countries – iLearn Technology

If It Were My Home: Compare Countries Visually

February 11, 2013Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2687 views

What it is: We are just heading into a new inquiry block at Anastasis Academy. The kids are exploring world communities and our interdependence on each other. If it Were My Home is a fascinating website that asks students to consider what their life would be like if they were born in a different country. Would they be the same person? If it Were My Home is a country comparison tool where students can compare living conditions in their own country to those of another. When students select a country, there is a visual overlay comparison of maps. Students can easily visualize relative size of another country based on their own state or country. Students will also see a break down of death rates, HIV/AIDS, birth rate, electricity availability, oil consumption, economic comparison, health care, and class divide. Students have the ability to compare the country they selected with another country of interest. Students can learn additional information about the country and vote to show if they would rather live in the chosen country. Additionally, most countries offer a recommended reading list with books about the selected country. When students click on the mini-facts, they get a full description of the fact along with the original source. SO stinking cool!

How to integrate If it Were My Home into the classroom: If it Were My Home is an outstanding way for students to visualize and compare other countries to their own. I love that this site helps students with geography, but also reveals that there is a real world community that is interdependent and diverse. This site helps students recognize the unique place they are in the world and how it relates to other countries. I love the added awareness of human rights and social justice issues that this site encourages. In our inquiry unit, we are looking at what the facts listed on the site mean about the government, belief systems, human rights, equality, social justice and landscape of the countries they represent.

This is a site that can be used to help students ask bigger questions. To see a fact about another country, and ask what bigger problems might be revealed, what we can learn from other countries, and break down some stereotypes that students may have about other countries.

Ask each student to choose a country to compare to their country of origin. Have students pair up with a partner and compare their chosen countries to the country of origin.

Choose “Disasters” from the menu at the top of the screen to view some natural and man-made disasters that affected the lives of millions of people. Students can view the scope of the disaster in relation to where they live, helping them to better visualize the impact that man-made and natural disasters can have on a population.

Tie in a creative writing project and have students imagine that they are moving from their country of origin to their chosen country. Students can use the information and comparison as inspiration for their fictional story about what life would be like in their new home. Students could also write a short autobiographical story about growing up in their country of origin, followed by a short “autobiographical” type story about their life growing up in a different country.

Use the statistical data in If it Were My Home for some real world mathematical comparison between countries. If Rwanda has a 10.7 times higher chance of dying in infancy, how many infant deaths does it expect on average per year? If Rwandans make 98.06% less than Americans, what would you expect an average salary to be?

I used Rwanda as my example because Rwanda is where we started our first Anastasis sister school. Our 2nd-3rd grade class has been absolutely fascinated with Rwanda and poured over this site to learn more. 🙂

Tips: Encourage your students to read one of the recommended books about the country they chose. This will help them understand more about the country they chose, and give the people in that country voice beyond the facts listed.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using If it Were My Home in your classroom.

Oddizzi: where the world comes to life

October 17, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3736 views

What it is: I love those serendipitous moments in life where the stars seem to align and everything that comes your way is tailor made to meet your needs. This resource filled those needs for me this week! At Anastasis, our primary students are working on an inquiry unit about how transportation has changed over time and how transportation is used in different locations in the world. What should appear in my inbox than a little note from the people over at Oddizzi inviting me to take a look at their content. Serendipitous I tell you. Oddizzi is a paid-for service but they have sample content on their site to give you a taste of what you can expect. That sample content is free and has made my day. It may make yours too, you should head over and have a look! Oddizzi brings the world to life in a way I have seen few other resources pull off. Students have access to their very own interactive map where they can view places, physical features, global features, places of interest, my story and class pals. Students can click on each feature on the map to learn more in popup bubble. The content below the map is rich including student-friendly text, videos, “secret” facts, images and more. Oddizzi is a great way to teach about geography, global issues, math, citizenship and multicultural topics. One feature that I have found to be really useful is the “Sneak-a-Peak” option which condenses a page of content down to one page of easy to read sentences. Perfect for differentiating for your different reading levels while maintaining a topic thread for the whole class. Odd and Izzi are fun characters that lead students through the site revealing hidden secrets as they go.

How to integrate Oddizzi into the classroom: Oddizzi is a fantastic way for students to explore geography and culture. Use Oddizzi sample content to introduce a lesson or unit, as a place for students to gather research, or as a center activity on classroom computers. In the Sample Content you will find information on Egypt, transportation in India, Rivers and Games (flags from around the world and a game about Egypt).

Oddizzi is a great place to spur interest in geography and encourages students to learn more. We will use the Transport in India content to help students think about questions they can ask about how transportation is used in other countries.

Geography is a subject that is often overlooked in schools in the United States. Oddizzi helps bridge the gap between geography and other disciplines such as reading, writing, communicating, math, social studies, history, etc. No excuses!

Use Oddizzi as a starting point for students to gather facts, information and gain a general understanding of geography and culture. Students can use that information to create a poem about the country or location. At Anastasis, @leadingwlove did an incredible project with students where they each chose a country they wanted to learn more about. After learning about the country, they wrote a poem. Each made a large thumbprint on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and inside the thumbprint left a negative space of the outline of the country. They wrote their poems on the lines of the fingerprint. The result was incredible! Students learned a lot, practiced writing poetry and created a masterpiece to boot! Since our students are in a one-to-one iPad environment, they took this a step further and took pictures of their finished products and added special photo effects to make a one-of-a-kind digital masterpiece for their e-portfolios. SO awesome! You can see the beginning of one of these poems below…

Tips: In the subscription version of Oddizzi, you can connect with other classes around the globe in a secure learning environment. This allows your students to send online postcards to other students around the world so that they can learn first hand what life is like around the globe. Neat! A curriculum zone offers teachers resources for integrating Oddizzi across multiple disciplines for transdiciplinary learning. In addition, the subscription version has “Over to you” where students can contribute content to the site. If you are interested in testing out these additional features, request a free trial of Oddizzi for your class here.

