interactive – Page 5 – iLearn Technology

Switcheroo Zoo

March 3, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2589 views

What it is: Switcheroo Zoo is a site I learned about from Kevin Bibo on his outstanding blog Cal Teacher Blog. Switcheroo Zoo has fun interactive games and activities such as “Make New Animals” where students can create their own animal combinations, “Build an Online Habitat” where students choose animals and match them to the correct environment, “Switch Zoo Puzzles”, “Where do I Live” where students help return rescued animals to their homes, “Sound Match” where students match the animal song to the correct animal, “Meerkat Grab-a-Snack” where students help feed a Meerkat by catching food, and “Catch the Moment” where students take ‘pictures’ of wildlife. Switcheroo Zoo also has short films, sound clips, and photographs about animals for students to watch and listen to. Your students also have the opportunity to become a “Switch Zoo Guide” by completing the Switch Zoo Quest. Students play nine fun animal related games and activities to become a guide. When they finish, they will receive a Switch Zoo certificate of merit, a guide badge, and are added to the list of offical guides.

How to integrate Switcheroo Zoo into the classroom: Switcheroo Zoo is an awesome website for students to explore to learn more about animals and wildlife. This would be a great site to visit when studying animals and their habitats. There are three educational animal-themed games on the site that teach about animal characteristics and habitats. Switcheroo Zoo has an educational section that includes lesson plans for art, science, creative writing, and persuasive writing. In second grade at the school where I teach, students complete animal reports as an introduction to research. Switcheroo Zoo has on-site research with 142 animal profiles, a US endangered species map, and stories about unusual animal feats on a Zookeeper’s blog. This site is packed full of fun, useful activities, lessons, and resources! In a computer lab setting, students can research and play games individual. In the one or two classroom computer setting, students can visit Switcheroo Zoo as a science resource center. With the projector or an interactive whiteboard, complete the activities as a whole class or show the animal videos to your whole class.

Tips: This site does have some Google ads. I use these as an opportunity to teach my students how to spot ads on a website and discuss what the purpose of advertisements is.

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

Math Doodles

February 23, 2009Kelly Tenkely5 Comments2649 views

What it is: Math Doodles is a set of math games created by Daren Carstens that help students learn the most important aspect of math…it can be fun! Daren created Math Doodles as a place where students can “discover the joy, wonder, and fun of mathematics.” I have to admit that I would not have classified math as a “fun” subject. However, I think that math can and should be a fun time of exploration and learning for students. Math Doodles provides this place. Kids can interact with math by playing games like Connect the Sums, Number Jump, Polyomino Shift, Double Traits, Sums Stacker, Hydro Maze, Time Shuffle, and Angel Fish (coming soon). These games encourage students to interact with math and learning….and they are a lot of fun too!

How to integrate Math Doodles into the classroom: Math Doodles is a collection of amazing games for elementary school students. Students will learn through play (the best way!) Math Doodles would be an excellent math center in the one or two computer classroom. Students could play the games in teams or individually. In the lab setting students could work on skills specific to their individual learning needs in the math classroom. Math Doodles could also be used with an interactive whiteboard for whole class participation. Split your class into teams and take turns solving the games. Math Doodles games would be a fun way to start math class as a pre-thinking activity.

Tips: Right now Math Doodles games are only available in Demo version (since this version is free to use that suits me well!), but it looks like eventually the full version of each game will be available for purchase.

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

The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults

February 17, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3817 views

What it is: Digital Vaults reminds me of Museum Box that I wrote about a few weeks ago. The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources. Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them. Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie. Students can also create a Pathway Challenge. In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records. Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges. There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge. Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue. Very cool!

How to integrate Digital Vaults into the classroom: This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history. While the site may be too hard for primary elementary students to use on their own, the Lincoln Pathway Challenge could be used with an interactive whiteboard with the teacher guiding the challenge. Teachers could also create a unique challenge that directly matches your curriculum for students to complete. The poster, movie, and create your own Pathway Challenge are an engaging way for students to learn about history in a hands on approach. Give students a direction to go and then give them time to collect resources, and create their digital history vault. This is not history as I remember it…in fact, I’m sure I would know much, much more about history if I were involved in my learning this way! This is so much better than learning history from an outdated text book, the Pathway Challenges are like virtual field trips through history.

