practice – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

World Math Day 2011

March 1, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1685 views

What it is: It is March 1st which means that World Math Day is here!! The official competition runs for 48 hours, as long as it is March 1st somewhere in the world. World Math Day is a live worldwide math competition for students. Students login to the World Math Day site and compete against each other in real time to see which country can answer the most mental arithmetic problems the fastest. Each game lasts 60 seconds and students can play up to 100 games. Students who answer the most math problems correctly get featured in the World Math Day hall of fame. There are 5 levels of mental arithmetic competition each with 20 games, there is a something for every student k-6. My students look forward to World Math Day every year. We hold competitions throughout the day in my lab and students play in their classrooms in a 60 second math center rotation. Students ask (beg really) to play on World Math Day at home. When is the last time you had students begging to practice mental arithmetic at home? Registration is easy and quick, during registration, you will also be signed up to have your students participate in World Spelling Day which will be March 3 (2011). Register as many or as few students as you would like (individuals and home school families are also welcome!) This is such a fun day of friendly competition and it gives students the drive to practice, and get fast, at math fact and math fact recall.

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: It couldn’t be easier to get your students involved, just sign them up by registering, pass out usernames and passwords and away you go. Students can play in a computer lab setting (they like to try to login at exactly the same time so they can play against each other in games) or on classroom computers in 60 second rotations. The 60 second time limit on games makes it easy to pass all of your students through a World Math Day center on classroom computers. In addition, students can take their login information home with them to play at home. World Math Day takes place every March, now that you know it is coming, plan to make it an Olympic type event in your classroom. I have been known to hold opening ceremonies in my classroom prior to the event.

Since your students are competing against students from around the world, why not use the competition to practice using a map and identifying countries? Since I had a Promethean board, I did this digitally with a Google Map. Each time a student competed against a country, they would come up to the board and put a “pin” in the map. Don’t have an interactive whiteboard? The paper map and actual pins are just as fun!

Tips: Don’t forget to check back for World Spelling Day- a new competition!

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

Study Blue

February 3, 2011February 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3212 views

What it is: Study Blue is a very handy study tool for high-school and college students that works the way they do. Students can use it to store notes and create flashcards. Study materials are then accessible anywhere that students have an internet connection and even from their phone. Best of all, it is free to sign up and get started! Study Blue helps students study more efficiently by keeping track of what students have already mastered, and what they still need work on. This makes studying focused and productive. Students can easily create flashcards based on their notes and use those flashcards to study online or from their phone. Study Blue is logically organized (by class) making keeping track of study materials easy. Students can invite classmates to add to the notes or study materials from within Study Blue. Students can even upload notes they have taken outside of Study Blue. As students are creating flashcards and notes, they can enter text, audio recordings, and images. Even better, Study Blue has a library of special characters that can be inserted into notes and flashcards-perfect for math and language studying.

How to integrate Study Blue into the classroom: What makes Study Blue so brilliant, is the way that it works for students. The features within Study Blue are robust enough to stay up with students needs, but simple enough that it will get used often. Study Blue is a must-recommend to students. I love the way that Study Blue pays attention to what has already been mastered, and works with students to strengthen study habits. The ability to share within Study Blue means that students can work together to share resources, collaborate, and tackle their studying. It may be worth creating a teacher account to share lecture notes with students via Study Blue. Study Blue is a great way to help your students stay organized, and make the most of their study time in a way that makes sense for them. It is flexible enough to work for any student!

Tips: Students will need an email address to sign up for an account on Study Blue. Study Blue is a free service to use, they also have an upgrade version that lets students compare notes with others, print notes, combine flash card decks, etc.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Study Blue in your classroom

Kidopo

August 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4577 views

What it is: Kidopo is an online coloring application where kids can color online coloring books. The application simulates a real coloring experience (in other words you can color outside the lines and the more you color over a spot, the darker it gets.). There are a lot of coloring pages to choose from with categories like animals, cars and transportation, cartoons, food, toys, holidays, learning, circus, sports, music, nature, occupation, seasons, and more. Kidopo has fun printables for the classroom including coloring sheets, bookmarks, birthday printables, awards and certificates, mazes, writing paper, connect the dots, room decorations, and stickers. You will find a collection of flash games for kids including brain games, card/board games, math games, memory games, puzzle games, science games, and word games. In the craft section of the website are videos that walk students step by step through a craft.

How to integrate Kidopo into your curriculum: The online coloring book on Kidopo is a great way to help primary students practice mouse manipulation. I like that you can color inside or outside of the lines just like in a real coloring book. If you are in a computer lab setting, the Kidopo coloring book is a fun way for students to practice, and a good way for you to gauge where their fine motor skills are.

The printables on Kidopo are perfect for the classroom. Bookmarks are always fun classroom give aways and the awards and certificates are a good way to recognize your students.

