Math – Page 16 – iLearn Technology

Stage’d

May 4, 2010May 4, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments4846 views

What it is: I am constantly learning about cool new website tools for the classroom from my PLN (Personal Learning Network), today I learned about an animated comic creator called Stage’d from fellow Blogging Alliance member @MrR0gers. Stage’d is a tool that helps students to tell digital stories in a new 3-d way. Students can create a stage full of characters and dialogue as if they are directing their own digital play. They can choose characters, costumes, animations, set design and provide characters with dialog. When the 3-d comic has been saved, it can be emailed or linked to with a unique url. Stage’d is perfect for use in any classroom, to save a comic requires no personal identifying information or even an email address. All students have to do is type in the name of the director (first name only or a pseudonym).

How to integrate Stage’d into the classroom: Stage’d is a seriously fun creation tool, students are going to love directing their own 3-d comic plays. Stage’d makes a great digital story telling tool.

Students can:

Publish their own fiction (or non-fiction) writing pieces as a 3-d play
Re-tell a story to demonstrate comprehension
Illustrate vocabulary words
Illustrate historical events
Create mock public service announcements
Create mocumentaries
“Interview” an important person of interest
Create short persuasive video commercials
Illustrate story problems in math
Practice a foreign language dialogue and vocabulary

Stage’d is very easy to use and the results are absolutely fantastic. Create your own Stage’d creations to introduce a new topic or concept to your students. This is a fun introduction that will grab their attention in a hurry.

Tips: The creators of Stage’d are constantly adding new features and options so check back often.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Stage’d in your classroom.

Google Search Stories Video Creator

April 12, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments10342 views

What it is: Do you remember Google’s advertisement at the 2010 Superbowl? It was called Google Search Stories and showed a story of Parsian Love through a series of Google searches. Brilliant. Now you and your students can create your very own Google Search story with Google Search Stories Video Creator. There are three steps to creating your own Google Story: 1. Write the story, 2. Add Music, 3. Preview and Upload. As you write your story, you can choose to search by web, blog, images, maps, news, product search, and books.

How to integrate Google Search Stories Video Creator into the classroom: Google Search story is an innovative way for students to display understanding or tell a story. This tool teaches students to get to the heart of the story and tell it in a new, creative way. Students can demonstrate their understanding of history, current events, a book that they have read, or a math sequence.

First, students come up with 7 events to search, paying close attention to story structure. They should consider mixing web, images, maps, and blogs. This will make the story more interesting. Next, students choose music to fit the theme of their story. It can be comedic, dramatic, romantic, country, horror, family, or sci-fi. Finally, students can preview their story and share it with the world.

Think about sharing the life of a historical figure, or the story of Romeo and Juliet, or the scientific method in an experiment, or the story of their digital footprint, or a fictional story that the student created. Instead of writing out a traditional outline for a story, why not turn it into a Google Story? The possibilities of this tool are nearly endless! If you are introducing new information or learning to your class, consider doing it through a Google Story. Watch the story as a class and find out what your students already know, what they need to learn, and what they want to know. You could also create a Google Story as a class after new learning. As you teach, ask students to jot down thoughts about what they could add to their search story to sum up the learning. This will keep students engaged and thinking critically about the new material. After the video has been completed, students can access it from home as an outline of what they learned in class.

Tips: Check out the Tips offered for starting a story, these tips will give you, and your students, a great jumping off point.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Search Stories in your classroom.

LEGO Smart Creativity Contest

April 1, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2288 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.

The Zimmer Twins

March 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5447 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 Comments6208 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.

Google Street View Gallery

March 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments2955 views

What it is: Google Street Gallery is a must add bookmark for any classroom. This is a collection of Google Street views of famous landmarks, buildings, and art, sport, and entertainment venues from around the world. Landmarks includes places such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Space Needle, Gateway Arch, CN Tower, Tokyo Tower, Plaza de Cibeles, Eiffel Tower, Arthur’s Seat, The Colosseum, Arc de Triomphe, and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. In Famous Buildings students can see the street view of Westminster Abbey, City Hall, St. George’s Hall, Coventry Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, Sagrada Familia, Chateau de Chillon, Belem Tower, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Taipei 101. In Art, sport and entertainment students can tour Angel of the North, Coronation Street, Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth, Tate Britain, Wales Millennium Centre, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and The Louvre Museum. Not only can students explore the street view of all these places, they can also see users pictures embedded right in the street view. Each place can be viewed on Google Maps with the click of a button. Students can also quickly find more information about any of the landmarks by clicking “more information”. Students are taken to a Google Search that shows the location on a Google map, gives details, photos, videos, reviews, tells about nearby places, and gives more information about the place.

