Category: Language Arts

Free Reading

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Free Reading2750 views

 

What it is:    Not all technology resources require students on a computer, some technology resources are specifically for you, the teacher, to enhance curriculum or for professional development.  Free Reading is one such site.  This incredible open source instructional program helps you teach early literacy.   Free Reading provides a 40 week scope and sequence of phonemic awareness and phonics activities.  The goals of Free Reading are to help you teach kids to read, to make quality research-based instruction for reading free, and to provide a community of educators with a common goal of reading intervention.  Free Reading is really, truly free… downloads, prints, teaching materials are all completely free!

 

How to integrate Free Reading into the classroom:    Free Reading is ideal for the reading intervention classroom, or for small guided reading groups.  The program is an excellent reading program for kindergarten through third grade and for pullout programs for struggling readers.  Even if you have a reading program in place, check out Free Reading.  You will find excellent tools and materials that can be integrated into the current curriculum.

 

Tips:   Free Reading has some great live sessions, be sure to check one out! (It is, of course, free!)

 

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

Cyberbee Copyright Application

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on Cyberbee Copyright Application3938 views

 

What it is:  Cyberbee Copyright is an online flash application to teach students about copyright laws.  Copyright laws can be difficult to teach and difficult for students to understand.  Cyberbee makes it simple.  The flash site features students raising their hands, each asking a different question about copyright issues.  When students “call” on the cyber student, they get the answer to the question.  The site uses language that is easy for students to understand.  

 

How to integrate Cyberbee Copyright Application into the classroom:    This is a great site to introduce your students to before any research project.  The interactive nature of the site makes it perfect for an interactive whiteboard and whole class participation.  The Cyberbee Copyright Application is a site to bookmark on your classroom, library, and computer lab computers.  Students can refer to the site often to refresh themselves on copyright laws.

 

Tips:  Take a look at the other offerings of Cyberbee for research projects.  You will find web evaluation resources, citing electronic sources, a quick site tool, and more!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Cyberbee Copyright Application in your classroom.

Glogster EDU!

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Glogster EDU!3784 views

 

What it is:  I wrote a post last week about a site called Glogster, since that post Glogster has introduced Glogster EDU!  Glogster for Education is a site that lets students combine graphics, photos, videos, music, and text into a great web 2.0 online poster.  Glogs are an outstanding way to enhance learning, wikis, and blogs.  Glogster EDU offers support and help with creating school accounts and keeping Glogs private.  

 

How to integrate Glogster EDU into the classroom:    As I mentioned last week, Glogster is a creative way for your students to display knowledge.  Students can create Glogs for absolutely any subject.  Glogster is wonderful for book reports, history, math concepts, science, and literature.  The ability to embed Glogs into wikis and blogs is outstanding and makes Glogs even more versatile.

 

Tips: Send Glogster EDU feedback about features you would like to see specifically for education…they have committed to updates based on your feedback!

 

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

Toy Maker

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Toy Maker2421 views

 

What it is: Toy Maker is a website full of free paper toy downloads.  While it isn’t directly using technology in the classroom, this is a great site to visit for the free downloads.  Toy Maker has everything from paper animals (origami type), to awesome math and learning toys, to toys that move, and gift boxes.  This site offers really amazing downloads and teaches students how to follow step by step instructions to create their toy. 

 

How to integrate Toy Maker into the classroom:   The math and learning toys on the Toy Maker site are perfect for integrating into your existing curriculum.  Living in Colorado means a lot of indoor recess days in the winter months, these toys offer excellent activities for those indoor days!  The gift boxes are perfect for holiday gifts home (Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day, etc.) or for exchanging with learning buddies.   Younger students will enjoy creating one of the animals and writing a story to accompany it.

 

Tips: Share this site with parents, they will love these printables for rainy days at home!