Tips: I learned about this awesome website from Free Technology for Teachers, a great blog!

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

Awesome Stories

February 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3598 views

What it is: Awesome Stories is a neat website that looks to me like it could be the future of text books. Awesome Stories has great primary source materials separated by categories such as biographies, disasters, trials, flicks, history, inspiration, religion and sports. Throughout the text there are hyperlinks to additional content. The links are separated by color so you know that when you see a certain color it will open a primary source image, video, narration, slide shows, artifact, manuscript, document, etc. You can become a member of Awesome Stories for free, when you do you will gain access to additional features like an extensive image data base, narrated stories, lesson plans, and a free newsletter from Awesome Stories. This is essentially an interactive textbook. I love that the site hits different learning styles in its presentation of information.

How to integrate Awesome Stories into the classroom: Awesome Stories would be a great supplement to traditional text books. It makes finding primary source materials easy! With the audio clips, narration, video, and slide shows linked right within the reading material, students are going to get a much richer understanding of a topic or material being studied. I love that struggling readers can have all the text narrated to read along with. Many of the videos, audio, and slide shows would be excellent to share with the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard.

Tips: Sign up for free to see the full scope of Awesome Stories, you will be amazed at the amount of content here! The lesson plans to use with the site are wonderful!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Awesome Stories in your classroom.

Audible Kids

February 5, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4715 views

What it is: Audible Kids was a really exciting find for me today because I am writing an article for the upcoming issue of iLearn magazine about iPods in education. Audible Kids is a website that engages kids in storytelling through audiobooks. Kids can download books, read and post reviews for each book, and share their favorites with others. Kids can discover books searching by keyword, age group, category, award winners, and more. Students can listen to samples of the stories before they download them with a handy in-browser play feature. While Audible Kids is not a totally free site, they do have some excellent audiobooks that are free to download. Roscoe Orman (of Sesame Street) is one of the cheif storytellers on Audible Kids. Enhanced Audible Kids audiobooks have pictures with the story, perfect for the iPod Touch or a computer center. For free downloads click here. Other books range in price from about $0.99 to $20.00.

How to integrate Audible Kids into the classroom: Because free products for the classroom excited me the most, I will focus on how you can use the free downloads in your classroom. Use Audible Kids downloads for an iPod listening center, or classroom computer listening center. Students can register for free Audible Kids accounts and discuss the stories in an online environment with their own classmates as well as children around the world. Use the stories as a place for students to discover rich storytelling. Encourage them to listen for voice, emphasis, tone, rhythm as the story is read to them. Students who learn to listen for these and are exposed to excellent storytellers, will become more expressive readers themselves. Students could listen to the audiobooks and use a computer drawing program (or just paper and crayon) to draw their own pictures to go along with the story. This is a great way for kids to learn visualization reading strategies. If you want to take it a step further, pictures could be gathered into iPhoto or a slideshow accompanied by the audio. Students will be the illustrator for the audiobooks!

Tips: If you are in a Mac environment, download Skitch. Your sudents can draw their pictures on the computer as they listen and they can easily be uploaded to the Skitch website or into iPhoto, Keynote, or Garage Band to create their own illustrated audiobook. So neat! Audible Kids has the option of giving the gift of audiobooks. If this is something you are serious about making a part of your classroom, consider asking parents to donate audiobooks to your classroom library.

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

The Tale of Despereaux Adventure

February 4, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2851 views

What it is: I learned about this awesome interactive site from Larry Ferlazzo’s blog. It is just too good to pass up blogging about it! This interactive story book lets students create their own tale in the Kingdom of Dor. The students become a part of the story as they create a character version of themselves that takes part in the story adventure. Students can choose to have interactive games and puzzles included in their story. The story is a virtual pop-up book, it is read to students and they can read along with subtitles. Along the way, students have to help solve problems in the story by playing an interactive game.

How to integrate The Tale of Despereaux Adventure into the classroom: The Tale of Despereaux Adventure is a really impressive site. This would be a great introduction to the book by Kate DiCamillo. The site would act as a teaser for the book that would have students eager to read. Even if you aren’t reading The Tale of Despereaux, this is a fun way to get students interested in reading (most of them won’t even realize that they are reading!) Set up a Tale of Despereaux center on your classroom computer during reading time for a month. Each day two new students can visit the center and take part in their own adventure. This site could also be used with an interactive whiteboard or projector for the students to create a whole class story. If students choose to read the story with the interactive games, they will be stopped along the way to complete puzzle and logic games throughout the story. These type of games are great to get kids thinking creatively and outside of the box. The story can be viewed in different languages, this would be a fun site for foreign language classes to visit in the language they are studying!