The learning games on Kidopo make a good practice center activity on classroom computers. My favorite are the math games that help students with fact recall through fun arcade-type games. In the word games, you will find a fun game called Word Frenzy that will give your students a place to practice typing. Check out the games, some are better than others but they are definitely worth a look!

Tips: One of the downfalls of Kidopo are the advertisements in the sidebar and introducing the games. I use websites with this type of advertising to teach my students about how to spot ads and discuss with them why ads are placed on websites.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Kidopo in your classroom!

Why Drill and Skill are Necessary in Education

February 3, 2010February 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely35 Comments13871 views

I am a very creative person. I love discovering, thinking, designing, and having a finished product to show. I learn this way. Before I can create to demonstrate knowledge, I need to build a good foundational understanding. Lately I have notice that “drill and skill” are getting a bad reputation in the education community. Drill and skill games are sometimes seen as a waste of time, a memorization of unnecessary facts, or a lesser use of computer time. I believe that drill and skill has an important place in education, particularly in the primary years where basics of learning are built. These activities give students an opportunity to practice a skill and become familiar with it before creating with it. Drill and skill games and activities give students room to find patterns and build understanding. Consider a lesson on homophones, we could just ask students to create illustrations of each word using a program like Tux Paint and upload them to a presentation or class wiki. But without some drill and skill practice, students may not have solidified their understanding of the concept. They will most likely complete the assignment, but because they haven’t practiced the skill first, they haven’t had adequate time or interaction with the concept to recognize patterns and make connections. If we begin with some drill and skill, students create with a more solid base of understanding that can then be built upon. We offer the student the light-bulb moment when they start to recognize patterns or connections in content. The mistake that is often made in education is the belaboring of drill and skill. We burn students out with the constant fact practice, never giving the chance to actually do something meaningful with those patterns they have discovered in learning. I am finding that, as in everything in life, learning requires a balance. Don’t completely cut drill and skill from your classroom and don’t go overboard with it. Give students an opportunity to practice the skills that they are learning, and then allow them to do something with them.

Typing Olympics

December 8, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3413 views

This year I am teaching 3rd- 5th grade only. My remaining time is spent helping teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms effectively and supporting our new Promethean boards. I see my students once a week for 35 minutes. Any of you that teach a specials class know that at least 5 minutes of class is spent getting students ready to learn after the hallway transition. This leaves me with 30 minutes with my students. In that 30 minutes I have to teach a lesson and give students an opportunity to practice it on the computer. In a school year I see my students a total of 24 times (that is if we never have a snow day, or lose a day due to field trips or special events). I love teaching my students how to use technology as a tool to help them learn. I do not want to spend my time with them typing. Although typing is a valuable skill for them to learn, there is SO much more than our brand new iMacs can do. My other hang up with spending computer class focused on typing is that I still only see my students 24 times in a school year. Even if we spent every class typing, I don’t feel like this is adequate time to really learn and build touch typing skills.

My solution was to come up with a typing competition that will take one class period. I call it the Typing Olympics. I make a BIG deal out of this day. We have opening ceremonies, olympic fanfare music, and even paper doves. Students compete against each other to find out who is the fastest touch typist with the greatest accuracy in each class. There are two gold winners, one boy and one girl. The winners receive a gold medal in the closing ceremonies along with a break dresscode pass (these are like gold to our students!). There are also silver and bronze winners who receive medals. The students know that the Typing Olympics happens in the spring. We talk in class extensively about how hard athletes like Michael Phelps have to train before the Olympics. At this point I give students the goal to train for our Typing Olympics. This year I decided to create a special website for the training and created a Typing Training Club. Students can visit the site for links to websites that will help build their typing skills. There is also a blog page where I give students suggestions about which keys to practice each week building up to the Typing Olympics. This helps break down practice into a manageable skill each week. We type in class one day prior to the Olympics. The rest is up to them. For my students, a break dress code day is enough incentive to practice typing on their own time. Obviously, some students will take this more seriously than others. For our situation, I think this is our best option for building touch typing skills. I have some students who can type at 53 WPM and some at 8 WPM, but at least we have learned more during the year than just touch typing. I suspect I would get similar results even if we used the 24 classes in the year for typing practice.

What are you doing at your school to build touch typing skills?

Spell Quizzer

May 26, 2009May 26, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2710 views

What it is: Spell Quizzer is software that helps students practice their spelling words each week. Input spelling words into Spell Quizzer and use the software to study spelling words. Spell Quizzer plays back audio of the spelling word you record and waits for the student to type in the word. Students get immediate feedback about how they did. The software re-quizzes students on spelling words that were missed after the first run through. This software costs $29.95 but the creator has generously offered iLearn Technology readers a free copy of the software for one classroom computer. Parents can get a free trial of Spell Quizzer to find out how it works for their family. To get your free copy of Spell Quizzer fill out the contact form here: http://www.SpellQuizzer.com/Contact.htm. Be sure to mention that you are an iLearn Technology educator and use an email address associated with an education institution when requesting a free license.