How to integrate Google Street View Gallery into the classroom: Google Street View Gallery makes it easy to whisk your students away on virtual adventures around the world. Bring your geography, history, and social studies lessons to life by letting students take a virtual field trip with Google Street Views. Using an interactive whiteboard or projector, your students will feel like they have visited landmarks around the world during class. Allow students to be the “tour guides” and navigate the street view and pictures associated. Make sure to view the Google Maps so that students can get a sense of where each landmark is located and practice their map skills. Google Street views can be used during math to study architecture shapes, angles, etc. in real world settings.

Display a Google Street View on your projector or interactive whiteboard and ask students to imagine they have just visited this landmark or building and write a story about what happened there. The street views make excellent writing prompts.

Tips: I love using Google Street Views with an interactive whiteboard. Students really get the sense of what it is like to stand on the street in the middle of Prague or London and take a look around. It is fun to imagine the stories that take place every day on those streets.

Google Street View Gallery is not a comprehensive collection of available Google Street Views, it is a great collection of famous landmarks and buildings, grouped together for easy access.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Street View Gallery in your classroom.

Math Live

March 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments4137 views

What it is: In honor of World Math Day (which takes place tomorrow 3/3/10) I decided to pass on a fantastic math website that I learned about from The Techie Classroom Blog (one of the amazing blogs taking part in the edublogger alliance). Math Live has a collection of animated cartoons that teach students math concepts. 3rd through 6th grade students can learn about numbers, patterns and relations, shape and space, and statistics and probability. These cartoons are extremely high quality and teach key math concepts through story. Students can watch videos on place value, multiples, factors, primes, proper fractions, equivalent fractions, comparing and ordering fractions, comparing and ordering decimals, addition and subtraction of decimals, multiplication of whole numbers, division of whole numbers, multiplication and division of decimals, patterns, area and perimeter, volume, time, triangles, polygons, sides, tessellations, ordered pairs, displaying data, probability and estimating. The videos show students real-world applications of math concepts. The videos are chunked really well and stop periodically so that students can think about and discuss their thoughts on the math concept. The videos have outstanding visuals that explain the concepts succinctly. Each video is accompanied by an Activity Sheet (read worksheet), an assessment, and Teacher/Parent Notes. The Teacher Notes include a great section with “Common mistakes students make” to help teachers avoid common pitfalls when teaching. They also include great ideas for additional practice of the concepts. Math Live gives students an excellent animated, interactive math glossary. As students are viewing a video lesson, they can access either the master glossary (with all of the sites vocabulary) or visit the lesson glossary (with only the vocabulary from the lesson). I am really impressed with the glossary.

How to integrate Math Live into the classroom: Math is a hard subject for many students. It can be difficult for students to understand how math relates to real life. Math Live videos are a great way to help students break down math into manageable pieces. It illustrates each concept very well. Students who struggle with math are going to LOVE this site. It allows them to pause, rewind, and revisit concepts as many times as they need to so that they can master a concept. These videos would be an excellent way to introduce new math concepts to the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard. They can also be used as a math center on classroom computers or individually in the computer lab. Keep Math Live handy for students struggling with these concepts or to quickly access math vocabulary in the glossary.

The list of concepts covered is limited, as an extension activity, have students create their own math movie using a tool like Xtranormal or Kerpoof Movie.

Tips: Send Math Live home to parents, these videos could be a tremendous help for homework time. Often parents struggle with explaining math to their children, this could be a big help!

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

Neo K12

March 1, 2010March 1, 2010Kelly Tenkely13 Comments4780 views

What it is: Neo K12 is an outstanding online collection of educational videos, lessons and games for students in grades k-12. Neo K12 believes that “kids learn best by ‘seeing’ the real world.” They have created this site with that belief in mind. Neo K12 has cataloged the best free online educational videos from the Internet in one place. Each video is watched and reviewed by k-12 educators to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness for students. Subjects include physical science, life science, human body, earth and space, social studies, math, English (including phonics, stories, and grammar), and fun videos such as time lapse, slow motion, arts and crafts, learn magic, music lessons, and sports lessons. In addition to videos, Neo K12 has Web 2.0 tools. The School Presentation tool is a mashup of Flickr and Wikipedia, and allows users to create and share presentations online. To create a presentation, students choose pictures for their presentation from Flickr, read and article about the subject from Wikipedia, and then add text to their presentation. When the presentation is finished, it can be printed or viewed online as a slideshow. Quizzes, games, and puzzles on Neo K12 are an interactive way to improve learning. Teachers can create and share videos playlists complete with notes and instructions for their students.