Tips: One thing I don’t love about this site is that it asks students to enter their first and last name to be part of the story. I teach my students never to put their last name online. I ask my students to make up a last name when creating their story.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Tale of Despereaux Adventure in your classroom.

The Periodic Table of Videos

January 27, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2784 views

So today is going to be another whirl wind of posts day. I am cleaning out my Google Notebook saved sites, hopefully you will find one of these awesome resources helpful for your classroom!

What it is: If I had access to the Periodic Table of Videos when I was going through chemistry, my understanding would have exponentially increased! This site literally looks like a periodic table, when a student clicks on one of the elements, a video opens up that explains the element. So neat! The site was created by the University of Nottingham, who is continually updating the videos with the latest and greatest experiments and explanations. There is a section with extra videos, a collection of science bloopers that are entertaining.

How to integrate The Periodic Table of Videos into the classroom: The Periodic Table of Videos is a great way to introduce the elements to students. I remember spending hours memorizing the Periodic Table but never really understood the properties of the elements. This site will help your students get a grasp on exactly what the different elements do. This is also a great way to bring those elements into your room that aren’t practical or readily available. Use this with your chemistry classes in the computer lab setting or with a projector.

Tips: The Features section has some extra videos on topics such as experiments and noble gases.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Periodic Table of Videos in your classroom.

Splat Square

January 26, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment13492 views

What it is: Splat Square is one of those very simple websites that you will end up using weekly in your math classroom. Splat Square is a 100 grid that starts out blank. There are different ‘splat’ colors on the right side of the screen. Choose a color and then click on the square, ‘splat’, the number is revealed with a splatter of colored paint. The interactive grid is wonderful for several applications in the math classroom.

How to integrate Splat Square into the classroom: Splat Square is perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard. Teach students to count by 2, 5, 10, etc. by ‘splatting’ those spaces as you count aloud as a class. Teach students the difference between odd and even numbers by color coding the 100 grid, prime numbers, skip counting, and ordinal counting can also be practiced with Splat Square. This is a great grid to use with the whole class with the students interacting with the grid on an interactive whiteboard. It can be used as a interactive math help center or individually in a lab setting. I like using the grid for whole class math games, I call out what rule I want the teams to follow and they can take turns at the board.

Tips: Share this one with parents, it can be a big help for your visual learners during math homework.

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

Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes

January 23, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment10041 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.

Literactive

January 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4807 views

What it is: Literactive is an outstanding website for reading material for pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade. The program is made up of leveled guided readers, comprehensive phonics activities, and supplemental reading material that is aimed at developing reading skills in a sequential, motivating manner. To use and view the site is free. To download material you are required to register but registration is also free. The guided readers are fully animated and each comes with a breakdown of every word in the stories. The Road to Reading is an interactive journey for students that moves them sequentially though pre-reading activities, alphabet awareness, letter sounds, short vowels, CVC word blending, initial blends, long vowels, and various phonic activities. There are over one hundred learning activities that can be used for individual or whole class use that can be downloaded for free. Worksheets are available in pdf format that correlate with each reading skill. An ESL version is offered for each guided reader, stories can be translated with the click of a mouse. E-picture books tell traditional tales for early readers and e poetry is a collection of interactive poetry including poems by Rober Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Lear, and more. The Literactive website is packed full with reading activities for primary students that will have them on the road to reading!

How to integrate Literactive into the classroom: Literactive is a complete reading program that should be included in any primary classroom. I am amazed at the comprehensive list of activities, stories, and scope and sequence of this program. Because activities are downloaded, after having downloaded them your computer does not need an Internet connection to use them. Use Literactive as a daily reading center, individually in the computer lab setting, or for whole class instruction and reading. The activities on Literactive are highly motivating and provide an excellent foundation for reading.

Tips: Register for free today and transform your classroom into a reading-rich environment for your beginning readers! Thank you to @annemarie80 who sent a Tweet about this site!

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