online – Page 3 – iLearn Technology

Google Me Business Card

September 15, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4847 views

What it is: Google Me Business Card is a free template download from Ji Lee. The template is a PDF file of a blank Google Search query; enter any name, subject or topic and print out your own customized Google Me Business Card.

How to integrate Google Me Business Cards into your curriculum: These business cards could be used in the classroom during a discussion of digital footprints. Students can create their own Google Me cards to act as a reminder that what they do online has staying power. (This is an important reminder for teachers too!) The cards could also be used as a fun way to assign research topics; enter the topic in the search box and let students draw a card to find out what their assignment is.

Tips: To add your own text: In Acrobat Professional, open the PDF and go to Forms, Form Tools, Text field. Now you can add a text field to enter your own text.

In Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign, place the card on a new document and type your text with the text tool.

Take a screen shot of the image and import it into a word document program (Pages is my Word Document program of choice) Add a text box over the search box and enter your text.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Google Me Business Card in your classroom!

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That

September 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4010 views

What it is: The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That is a new PBS TV series and website that ignites an excitement about science for primary students. The series is based on the Beginner Book Collection “The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library”. The goal of the series and online resources is to “cultivate positive views about science and scientists among the next generation-the children who will become tomorrow’s citizens and innovators-and help teachers and families build communities of science explorers.” I don’t know about you, but I love the idea of building communities of explorers, science or otherwise! In the TV series, The Cat in the Hat, Sally, and Nick set off on a science adventure. In one episode, the trio flies with birds to discover why they migrate. In another, they are taking a snowcat to the Arctic to explore freezing and melting. As the Cat in the Hat guides them, the children solve problems by engaging in science inquiry. Right now students can watch video clips on The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That website, play related games, find activities and coloring pages to print, and play games with snapshots from the program. Right now adventures on the site include science concepts like bird migration, camouflage, and melting/freezing.

How to integrate The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That into your curriculum: If you are a regular visitor of my blog, you know that I am a big Dr. Seuss fan (see pictures of Dr. Seuss inspired classroom theme here). While this site isn’t strictly Seuss, it does a remarkable job of bringing The Cat in the Hat to life with a focus on scientific inquiry. Use the videos on the site to introduce your students to new science concepts including migration, camouflage, and melting/freezing (my guess is more will be added as the series takes off). Students can engage in the inquiry process along with Sally and Nick and then practice the newly acquired concept in the games section. This would be a fun site to use as a science center that students visit on classroom computers during a coordinating unit. Students can view videos prior to exploring the concept as background knowledge, or watch the videos after engaging in their own inquiry process on the topic and compare the journey of inquiry taken. Did Sally and Nick come to the same conclusions?

The printables on the site include fun mazes, coloring pages, matching vocabulary, and even bookmarks, stickers, and other paper crafts. One of the print outs in the Paper Craft Sections is a Cat in the Hat frame that would be great for framing pictures of students engaging in their own scientific inquiry.

Tips: Be sure to click on the teacher button to find an Explorer’s Guide where you can find tips for engaging young students in scientific inquiry. You will also find tips for using the online video in your classroom, a list of Cat in the Hat science books, and find video enhanced activities.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That in your classroom!

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16 of the Best Internet Safety Sites for Kids

August 26, 2010Kelly Tenkely31 Comments36690 views

This is the time of year when I am usually introducing Internet Safety to my students. Internet safety is something I really stress in the computer lab. We hit it strong in the beginning of the year and revisit it several times throughout the rest of the year. If you are using the Internet with students, Internet safety needs to be covered.

Below are the tried and true sites that the students enjoy each year.

1. Netsmartz Kids– Netsmartz is a big hit every year with elementary students. It teaches Internet safety through fun characters, games, songs, and videos.

2. Disney’s Surfswell Island– an interactive island where students learn about Internet safety with Disney characters. Students go on an Indiana Jones type adventure with Mickey and his friends as they learn about Internet safety.

3. Privacy Playground- The First Adventure of the Three Cyber Pigs- a game designed for ages 8-10 where students help the Cyber Pigs navigate websites, marketing plys, spam, and have a close encounter with an unfriendly wolf.

4. Safety Land– An interactive city that teaches Internet safety. Students help the Safety land hero catch a bad Internet character by searching buildings in the city and answering Internet safety questions.

5. Safe Surfing with Dongle– Students learn about email, chat, playing games, and having fun online in this interactive movie/game.