 

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

Primary Access

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Primary Access1930 views

What it is:   Primary Access is a tool I learned about today while attending one of the K12 Online conference sessions.  This incredible site has a web-based tool that offers students and teachers simple access to digital images and materials that provides them the opportunity to create personal narratives.  The idea behind the site is that if students are offered primary source documents, they develop better historical thinking skills.  I highly recommend you watch the presentation on k12 Online, to see just how accurate this belief was in a case study of the site.  Students use Primary Access to create digital movies (historical narratives) that help add to meaningful learning experiences.  The site is very simple to use, intuitive enough that even a student (or teacher) who has never created a digital movie would be successful.  

 

How to integrate Primary Access into the classroom:   Use Primary Access as a tool to bring history to life for your students.  Using the site, students can create a short digital movie that explores some event in history.  The digital movie will only be 1-3 minutes in length and can contain images, text, movies, and narration recorded in the students own voice.  Students have a place to write, research, narrate, view, and search a time line and idea map right in Primary Access.  The finished product is educational and entertaining for the creator and viewers.  The results with this site are truly amazing!  It really does bring history to life.

 

Tips: It isn’t obvious how to create a teacher account on Primary Access, to create an account go to http://primaryaccess.org/teacher.

 

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

Apple Field Trips

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Apple Field Trips1798 views

 

What it is:  The Apple Store is offering field trips to k-12 students and schools!  Students can create something amazing on their field trip to the Apple store, or bring in a finished project that they have created and turn the store into a theater to share their work.  Parents, teachers, and friends can attend the event to celebrate student achievement.  Each event can accommodate up to 25 students.  A field trip lasts one hour but more time can be scheduled on an individual basis.  Right now, schools can request up to 3 date options for a field trip at a time.  When you schedule a field trip, Apple takes care of invitations to send home with students, and assigns a contact person to plan the field trip for your school.  Additionally, the teacher who sets up the event receives one year of complementary One to One membership.  Every participating student receives a special Apple t-shirt.  

 

How to integrate an Apple Field Trip into the classroom:   If you have access to Apple computers at your school the create and share field trip option is for you.  Students can work on a project (multimedia is probably best) and use the Apple Field Trip as a place to showcase and share their accomplishments.  If you don’t have access to an Apple lab or don’t have regular access to computers at all, use the field trip as a time for your students to learn and create using the computer.  This is a really amazing FREE opportunity, be sure to take advantage of this offer from Apple!

 

Tips: Right now field trips are only being offered through November 21st. Even if you can’t fit in a field trip before the deadline, be sure to let Apple know what a fabulous idea these field trips are and encourage them to offer future field trip options.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how your Apple Field Trip went.

Grammar Games

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Grammar Games2099 views

 

What it is:  The British Council has created an A-Z website of 69 Grammar
Games to help students learn and practice English grammar rules.  I wouldn’t characterize many of the activities “games” but instead interactive practice.  The Grammar Game website provides students with a quality explanation of each grammar rule and then gives them an activity where they can practice applying those rules.  I think you will be hard pressed to find a grammar rule that was left off this site.  As I was browsing through the Grammar Games site, I found many rules that I don’t recall being taught but knowing them would have been (is) helpful!

 

How to integrate Grammar Games into the classroom:   Use the Grammar Game website as a place for your students to practice grammar rules they are learning in the classroom.  You could also assign each student in your class a different grammar rule.  Students can use Grammar Games to learn about the rule, practice the rule, and then teach the rule to other students.  This is a great place for students to explore and interact with.  Use a projector to introduce a new grammar rule to your students each day or at the beginning of each week.  Students can practice the grammar rule with the activity that accompanies that rule on the classroom computers throughout the week.  

 

Tips: Bookmark this page on your classroom and library computers so students can use it as reference during writing.

 

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

Glogster

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Glogster3564 views

What it is:   Glogster is a great creativity site who’s tag line is “poster yourself”.  A ‘glog’ is basically an online poster web page.  Students can combine text, pictures, graphics, video, and audio to create an interactive online poster.  Glogster has a very simple to use interface.  The final glog can be hosted by Glogster or you can embed it into a wiki, blog, or class web site.  

