Interactive Whiteboard – Page 15

National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventure

May 26, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments5509 views

What it is: National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventure is the best everything-map site I have seen. The site was created by the Children’s museum of Indianapolis. Maps are presented as the keys to adventure. Students learn to use maps to find their way, share information, look at patterns, and solve problems. There are six excellent interactive games for students to practice putting their math skills to use. Students can explore a pyramid by guiding a robot to hieroglyphs, find sunken treasure, explore Mars, go on an adventure, see GIS in action, and visit Adventure Island. I love the realistic feel of these games, as students explore and guide robots, they get a “live” video feed of where they are navigating. On the National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventures site, you will find information about the Indianapolis exhibit, how to use maps, related map links, and lesson plans. This is one of those websites that my description just won’t do justice to, be sure to check it out!

How to integrate National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventure into the classroom: This website is packed full of fantastic resources, games, and activities involving maps. This is THE website to use when you are teaching students map reading skills. As students navigate through the games, they will learn how to read a legend, practice following written directions, learn about different types of maps, practice giving directions, and problem solving. The games provide an authentic way for students to learn how to use maps. Lessons in the “For Educators” section are wonderful and incorporate the online games. National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventure is ideal as a center on classroom computers or as an individual activity for the lab setting. It could also be used as a whole class activity with an interactive whiteboard or projector, allow each student to take part in the navigation process at the board.

Tips: Be sure to check out the Related Links for more map adventures, games, and activities, you will find fun extras to build map skills.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using National Geographic Maps: Tools for Adventure in your classroom.

Math-A-Thon

May 24, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3368 views

What it is: Math-A-Thon is an excellent math site with a good cause. “Math-A-Thon is a volunteer-based fundraising program for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The program includes a free math curriculum supplement for grades K-8 that students complete after obtaining sponsorships from family and friends.” Students work on math and comprehension skills, age appropriate math problems while building empathy and character. By practicing math, students can raise money and awareness for St. Jude patients who are battling cancer and various other childhood diseases. In addition to the free curriculum and math fun books, Math-A-Thon has entertaining online math games and math character profiles. The Numerators are a math superhero team that is made up of Minus, Symmetry, Octagon and Fraction. The characters have math super powers that will help students as they solve problems in their Funbook and work at defeating evil robots. Each character has a fantastic character description (these remind me of the characters on Grammaropolis). Games on Math-A-Thon include Add Like Mad, Subtraction Action, and Bubble Bugs. Bubble Bugs is an enchanting game where students catch bugs inside bubbles, they practice counting, mouse control, and fine motor skills.

How to integrate Math-A-Thon into the classroom: Math-A-Thon is a website that will help get your students fired up and excited about math and helping others. The games are available for play whether or not you sign up for the full Math-A-Thon challenge. Students in kindergarten through eighth grade can work together to help other kids by working on their math skills. Challenge your class or whole school to raise money for other kids using math as the vehicle. Add Like Mad and Subtraction Action would be fun games for a math center on classroom computers or as a whole class game using an interactive whiteboard. To play either game with the whole class, divide your students into two (or more) teams. Team 1 lines up at the IWB, the first person in the line completes the first problem and then passes play to the next student in line relay style. Teams try to clear the tiles in the least amount of time. After Team 1 has a final time, Team 2 tries to beat it. My students love this kind of friendly competition.

Use the Numerators team characters to learn about math concepts and vocabulary. There are four members of the current team, encourage your students to add to the superhero team with additional math team members. Students can create character profiles and back stories about their math operation superhero. Students could create individual baseball trading cards of their math superhero team member.

Tips: Download a free Funbook sample, these are high quality math workbooks that will have your students problem solving and having fun with math.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math-A-Thon in your classroom.

Captain Coordinate

May 19, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2633 views

What it is: Captain Coordinate is a fun, fully narrated, interactive game that teaches students about geography and scale. The game is one of the “Freebes” from Sherston. Students can choose from three difficulty levels to help Captain Coordinate put up wanted posters in several locations. They are given the scale of the map and can see the coordinates of the map. Students determine how far East, West, North, or South they must go based on the scale to put up the posters.

How to integrate Captain Coordinate into the classroom: Captain Coordinate is a fun way for your students to practice geography, map, and math skills all in one activity. The entire game is narrated making it nice for a center activity or independent computer activity. This is a great little practice site that responds to student input and has built in progress monitoring and immediate feedback for students.

Tips: Sherston has a variety of software for the classroom for purchase, but there are also a lot of free activities to take advantage of online.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Captain Coordinate in your classroom.

