compassion – iLearn Technology

Webspiration Wednesday: Sleedo

April 21, 2010April 21, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3932 views

Today, I am doing something a little different for Webspiration Wednesday. As a staff, we still gathered for Webspiration Wednesday finishing the Guy Doud video from last week. Since I have already summed that up in this post, I thought I would write about a webspirational website instead. Sleedo is a great Webspiration Wednesday website.

What it is: Sleedo is a search engine that I learned about from @cspiezio today on Twitter. This is a search engine with a mission to better the world with each and every search. Every time you search using Sleedo, 10 grains of rice will be donated to help feed the poor. Sleedo is a Google powered search engine. Sleedo makes money through advertisements and donates that money to the World Food Programme, feeding those in need. So, for every search you do, you are helping improve the lives of people around the world. Pretty cool right?

How to integrate Sleedo into the classroom: Set up Sleedo as your homepage on classroom computers. When students perform searches, they can be doing double duty: searching and helping the hungry around the world. Sites like Sleedo are wonderful vehicles for teaching students about empathy, world issues, and compassion. Have your students dig in and learn more about how the World Food Programme operates or take a closer look at how website advertising works.

Tips: I have found that students are passionate about websites with a cause (Free Rice, Free Corn, Aid to Children, Free Kibble, Free Kibblekat). Often students feel helpless to do something important that makes an impact on this world. Sites like Sleedo help students enact real change that they can feel proud of.

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

Free Rice…New and Improved!

September 15, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3809 views

What it is: Free Rice is an amazing website that I have posted about two or three times in the past. It has been a site where students can play a vocabulary game and earn 20 grains of rice for each correct answer. The grains of rice are distributed to hungry people all over the world through the UN World Food Program. Two of my students came in this morning with a printout of how many grains of rice they had earned over the weekend on the Free Rice website (we have a contest going each year to see which class and grade can earn the most grains of rice). They were unusually excited about this bunch of earned rice because they discovered some new features on Free Rice. Free Rice is now much more than a vocabulary game! Students can choose the subject they would like to play. As they increase in all types of knowledge, there is the added bonus of helping people in need. Free Rice subjects now include art (famous paintings), chemistry (chemical symbols), English grammar, geography (world capitals), language learning (French, German, Italian, Spanish), math (multiplication), and of course…vocabulary! Free rice is an incredible place for students to practice facts for a wide range of subject areas. Some additional new features: now students can click on a speaker next to a word to hear it read to them and can change the level of difficulty manually! I am so impressed with the site and impressed with my students for finding and sharing these new treasures!

How to integrate Free Rice into the classroom: With all of the new subjects on Free Rice, it is the perfect place to send your students for fact practice. Whether they are learning a new language, or need some practice with their multiplication facts Free Rice is a great place to practice. What I love about Free Rice is the added bonus of character education. Free Rice teaches students compassion and empathy. My students truly play the game not for the learning taking place, but because it makes them feel good to do something for others. Kids often feel like there is nothing they can personally do to help a cause…Free Rice gives them a voice and the ability to make a change. It empowers them.

Tips: Set up Free Rice on your classroom computers as a place for students to go when they are finished early and need a little something extra. Free Rice is also excellent in a computer lab setting and for home play.

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

Websites with a Cause

July 21, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3413 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.