free – Page 9 – iLearn Technology

Toy Maker

October 24, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2414 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.

Apple Field Trips

October 21, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1797 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.

K12 Online Conference 2008

October 20, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3541 views

The K12 Online Conference 2008 officially kicks off today! This is a great FREE online conference to attend. Not only is it convenient for your schedule (you can attend sessions at your convenience online), but you will learn and be inspired by the speakers and presenters. I highly recommend attending as much of this conference as you can! You can get involved in the conference in several different ways, as a viewer of each strand, with the blog, wiki, interactive fireside chats, Twitter, Google maps, and an Elluminate event called When Night Falls. Topics include the ReadWriteWeb Revolution, Free tools for Universal Design for Learning in Literacy, Assessment, Google, Delicious, Primary Access, History, Tech Integration, Reading Revolution, Video Conferencing, Blogging, Photostory, Games in Education, Emerging Technologies, Wikis, Video Podcasters, and much more. The conference runs from today, October 20, to Next Saturday, November 1. Even if you can’t fit it all in during the next two weeks, you can come back later and visit the sessions that are of most interest to you. There is professional development and credit options available for attending this conference so be sure to look into that as well.

What sessions are of most interest to you? What have you learned as a result of the K12 Online Conference?

“See” you there! 🙂

Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

September 24, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2541 views

What it is: Free Federal Resource for Educational Excellence (that is a mouthful, hence forth shall be known as FREE) is a excellent resource for finding teaching and learning resources from federal agencies. Resources are broken down in to subjects arts and music, health and physical education, history and social studies, language arts, math, and science. Subjects are further broken down in to sub categories making it simple to find exactly what you are looking for quickly. There is also a great section called U.S. Time periods where you can search US history resources by time period. New sites are added to FREE regularly, you can get the new resources delivered to you by subscribing to the FREE RSS feed. The teaching and learning resources linked to from the FREE site are valuable to your classroom and will save you loads of time in searching for quality resources.

How to integrate Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence into the classroom: Use FREE to find quality online resource for any subject that you are teaching. Some of the linked websites are specifically for teachers and some are activities and sites for students. Use this as a first stop when you are creating new lessons or enhancing the good old standby lessons. The FREEresources will enhance your lessons with rich content for your students.

Tips: Sign up for the FREE RSS feed for new resources delivered to you several times a week.

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

Smile Box

September 22, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3378 views

What it is: Smile Box is a free application that I love. The scrapbooker in me loves Smile Box for all of the digital scrapbooking qualities. The teacher in me loves all of the classroom applications that Smile Box could be used for. Smile Box is a free software that lets students combine photos, videos, and music into one amazing multimedia presentation. Smile Box used to only be available for PC’s but now have a Mac version that is outstanding. The Mac version integrates seamlessly with iPhoto and iTunes without any additional plugins! Students can choose from over 700 design templates to use as a base to combine media. The final Smile Box project can be embedded in a blog, sent via email, or printed.

How to integrate Smile Box into the classroom: Smile Box has many classroom applications. The software is a great place for students to do some digital storytelling combining pictures, podcasts, and video. Students could create a weekly paper about the happenings in your classroom, a memory book for each student for the end of the year, etc. Smile Box is also a great place for students to make Mothers/Fathers day cards, Christmas cards, Happy Thanksgiving greeting, etc. Students can also use Smile Box to create rich content reports. For example, instead of writing a paragraph about what they learned while studying about Russia, students could create a media rich postcard about Russia.

Tips: Smile Box is simple to use and very intuitive. Students will love creating with

Smile Box!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Smile Box in your classroom.

Picturing America Part 2

September 10, 2008September 10, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1686 views

What it is: I have posted about Picturing America before (March 18th) but I just received my Picturing America kit yesterday and had to post again and make sure everyone was taking advantage of this amazing resource. I knew that the kit was going to be good but I truly had no idea how AMAZED I would be. The quality of materials is amazing (there really isn’t another word for it!) I’ll post pictures of my actual kit so you can get an idea for just what you get in this kit. Did I mention it was FREE?! The Picturing America program is completely free for schools and libraries and provides them with 40 high-quality masterpieces, a teacher resources book, and the program website. The National Endowment for the Humanities gives a grant making this all possible. As the recipient your only task is to write up a one page report about your experience. They give almost a calendar year for you to do this.

How to integrate Picturing America into your curriculum: What better way to teach your students American history than actually bringing history into the classroom and providing students with real ties to the past? I wish that I had the opportunity to learn history this way!Picturing America is going to bring authentic conversation into your classroom about American history. It would be the perfect use of web 2.0 collaborative tools where students can discuss the history and the art in Picturing America. Picturing America masterpieces would also be easily integrated into the art classroom or in literacy as writing inspiration. The teacher resource book is going to provide you with wonderful tie ins to your current curriculum. This is an amazing program, I encourage you to take part in it! These masterpieces will beautify your walls and provide teaching opportunities year round regardless of the age of students you teach.

Tips: Apply for the Picturing America program today. I can’t tell you how completely blown away I am by this program!!!

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

iKeep Safe

September 2, 2008Kelly Tenkely3 Comments6088 views

What it is: iKeep Safe is a website and program I have used every year since I started teaching technology. As I was writing up lesson plans for the upcoming week, I realized that I haven’t ever posted about this outstanding resource. iKeep Safe is a kid friendly Internet safety program. It features a cat named Faux Paw who has adventures on the Internet. There are videos, downloadable and printable books, and games for kids. All are centered on teaching kids to be safe online. There are free guided discussion sheets for you to go through with your students, quizzes, coloring pages, etc. This program is the perfect way to introduce Internet safety in your elementary classroom without worrying that the content is too mature for your audience. The online books and videos teach kids Internet safety basics, how to handle cyber bullying, balancing real life with screen time, and the risks and dangers of downloading. Students learn about these concepts with fun cartoon characters and engaging stories.