Edistorm

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4818 views

What it is: The name Edistorm is a mash-up of the name Thomas Edison and brainstorm, it is inspired by Edison’s idea factories. Edistorm is an incredible brainstorming and collaboration tool that, on the surface, reminds me of Wallwisher. Edistorm has some additional features and abilities that make it very useful in the classroom. Just like Wallwisher, you brainstorm and collaborate using virtual sticky notes. Edistorm gives you a place to organize ideas in a real-time interactive wall. Virtual sticky notes can teach have their own color and can be organized in vertical or horizontal groupings. Edistorms can be created independently or with others in a collaborative effort. Edistorm features an idea bot that works at the bottom of the screen offering suggested ideas based on what students add to the sticky notes in the work space. There are a variety of bots including a rhyming bot, thesaurus, and related words. Public and solo Edistorms are free to create, premium accounts are available for private Edistorms.

How to integrate Edistorm into the classroom: Edistorm offers an exceptional opportunity for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and group ideas. Students can use Edistorm to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, for grouping ideas, and collaborating on group projects. Create an Edistorm for your students and ask them to group like ideas, sort, and expand on thoughts. This could be done for any historical event, literature, science concept, and even phonics. Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Then, they can group words by spelling pattern or common phoneme blends. Create an Edistorm of sticky notes with English words and sticky notes with a foreign language word on them. Students can work together to group words with their meanings. In math, create Edistorms with word problems on one color of sticky note and answers on another set of sticky notes. Students can work to create groups of problems and their solutions. Edistorm can be used for whole class activities using an interactive whiteboard, the class can brainstorm together and collect ideas or use the grouping feature in an activity created by the teacher or students.

Tips: Edistorm requires an email address for sign up. If you teach younger students, you may want to create classroom Edistorm sessions that you have control over.

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

Goldburger To Go: Rube Goldberg Machines

May 14, 2010May 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely7 Comments8979 views

What it is: I am always finding fun activities on PBS kids site, today I ran across Goldburger to Go! Rube Goldberg designed machines that made simple, every day, tasks into complicated activities with the help of his contraptions (think Wallace and Gromit). The students task is to design a machine that will help serve lunch. The machine isn’t working properly and students must discover which pieces of the machine need a little tweaking. As students complete the machine, they can test it out and get hints and clues about could be keeping the machine from working.

How to integrate Goldberger To Go: Rube Goldberg Machines into the classroom: Students are fascinated with machines that work together to perform tasks. Goldburger to Go is a fun way to challenge your students to think about cause and effect and to consider how all the working parts operate together. The puzzle game is a good way to get your students thinking about and discussing different types of energy. Use this website with the whole class using an interactive whiteboard and discuss the types of energy as they occur. Walk your students through the scientific process as they hypothesize what is going to happen and experiment with adjusting the machine accordingly. The website also lends itself nicely to studying different kinds of simple machines. The built in hints help guide stumped students in their thinking. Goldburger to Go would make a fun center activity or even to play individually in a computer lab setting. This is one of those thinking games that my students could spend hours playing.

Tips: Students can create and build their own real-life Goldberg machines with fun activities and suggestions found here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Goldburger to Go: Rube Goldberg Machines in your classroom.

Samarost

May 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely12 Comments1586 views

What it is: Samarost is an intriguing flash website where students are dropped in the middle of a strange new universe where they must solve a variety of challenging puzzles. Students play a character that they must help save from an asteroid collision. There are no instructions on how to play the game, students simply use their best reasoning and deduction to solve the puzzles. With multiple levels, students can put those observational and reasoning skills to good use. I like that there are no instructions or hints about how to play the game, students learn how to play as they interact with the site.

How to integrate Samarost into the classroom: Samarost is an excellent challenge puzzle that will make students think in new ways and work to solve a problem. I like the idea of solving the problems as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. Students can offer each other suggestions and tips about why a course of action might help solve the puzzle. There are enough levels to solve for each student to get a turn at the board. Samarost could also be played on individual computers in a lab setting or on classroom computers as an on-going center activity. If this is a center activity that many students will visit and work on together, you can have each student keep observational notes of what they have done and what they have tried to help the next student who visits the center. Since there are no rules or back story to this site, it would be fun to incorporate it into a creative writing project. Students could create a back story and explanation of what is happening to the character in Samarost.

Tips: This game is best for students who are 9 or older.