6. iKeep Safe– A kid friendly Internet safety program that follows a cat named Faux Paw and her adventures in the Internet. The online books and videos teach kids basic Internet safety, how to handle cyber bullying, balancing real life with screen time, and the risks and dangers of downloading. These are high quality!

7. Welcome to the Web– An interactive site that teaches students about the Internet through challenges and activities. Students learn basic concept of the Internet, navigating and visiting websites, staying safe online, all about browsers, copyright, and how to search.

8. Faux Paw and the Dangerous Download– Another video from iKeep Safe, in it, Faux Paw learns that downloading is a great way to get information, but only when it is done the right way. The video teaches a valuable lesson about illegal file sharing.

9. Internet Safety with Professor Garfield– Lesson on online safety, cyberbullying, and fact or opinion and forms of media. Each section includes a video, game, and quiz.

10. The Carnegie Cyber Academy- Students join the Cyber Academy and complete several missions to equip them to be good cyber citizens and defend the Internet.

11. Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb- This short video helps students learn cyberspace rules and online safety tips.

12. Think U Know Cyber Cafe- a virtual environment where students can practice their online safety smarts. In the cafe, students help virtual kids make good choices when using email, texting, instant messaging, web browsing, creating an online personal space, and chatting in a chat room.

13. NS Teens– Older students learn about cyberbullying, email, IM, chatrooms, gaming, revealing too much, social networking, and other Internet safety tips through videos, games, and comics online.

14. The Bully Roundup– An interactive online board game where students test their bully smarts.

15. Child Net- games, resources, and more for primary and secondary students to learn about Internet safety.

16. Stop Bullying Now!– A site to teach students how to deal with a bully through videos, games, and tips.

How about you, do you have favorite Internet Safety sites that I missed?

Think U Know Cyber Cafe

June 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely7 Comments7874 views

What it is: Think U Know Cyber Cafe is a virtual environment where students can practice their online safety smarts. In the cafe, students will help virtual kids make good choices when using email, texting, instant messaging, web browsing, creating an online personal space, and chatting in a chat room. Students are guided through a variety of scenarios where they must help the virtual kids make the right decisions about using the Internet.

How to integrate Think U Know Cyber Cafe into the classroom: Kids spend an enormous amount of their time online. Just because they use the Internet a lot, doesn’t mean that they are good users of the Internet. Many students haven’t had adequate practice with protecting their online identity, keeping track of their digital footprints, or using proper netiquette. Students need to learn the appropriate way to use online spaces. The Think U Know Cyber Cafe is a great place for students to practice and learn how to stay safe online. Use the Cyber Cafe scenarios to guide a whole class discussion with a projector or interactive whiteboard. Discuss the different options that are presented and why one answer is better than the others. Students can also complete a tour of the Cyber Cafe on their own in a computer lab setting. Internet safety should be an ongoing discussion, we can’t assume that students will get it all the first time. Visit the cafe throughout the year for a refresher.

Tips: Check out the rest of the Think U Know website for fantastic activities and information for kids from 5-16.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Think U Know Cyber Cafe in your classroom.

Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb

March 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments6169 views

What it is: Phineas and Ferb are popular Disney channel characters. They have a new short video to help students learn cyberspace rules and online safety tips. Disney, together with Common Sense Media, created this fun short film to get kids thinking about cyber safety. Tips in the video include: Be careful what you put online, you never know who is going to see it; just because it’s online, doesn’t mean it’s true; not everyone is who they say they are; if you wouldn’t do it in person, you shouldn’t do it online; and get outside and spend time with real friends. These are great tips, but delivered by Phineas and Ferb they will be remembered by your students.

How to integrate Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb into the classroom: Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb is an excellent place to get the discussion about online safety and netiquette started in your classroom. The short video gives them a great jumping off point for thinking about the time they spend online. Your students could “Laser inscribe” some additional tips in a paint or word processing program. Post your students tips for online safety and cyberspace rules on a classroom bulletin board or on a Wallwisher wall. I like how short and sweet this video is, every classroom can fit in a short lesson (or several) during the year. Below the video, you can download a question sheet for students to quiz their parents about. This extends the conversation at home and encourages parents to think about their child’s online safety.

Tips: If you have colleagues that are good sports, your students could also quiz other teachers in the building with the Phineas and Ferb Cyberspace Rules of the Road quiz.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Common Sense with Phineas and Ferb in your classroom.

