groups and assign them an exhibit to explore and take notes on.  After students have explored and become the ‘expert’ on their exhibit, project the Virtual Smithsonian Museum on an interactive whiteboard/screen.  Explore the museum as a class. As you enter an exhibit, invite the group who explored the exhibit to act as tour guides.

Even if you have access to a natural history museum for field trips, the Smithsonian Virtual Museum is still incredibly useful.  Prepare for a field trip to your local history museum by visiting the virtual museum.  After the field trip, students can compare and contrast what they saw at the local museum with the Smithsonian.

Virtual Field Trip #2:
UPM Forest Life

A field trip to a forest is a wonderful way to learn about tree species, ecosystems, habitats, and animals.   The UPM Forest Life virtual field trip will have your students believing that they are actually in a forest smelling pine trees.

UPM Forest Life aims to teach about forest sustainability.  It does this by inviting students to take a virtual hike through a forest.  The forest is made up of panoramic pictures of an actual forest.  Students can zoom in, look up and down, left and right, and ‘walk’ through the forest with their mouse.  Students start their field trip with a virtual tour guide.  As students ‘hike’ through the forest, they will click on hot spots that reveal videos of forest life, pictures with information, and sounds.  Throughout the forest are opportunities for learning about forest planning, harvesting, regeneration, re-spacing, thinning, transport, recreation, training, berry picking, bird watching, hunting, fishing, natural forests, valuable habitats, deadwood, forest structure, water, native tree species, and the various animals that call a forest home.   This virtual field trip is impressive on individual computers and amazing when viewed as a whole class on an interactive whiteboard or with a projector.  Allow students to take turns acting as forest rangers. They can click on various videos, pictures, and information embedded in the forest.  Students can record their observations of the forest, trees, animals, and sounds they experience in an observation journal.

Virtual Field Trip #3:
Moon in Google Earth

The moon is no longer off limits for field trips!  Students can visit the moon virtually using Moon view in Google Earth.  Google Earth makes for excellent virtual trips around the world; in Google Earth 5.0 you can also take your students to the moon.

Moon in Google Earth makes it possible for students to take tours of Apollo missions to the moon, from takeoff to landing – all narrated by Apollo astronauts.  Students can explore 3-D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360-degree photos of astronaut footprints on the moon, watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions, and, of course, explore the surface of the moon.   Take your virtual field trip to the moon as a class with an interactive whiteboard/projector, or send students on their own mission to the moon using student computers.  Assign groups of students to an Apollo mission to explore.  When the ‘astronauts’ return to earth, they can tell other students about their mission to the moon or write a newspaper article about their journey.

Virtual Field Trip #4:
Planet in Action

Real field trips don’t allow for adventures like a helicopter ride above the Grand Canyon, an expedition to Mount St. Helens, or a helicopter tour of Manhattan or Disneyland Paris.  Planet in Action makes all of these possible with the help of Google Earth.

Planet in Action is an outstanding way to bring learning to life.  Students can take a guided tour of the Grand Canyon, Mount St. Helens, Manhattan, or Disneyland Paris or take control and explore on their own.  These journeys are incredibly lifelike on an interactive whiteboard/projector.  Take your whole class on a virtual helicopter ride above famous landmarks that they are learning about in class.  First, watch the recorded tour and discuss the different landmarks as you see them.  Then ‘hire’ a student helicopter ‘pilot’ who can navigate a trip for the class.  On individual computers, students can create postcards of their virtual field trip or create their own virtual tour that can be saved and shared with others or with Planet in Action.  As students fly above the landmarks, a Google Map will show them exactly where they are in the virtual tour.

Virtual Field Trip #5:
AR Sights

Most students probably won’t have the ability to travel to the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower for a field trip.

Augmented Reality makes it possible to see these landmarks, and more, using Google Earth in 3-D.

Augmented Reality requires a webcam, browser add-on, and a printout provided by the AR Sights website.

After a simple graphic is printed out, it is held up to a webcam.  Students will see a landmark spring to life right before their eyes on the computer screen.  As the printout is tilted, twisted, and moved the landmark moves accordingly.  Students can view the famous landmark in 360-degrees, 3-D, and up close.  It is truly incredible!

AR Sights makes it possible to view Google Earth right in a web browser and then zoom into places of interest, looking at them in 3-D with Augmented Reality.  Students can ‘fly’ around Google Earth, when they find a place of interest, they will hold the printout up to the camera and explore the landmark.  This is an amazing visual method for learning about geography and famous landmarks.  If you only have access to one webcam, use it with a computer connected to a projector or interactive whiteboard for whole class exploration.

Geography, budget, and time are no longer field trip restrictions.  With virtual field trips, students can explore the universe using a computer.  These simulations are so realistic that your students will believe they have traveled the universe, actively participating in their learning.