How to integrate Neo K12 into the classroom: Videos provide excellent opportunities for learning, they make it possible for kids to visualize and build a model in their minds. This helps them to better understand key concepts and can stimulate curiosity in a subject. When students or teachers search a subject, they are given a list of related videos, quizzes, games, and puzzles. When a teacher creates an account, they can create a complete assignment within Neo K12 that includes instructions and notes for the students. Students can complete the assignment by watching videos, playing related games and creating a School Presentation that shows understanding. The presentations are easy enough for even young students to create. Primary students can skip reading the Wikipedia article and just choose pictures and add some captions about facts they learned from a video they viewed. These videos are a great way to introduce new learning, expand on previous learning, or to spark curiosity in a topic.

Many of the educational games and puzzles would be great for an interactive whiteboard as whole class activities. They could, of course, also be used as classroom center activities, or completed individually in the computer lab. The jigsaw puzzles can be used as teasers to introduce a new topic. The jigsaw puzzles use incredible images from Flickr. Have students take turns coming up to the interactive whiteboard to put puzzle pieces together. Students waiting at their seats can take guesses about what new learning you will be doing in class.

Tips: Create a free Neo K12 account, you will receive a dashboard where you can store videos, games, presentations, quizzes, and add notes and instructions. You get a unique URL for your dashboard to share.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Neo K12 in your classroom.

A Lifetime of Color

February 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3078 views

What it is: A Lifetime of Color is a fun interactive environment where students can learn about, and study, art and artists. in these “Art Edventures”, students will discover how great artists made their famous works and learn tips and techniques for create their own masterpieces. A Lifetime of Color is split into activities for primary and intermediate students. In the primary section, students will learn about line and shape, landscapes, color, architecture, industrial design, and portraits. In the intermediate section, students will learn about the history of art, the art of crime detection, Leonardo, color theory, architecture, design and portraits. In the study section of the Lifetime of Color site, students can explore a timeline, artists, and access a glossary. The activities section includes technique demos, projects, and featured artists. The lesson plans are cross curricular, combining art with science, social studies, math, and reading.

How to integrate A Lifetime of Color into the classroom: One of the saddest developments to come out of the budget crisis is the cutting of the arts from education. The arts are so important to learning and development. Art asks students to think differently, creatively, innovatively. Art is a necessary focus in education. A Lifetime of Color is an excellent site to integrate art into a variety of subjects. With ideas for the science, social studies, math, and reading classroom, there are no excuses for not infusing your classroom with art. The activities lead and guide students to look at the world in new ways, to consider detail, and to interpret what they are viewing. This is an excellent site for the art classroom but has activities that will easily extend and enrich any classroom. Use the activities with the whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector or set up A Lifetime of Color as a center on your classroom computers for students to visit.

Tips: Make sure to take a look at the lesson plans for your grade level, there are some fantastic ideas for introducing art to your curriculum.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using A Lifetime of Color in your classroom.

World Math Day 2010

February 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3067 views

What it is: Hooray!! It is World Math Day time! This year World Math Day will be held on March 3, 2010. For those of you who are unfamiliar with World Math Day, it is a day when students from around the world compete in an online environment in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many as 500 games, earning points for every correct answer. The students who answer the most questions show up in the Hall of Fame. This is an absolutely free event to take part in. Students can train for World Math Day every day leading up to March 3rd by participating in arithmetic competition. For those of you home school readers, World Math Day is also open and free to you! The competition is designed for students 5-18 years old. This year has a little bit of a new format (the change is fantastic!) with multi-levels for all groups. Teachers, parents and media are also invited to participate for the first time. Last year 2 million students from 204 countries participated and correctly answered more than 4 million questions!!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day is a fun competition to involve your students in. It helps build mental arithmetic and numeracy. Students from around the world compete in this competition to find out which country has the top mathematicians. Students have a great time working to get their country to the top (nothing like a little National pride!). My students beg to be involved in World Math Day each year. We spend extra time in the computer lab and on classroom computers preparing for the day. Students answer mental math questions appropriate to their age level. This is a phenomenal way to get some fact practice in!

We make a big deal out of World Math Day and let students have an extended math period to compete on March 3rd. You could use World Math Day as a Math Olympics for your class and have and opening and closing ceremony for your class, school, or representing your country.

Tie World Math Day into your social studies curriculum. As students compete against other students from around the world, the other student is represented by a flag. My students are always very curious to learn more about the other countries and cultures represented. It would also be fun to start a map in Google Earth where you put place markers on the countries that students have competed with.

The platform is open, register your students and start training today!

Tips: If you would like to find out more about past World Math Day competitions check out my posts 2009 here and 2008 here. There are rumors of a World Math Day iPod App coming soon, check back with the official site for more information.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.