Create Your Own Storybook with Learn Direct

November 4, 2009Kelly Tenkely3 Comments15916 views

What it is: Kids can be the star in these online storybooks with Learn Direct. Students can type in their name and be a character in the book. On each page their are options for customizing the story. Students can adjust pictures and certain sentences in throughout the story. After students have customized the book it can be read online, saved as a pdf or printed out. These fun interactive stories will make reading time fun for your beginning readers (kindergarten through 2nd grade). Learn Direct also features a fun little virtual world where students can play word and reading games. Students have to solve word puzzles to navigate through the world.

How to integrate Create Your Own Storybook with Learn Direct into the classroom: These online stories are a lot of fun. The ability to customize them will make them a winner in the classroom. Use the Storybook with an interactive whiteboard and have students take turns customizing the story. Set up the Storybook on classroom computers as a center activity during literacy or reading time. Students can save or print out the books to share with others or take home. The word games in the virtual world would be fun to play and solve as a whole class with the interactive whiteboard or play in pairs on classroom computers as a center.

Tips: There are some great tips and resources for parents about reading with their kids on the Learn Direct site. Check out the Scared of Words? page and then pass it on to your parents.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Create Your Own Storybook with Learn Direct in your classroom.

Tikatok

March 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments5352 views

What it is: Tikatok is a great website to excite your students about writing. With Tikatok each of your students can become a published author, create, share, and gain an authentic audience for their writing and illustrations, and receive writing support through the StorySparks system. StorySparks are a framework that gives students prompts at the bottom of their screen as they are writing their story. They are tips such as “the beginning of the story is where we define a setting, where does your story take place?” StorySparks come in different levels depending on your student ability. Using Tikatok, students can build literacy skills such as: writing, story structure, reading, comprehension, imagination, creativity, character development, story development, critical thinking, organization, drafting, and technology skills (typing, uploading pictures, saving, collaboration, and communication). Students have options when creating a story, they can choose a topic and idea to start a story or they can start from scratch with a blank story. The first option allows students to get help with the hardest part of story creation, thinking of an idea and beginning a story. Students fill in blanks about their story and get a basic story that they can embellish and add to. In the second option, students create a story from scratch. Teachers can register classes and keep track of the stories their students are creating. Teachers can also send students messages and comment on stories. There is also an option for students to work collaboratively on a story. Students can adjust their stories template, colors, text, and images. When students are finished, their story can be viewed online, printed out from a PDF file, or published and purchased for $15-20.

How to integrate Tikatok into the classroom: Tikatok is an excellent tool to bring into your writing classroom. It can be used as a publishing center for finished pieces of writing, as a collaborative writing project, or as a place to keep all written work. The ability for students to use story starters is outstanding for those kiddos who are forever saying “I don’t know what to write about”. They absolutely won’t be able to use that excuse here! Even if you don’t have the ability for all of your students to write stories on Tikatok because of limited computer access, use the story idea starters using a projector as students write in journals. I love the ability for teachers to keep track of all student writing in one place. Since Tikatok is online, students can work on their stories from any Internet connected computer making it especially useful for those students who are slow or those students who like to write novels. 🙂 When students are finished writing stories, have a reading day where students can read other student stories and leave comments and feedback. Only have access to one or two classroom computers? Have the whole class take part in a collaborative story. I love Tikatok for several reasons but the ability to view ‘published’ work online in book form is handy for the environment (it is green), for families who want to see their childs work, and the sense of authentic audience that it brings students. Student work is always higher quality when they know their audience base is larger than the teacher! I also love that the stories can be saved as PDF files and printed for classroom libraries or the school library. The ability to purchase bound books is motivating for many students and parents love to have their kids work officially published. In my classroom I will leave the stories online and send home a flier to parents about how to purchase a bound book if they would like to. So neat!

Tips: Tikatok has the ability to upload student illustrations, if you don’t have a scanner at your school, students artwork can be sent to Tikatok and will be uploaded within 24 hours. I like the idea of using a computer based drawing tool like Skitch for illustrations. Sign up for a teacher account today, it is so simple to get started!