How to integrate iKeep Safe into the classroom: iKeep Safe is a great place to start Internet safety. I would recommend making Internet safety a top priority the first month of school before kids are online for class. In my classroom, students are introduced to Faux Paw at the beginning of the school year. We watch and discuss the Faux Paw cartoon, read and discuss the books, and finish by taking the free downloadable quiz. Students must pass this quiz with an eighty percent or better in order to get their “Internet Drivers Licenses”. I talk a lot about how using the Internet is a privilege, not a right. This is just like driving a car. So in order to be online for other subjects, students have to demonstrate that they know the rules of the Internet by passing the quiz. They can lose their Internet drivers licenses at any time by mis-using the Internet or not following the rules. I also have the kids create a rules poster for them to hang next to their home computers. Students also get an assignment to go home and tell their parents the Internet rules. This has to be signed off on in order to use the Internet. I find that we can do a pretty good job of keeping kids safe at school, but at home parents aren’t doing enough to make sure that their kids are safe. Whether or not you are the computer teacher, make sure that your kids know how to keep themselves safe online. Be an adult they trust who they can come to with any cyberbullying problems, if they see inappropriate content, or if someone is trying to contact them inappropriately.

Tips: Never been trained in Internet safety? Be sure to visit the educator page of iKeepSafe, the training materials are wonderful!

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

WizIQ

August 26, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2121 views

What it is: WizIQ is a virtual classroom platform where you can teach and learn. You can teach for free or earn money teaching. The WizIQ is free to use, has no downloads (it runs in your web browser), and works on Macs, Windows, and Linux. WizIQ provides a place to find, share, or upload PowerPoints on educational subjects and topics. The sessions are intuitive to use and can be scheduled for individal students or a group. The virtual classroom provides a place to teach and learn live online. Everything launches in a few clicks with…NO downloads! With WizIQ you can network with students or teachers, send a personalized invite to your contacts right from WizIQ. Share educational content in the form of slideshows, pdf, and online. When you start a session with students, you have access to a shared whiteboard space, live audio, video, or both, flash file sharing, and text messaging. Sessions can be recorded and saved for students to view again and again.

How to integrate WizIQ into the classroom: WizIQ is a great place to start experimenting with virtual classrooms. It has a simple to use interface, requires no downloads, and is free. Record lessons that you are doing with your class so that they can go back and review the lesson online at their lesiure. This puts students in control of their own learing. Interact with students during live virtual sessions. WizIQ is also perfect for students who were absent, have a long term illness that prevents them from being at school, or students who know they will be attending your school for half of the year.

Tips: You can make money by setting up and teaching in a virtual classroom (and lets face it, we could all use a little more of that!) Your classroom will be visable by search engines and open to students from accross the world. Don’t let the technology scare you, this is simple to use (even my fellow elementary teachers can get in on this one!)

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

iLearn Ezine

August 5, 2008August 5, 2008Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3995 views

I have been working on a special project the last few months. Introducing iLearn ezine. This is an online education magazine for Mac users. The magazine is 26 pages, full color and includes articles about Mac OS Leopard in education, time saving tips, a lesson plan, iPods in education, and more. The ezine cost $1.00 and includes 3 templates to accompany the lesson plan. You can purchase the ezine at my new online store . But wait, there is more! If you are one of the first 10 to send me a request email, I will send you the iLearn ezine for free! Just send the request to ktenkely@chcc.org. Happy reading 🙂

Websites with a Cause

July 21, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3414 views

What it is: I have posted before about a website called Free Rice. This vocabulary game has the added benefit of donating rice to help end world hunger. For each correct answer, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice on your behalf. This isn’t the only website with a cause. Aid to Children is a vocabulary game like Free Rice, for every correct answer $.25 are donated to children in need through World Vision. Free Poverty is a world geography game. See how many cups of water you can donate by testing your knowledge about the world. Each correct answer means that 10 cups of clean water have been donated on your behalf. Free Corn is another vocabulary game like Free Rice, for every 25 visits to the website, 1 kernel of corn is donated. Free Kibble is a trivia game. Every day your students play Bow Wow Trivia 20 pieces of kibble are donated to Animal shelters to help feed their hungry dogs. Free Kibble Kat also donates 20 pieces of kibble per player each day…this time students are raising kibble for cats.

How to integrate Websites with a cause into the classroom: Each of the above websites offers a wonderful opportunity to teach students to look outside their own needs to the needs of others. Use these websites to teach your students compassion, about other cultures, and about helping those less fortunate. The websites will also be a great way for your students to practice vocabulary or geography. Encourage your students to play these games from home when they are “bored” or just for fun. See how much rice, money, corn, water, or kibble you can raise as a class. Use these figures to teach graphing and charting. You can also use the sites to teach persuasive writing. Students can create a “commercial” for the site, a poster advertising the site, etc. (I found a commercial that I made as an example for my students on Free Corn…small world!) Using these websites with my class taught me just how compassionate and concerned my students are. It was wonderful to see my students come together around a common goal. Using these websites with a cause in your classroom is a real life character education lesson!

Tips: Bookmark these sites on classroom computers, kids who finish their work early can sit and play one of the games while they wait for the next activity.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Websites with a cause in your classroom.