How to integrate Spell Quizzer into the classroom: Spell Quizzer is excellent software for your classroom computer, record spelling words at the beginning of each week. Give students multiple opportunities to visit the spelling center to practice their words. We all know that not all parents help their kids study spelling, this is a great way to ensure that all students get some practice in.

Tips: Be sure to share this software idea with parents. Busy parents will appreciate the help with spelling practice! *Spell Quizzer is a PC only software currently…hopefully there will be a Mac version in the future.

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

TutPup

April 2, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2212 views

What it is: TutPup is an outstanding, free math and spelling practice website. At TutPup students can compete in fun, educational games against kids from all over the world live. The site reminds me a lot of the World Math Day competition. Students are matched up with other students from around the world where they play fact games and compete in real time to see who best knows their stuff. I love that TutPup is available to students all year long (unlike the World Math Day site), it doesn’t collect personal information about students, and there are several games to choose from each with multiple levels. TutPup helps students build math skills in the areas of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, and a mixture of those skills. TutPup also helps students build spelling skills with a spelling game, students listen to a word and have to spell it before their opponent. The site is highly motivating, takes into account different learning levels, and builds a variety of skills.

How to integrate TutPup into the classroom: My students absolutely love this website. Any time they can take part in a little friendly competition they are ready to compete. The great thing about TutPup is that it can be differentiated for your different levels of learners. Each student can play games at their own ability level. This keeps the lower math students engaged and feeling successful and the higher level students challenged enough to hold their interest. These types of sites have my students asking, “can I play this game at home too?” When have you ever had a student ask if they could practice math or spelling facts at home?! They truly love the competition of this site and get the added benefit of increasing their math fact recall skills. Use TutPup as a math center in the classroom where students can practice math facts, or a practice center in the literacy block for additional spelling practice. This is also a fun whole class activity with an interactive whiteboard or projector, students can call out the answers to the questions as a class for the teacher to enter. You won’t have to assign this site for homework, students will ask to play from home. Tell parents about this site as an alternative to flash card math fact practice.

Tips: TutPup offers teacher accounts and student accounts for free. However, right now their are no available login ID’s. I contacted TutPup about this dilemma and they are working on a solution. In the mean time, students can access all the games as a guest player. I’ll update this post when TutPup has solved the registration issues.

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

Toy Theater

March 19, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3394 views

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

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

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

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

Lure of the Labyrinth

February 20, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2481 views

What it is: Lure of the Labyrinth is a interactive math game created by Fable Vision, MPT, and MIT. In the game underground monsters come to life as students plunge into a shadowy factory on a mission to rescue a missing pet. Students take on a monster persona and disguise themselves as monster insiders to maneuver through math problems. As students work through the game, they will work with proportions, fractions, ratios, variables, equations, numbers, and operations.

How to integrate Lure of the Labyrinth into the classroom: Lure of the Labyrinth can be played individually or in team play. This game is excellent for students who may not otherwise feel successful in math. The game encourages critical thinking and problem solving and is aligned to math standards. This would be a great way for students to work through problems and show what they know.

Tips: Be sure to stop off in the educator section on Lure of the Labyrinth for an explanation of the game, lesson plans, standards, and the math behind each puzzle that needs to be solved. With all of the resources and guidance, this is a fail proof game to introduce in your math class!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Lure of the Labryinth in your classroom.

ict Numeracy Games

August 25, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1902 views

What it is: ict Numeracy Games are created by educator James Barrett. These flash games are excellent for primary and beginning secondary elementary students to practice math. You will find game themes for number facts, counting, bridging through ten, time, shape and measures, greater than and less than, multiplication and rounding, money (this is UK money), addition, subtraction, odd and even, place values, doubles, and equivalence. Each math or numeracy theme has several games to play for practice. Each is interactive and has instructions for integrating the game into the classroom. All great ideas!

How to integrate ict Numeracy Games into the classroom: The ict Numeracy Games are perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard or projector and whole class instruction. Several of the games are also great practice for students working on individual computers. The games are all very engaging. They teach and provide practice for basic math skills. This is a great stop when you are looking for an interactive activity to practice a math concept. The descriptions next to the game are very helpful and you are bound to find new ideas for integrating technology into your classroom.

Tips: There are advertisements on this site but they are unobtrusive, your students probably won’t even notice. The games are high quality enough that this shouldn’t be a deterrent.

Leave a comment and share how you are using ict Numeracy Games in your classroom.