 

How to integrate Glogster into the classroom:  Glogster is an awesome way for your students to display knowledge.  Instead of creating a poster for a presentation, students can create an interactive glog to display information.  Glogster can be used for history, math, language arts, book reports, science, social studies, and for public service announcements.  In fact, I am having a hard time coming up with a subject that couldn’t use Glogster in some capacity.  Students can create these online posters to display any knowledge or learning.  You really have to see this site, the creativity that it allows for will get your wheels spinning.  Once you start using Glogster with your students, you are going to think of all kinds of new applications.  Because Glogster has the ability to handle audio, students can create podcasts (using Audacity, Garageband, G-Cast or Gabcast) and upload the content into their glog.  So cool!  I really love that students can share their school work and accomplishments online with classmates, family, and friends.  Give your students an authentic audience and their work will dazzle you!

 

Tips: You can check out a quick sample glog that I created here about Internet Safety.

 

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

Zotero

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Zotero2506 views

 

What it is:   Gosh, some days I really wish for a time machine where I could go back to school armed with the tools that students have access to now.  I totally would have ruled the school!  Zotero is one of the tools I would bring back with me.  Zotero is a Firefox (Internet web browser) extension that helps students collect, cite, and manage their Internet research right from the web browser itself.  No hopping back and forth between websites.  Zotero automatically captures all citing information from the website, stores pdfs, images, and whole webpages, has flexible note taking options, has an easy to search library, saves and records in multiple languages, has integration with Microsoft Word and Open Office, and best of all…free!  Man our students are lucky!

 

How to integrate Zotero into the classroom:  Download the Zotero extension for every computer in your school (at the very least make sure this is on the library and classroom computers.)  Teach your students how to use Zotero as they are researching and teach them how to download Zotero to their home computers.  Don’t bend on your citation requirements…they have no more excuses! 🙂

 

Tips: If you don’t currently use Firefox as a web browser, I highly recommend its download.  I have been more than happy with Firefox, it meets all of my needs and requirements for a good browser and once again…free!

 

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

Piki Kids Comic Creator

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Piki Kids Comic Creator5766 views

 

What it is:  Piki Kids Comic Creator is an online comic creator for students.  Students can upload pictures from their computers, or search Flickr for images to use in their comic strip.  The comics are very flexible so students can make them uniquely their own.  Students can choose the number of panels, the look of the panels, color choices, and much more.  When students are finished creating their online Piki Kids comic, they can save them to a gallery, or print out.

 

How to integrate Piki Kids Comic Creator into the classroom:  Students love reading comics, there is something about the interaction with a comic that makes even struggling readers willing to try.  I find that the same is true with writing.  Many kids who struggle to write would dread writing out a story or series of events after reading a book.  But, introduce a comic and suddenly those kids who don’t like writing are writing full stories.  Piki Kids Comic Creator is the perfect way to get your students writing about anything.  Studying dinosaurs?  Have the kids find some clip art of dinosaurs that they can upload to Piki Kids and have them write about what they are learning comic book style.  Learning about the Civil War?  Have the students retell the story as a comic strip.  You will see creativity that you didn’t know your students possessed!  Comic strips are also an excellent place for students to “write” a book report after finishing a book.  Comics can be used in science to show processes (like plant cycle…give those plants a voice!)  Comics can be used in math for students to create word problems for fellow classmates to solve.  Use comics in character education, after teaching a lesson, students can illustrate, comic-style, what that might look like.  From the technology side of things, Piki Kids Comic Creator is a great place to teach kids skills like uploading to a website, searching flickr for pictures, changing font, size, and color.  

 

Tips:  Piki Kids Comic Creator is an excellent tool.  Be aware that there are adwords on the website.  I use these as an opportunity to help my student spot advertisements and talk about why sites include ads on websites.  Everything can be a learning experience!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Piki Kids Comic Creator in your classroom.