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

Moppet Games

May 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments2979 views

What it is: Moppet Games is a website for 3-8 year old kids. There are only a few games on the site right now but they are fun, quick games that students will enjoy. Students can play photo hunt where they discover differences between two sets of pictures (like the picture hunts in Highlights magazine), memory with shapes, hangman, word search, or math worm. The math worm game is one that students will enjoy for practicing their math facts. In the game, students play a worm who must keep from getting eaten by a bird. To move the worm, students must quickly answer simple addition and subtraction problems. As they are working, the bird gets ominously closer, they have to be quick with that fact recall! There are two game levels for math worm: easy and hard. The easy version quizzes on facts less than 10 and the bird moves slowly. In the hard version, the facts are a little more challenging and the bird moves much more quickly toward the worm.

How to integrate Moppet Games into the classroom: I like using these short, flash games for those extra minutes that students have in the classroom. Maybe they finished a project early, are waiting for their turn at a center, or have a few minutes before it is time to pack up for the day and go home… in these instances it is nice to have a game that is fun, keeps students thinking, and is quick to complete. My favorite of the games is the math worm game, it is a fun way to practice simple addition and subtraction without the flashcards. If you have access to an interactive whiteboard, make the math worm game into a whole class relay. Line up students at the board, each student completes a problem and then passes the pen to the next student in line. See if your class can outsmart that hungry bird! Use the other games as a fun incentive to line up quietly. Put one of the activities up on the interactive whiteboard and call students who are quiet and ready to line up to come up and solve part of the puzzle. By the time the puzzle has been completed the class will be lined up and ready to go. The students who miss out on helping to solve the puzzle are those who weren’t following directions or chatting when they shouldn’t be. This has been a great classroom management incentive in my classroom, all of the students want to be involved in the game.

Tips: Moppet Games is advertising free, you have to appreciate that!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Moppet Games in your classroom.

Map a List

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments1877 views

What it is: Map A List is a neat tool that combines the power of Google Spreadsheets and Google Maps or Google Earth. Using Map A List, students can create and customize Google Maps of addresses or locations. In a few easy steps, students can visualize geographic data on a Google Map or in Google Earth. First, students enter a list of addresses or places in a Google Spreadsheet, as addresses are updated or modified in the list, the map is automatically updated. Maps can be saved to be private or public. The maps can be exported as KLM files for viewing in Google Earth.

How to integrate Map a List into the classroom: Map a List would be a great tool for keeping track and mapping a Flat Stanley project. As Flat Stanley visits locations, students can keep track in a Google Spreadsheet and view the results on the map. Map a List would be useful for tracking locations as student read any literature. Track history events and battles using Map a List, helping your students to visualize the learning. Have students note their ancestry in a Google Spreadsheet and turn it into a map. It is so easy to update the spreadsheet and see the results immediately on the map.

Tips: Thanks to @dgrice who noted a drawback to Map a List, even if you have multiple spreadsheet entries for the same location, only one representation will show up on the map.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Map a List in your classroom.

Stage’d

May 4, 2010May 4, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments4840 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.

Kerpoof: Make a StoryBook

April 27, 2010April 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely12 Comments20516 views

What it is: Kerpoof is a website that I use often with my students, I like it so much I have written about it a few times before here and here. Kerpoof has just added a brand new Make a StoryBook tool. Kerpoof’s Make a Storybook is an excellent addition to the already great lineup of Kerpoof tools. Here students can create their own picture and story books. They can use Kerpoof’s backgrounds, props, and characters or draw their own illustrations. Students can write their story in both text boxes and speech bubbles. The interface is extremely user friendly, kids will pick it up in no time! The sidebar has thumbnails of each page that students have created, making it easy to see their progress. Students can save their finished Story Books on their Kerpoof account to share with other students, download the finished Story Book to their computers, or print out their completed stories.

How to integrate Kerpoof’s Make a StoryBook into the classroom: Kerpoof’s Make a StoryBook is a fantastic place for students to “publish” their written work. Students can practice writing fairy tales, poetry, collaborative stories, fables, math based stories, illustrated science journals and non-fiction books. Kerpoof offers the freedom of creativity, students are only limited by their own imaginations. Set up your classroom computers as a publishing center where students can create a finished, published piece of work. Create collaborative class stories using Make a StoryBook on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Print out finished stories and add them to your classroom library for other students to “check out” and read.

Tips: In addition to the new Make a StoryBook, Kerpoof has added another fun activity called Spell a picture. Students can choose a background for their picture and use the letters below to practice spelling words. As they spell, pictures pop up that begin with those letters. As they continue spelling, Kerpoof narrows the pictures down to the one that a student has spelled. For example, when students select “c” pictures of a cow, cat, corn, car, cab, and cap pop up on the scene. As they continue selecting letters, the pictures get more specific and Kerpoof points to the suggested pictures of what has been spelled.

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