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

Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes

January 23, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment10059 views

What it is: I ran across this site yesterday as I was searching for a Geometry site for a teacher. Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes is a great website for students to learn about 3D shapes, surface area and volume, Euler’s theorem, and platonic solids. Each section gives students an interactive environment where they can manipulate 3D objects as they learn. In the surface and area section, students can learn how to calculate area of a 3D object and then have an interactive space to practice calculating the area of 3D objects. At the end of the site there is a place where students can put their knowledge to the test and apply what they have learned. This is an outstanding alternative to learning from a text book. The Interactives site gives students what a text book can’t, interaction with 3D shapes and the ability to rotate and manipulate the shapes. Throughout the site, math words are highlighted in red, students can click on these words and are taken to a glossary that defines the word for them.

How to integrate Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes into the classroom: Use the Interactives Geometry 3D Shape site to introduce 3D shapes, area, Euler’s Theorem, and platonic solids to your students. This is a great way for your students to learn geometry, especially 3D geometry, in an environment where they can interact with and manipulate 3D shapes. This site could be used with a projector, interactive whiteboard, as a math center in the one computer classroom, or individually in a lab setting. Use the interactive portions with an interactive whiteboard to manipulate shapes for students to see as you are teaching new concepts about 3D shapes. This would be a wonderful site to point your students to for geometry homwork help, students can use it to model and define concepts they may find difficult as they work.

Tips: The Test Your Skills section gives students 15 problems to complete that are accompanied by photos, illustrations, or animations. I wish my geometry tests looked like this! I am such a visual person, I think I would have been so much more successful.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes in your classroom.

Myths and Legends

January 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4235 views

What it is: Myths and Legends is an awesome, free, online digital story telling website. I heard about the website through @kjarrett. The story creator lets students combine pictures that they compose with clip art or images that they upload, sound, and words to create a digital story. The stories can be saved, printed, and shared. Students can record themselves reading the story aloud and even add video! The website is pretty comprehensive as far as online digital storytelling tools go, I am impressed!

How to integrate Myths and Legends into the classroom: Myths and Legends is a great way to get your students interested and eager to write. The digital story telling format gives students a unique opportunity to express themselves creatively. Many of your reluctant writers will jump at the chance to create a story in this manner because it doesn’t “feel” like writing. They don’t get stuck looking at that blank piece of paper and feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead of them. I have found that students write more, and the quality of work is better when they create digital stories that are shared later with the whole class. In the one or two computer classroom you can set up a digital storytelling writing center that students can work at, in the lab setting whole classes can create at the same time, and as a whole class with an interactive whiteboard or projector, the entire class can create a story together.

Tips: Each student should sign up and register for a free account so that they can save their work. As a teacher you can also sign up for a school account where you can login and review all of your students work online.

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

Aviary Toucan

December 26, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2352 views

What it is: Aviary is a website on a mission to make creativity more accessible. They do this by making powerful image software available online (no download required) and with free versions of the online software. Aviary has four different offerings: Peacock, Phoenix, Toucan, and Raven. Because each tool does something different, I am going to break it down into four posts.

Toucan is the third application in the Aviary suite. Toucan is a color palette chooser. It is a simple tool but combined with the other Aviary applications is pretty powerful for the creativity process. Choose colors for your palette and then adjust hue, saturation, hue, light, CMYK, and RGB. The color palette helps students learn about relationships between colors on the color wheel. As students manipulate and choose colors from the color wheel, they can save to the clip board. When color palettes are in the clipboard, students can filter out colors in their palette or expand colors. There is also an image chooser where students can choose an image and then pick colors directly from the image. The last cool tool in Toucan is a color deficiency tool where you can see what people who are color blind might see when they are viewing your color palette (especially helpful for website creation!). After you create a color palette, it can be imported into Pheonix or Peacock. In the color chooser in Pheonix, you can click a special button to import your swatches from Toucan. Neat!

How to integrate Toucan into the classroom: Aviary Toucan is a wonderful addition to any art or science class studying color. The color wheel and adjustment options make it easy to see and understand color relationships as well as concepts like hue, tint, and saturation. This would be a great tool for students to explore individually, recording observations about hue, tint, saturation, etc. as they discover how each affects color. Toucan would also be useful for whole class instruction on color with a projector. The ability to create color palettes is a great tie in for the other Aviary applications as well as for website design. I love the color deficiency tool that allows you to see what the colors in your color palette look like to someone with color blindness. This is a nice way to teach students about color blindness and useful when creating websites, advertisements, etc.

Tips: Aviary Phoenix, Peacock, and Toucan are both in beta right now. Be sure to check out the Toucan overview video to learn more about how Toucan works. The video breaks down the application nicely.

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