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

Cyberkidz: games for math, literacy, geography, creativity and science

May 23, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3892 views

What it is: Cyberkidz is a great new website packed full of great learning practice games for kids age 4 to 11. The games reinforce skills in a variety of disciplines including math, literacy, geography, creativity and science.

Math– amounts, pattern, scale, number recognition, counting, scale, sums to 10, sums to 20, weights, multiplication, telling time, money, measurement, calendar, volume, percentage, distance, division, mathmix, area

Literacy– letter recognition, alphabetical order, hangman, crosswords, typing, singular and plural words, sayings and quotes, learning Spanish, learning Dutch

Geography– America, state capitals, countries of the world, Asia, Africa, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, South Africa, Ireland, flags

Creative– painting, music, coloring, maze

Science– food for animals, skeletal system, body parts, animals, solar system, mammals, the eye

The games in each category are great for practice and skill building.

How to integrate Cyberkidz into the classroom: Cyberkidz is a fun place for students to work on the knowledge level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The music game is the only creative game that I would truly place in the “create” category of Bloom’s Taxonomy because it gives students free rein to explore music and create a recording. The majority of the games are designed to help students build skills and remember key concepts that are a necessary foundation for other learning. These are a nice alternative to worksheet skill practice. Students will enjoy the game quality of these practice activities. Each activity can be advanced through relatively quickly making them perfect as a center on classroom computers. Students can visit the game as a math, literacy, geography or science “practice” center before advancing to put those newly honed skills to work in a higher order thinking center.

These practice activities could also be completed as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. Split students into teams and rotate them up to the whiteboard for a class practice session.

Tips: On each game screen, students can scroll to the bottom for instructions on the game. Most of the games are pretty self-explanatory and kids will figure them out quickly.

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

The Street: World Music

November 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2832 views

What it is: I am currently working on a fun project for Starrmatica tagging and organizing websites and resources. One of the resources that was new to me is The Street: World Music. This is a neat interactive learning journey from BBC radio where students can learn about other countries and cultures through music. The Street features five families from five different countries including India, Ireland, Brazil, Turkey, and Nigeria. In each house students can learn more about the country, instruments, musicians, religion, and food from the country. Students have plenty of opportunities to listen to the music.

How to integrate The Street: World Music into your curriculum: Music is a neat way to introduce students to other cultures. It allows an inside look into the culture by sharing the sounds of the culture. What I like about The Street, is the way the music is introduced along side religion, food, and information about the country. This site gives students a wonderful overview of five countries where they can not only read about the differences, but they can see the differences (through photos) and hear the differences (through music). The Street is a great site to introduce into any classroom, music teachers will appreciate the look at the instruments and musicians of the country. As an extension activity, have your students create their own “house” for The Street. This can be done offline with paper and a collection of music, photos, and information. Alternatively use a website builder like Weebly or Wix or a Wiki to collect the information in an online space. Students can choose a country to learn more about or create a house for their own country, thinking about what is important to their culture. Want to extend the activity even more? Connect with teachers from different countries and have the students learn about different cultures together. Use Skype or Wetoku to connect the classes and play music from each culture. Create a wiki together to collect and share information learned.

Tips: If you are looking for teachers to collaborate with, use and search the #glolab hash tag to connect.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Street: World Music in your classroom!

World Math Day 2010

February 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3064 views

What it is: Hooray!! It is World Math Day time! This year World Math Day will be held on March 3, 2010. For those of you who are unfamiliar with World Math Day, it is a day when students from around the world compete in an online environment in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many as 500 games, earning points for every correct answer. The students who answer the most questions show up in the Hall of Fame. This is an absolutely free event to take part in. Students can train for World Math Day every day leading up to March 3rd by participating in arithmetic competition. For those of you home school readers, World Math Day is also open and free to you! The competition is designed for students 5-18 years old. This year has a little bit of a new format (the change is fantastic!) with multi-levels for all groups. Teachers, parents and media are also invited to participate for the first time. Last year 2 million students from 204 countries participated and correctly answered more than 4 million questions!!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day is a fun competition to involve your students in. It helps build mental arithmetic and numeracy. Students from around the world compete in this competition to find out which country has the top mathematicians. Students have a great time working to get their country to the top (nothing like a little National pride!). My students beg to be involved in World Math Day each year. We spend extra time in the computer lab and on classroom computers preparing for the day. Students answer mental math questions appropriate to their age level. This is a phenomenal way to get some fact practice in!

We make a big deal out of World Math Day and let students have an extended math period to compete on March 3rd. You could use World Math Day as a Math Olympics for your class and have and opening and closing ceremony for your class, school, or representing your country.

Tie World Math Day into your social studies curriculum. As students compete against other students from around the world, the other student is represented by a flag. My students are always very curious to learn more about the other countries and cultures represented. It would also be fun to start a map in Google Earth where you put place markers on the countries that students have competed with.

The platform is open, register your students and start training today!

Tips: If you would like to find out more about past World Math Day competitions check out my posts 2009 here and 2008 here. There are rumors of a World Math Day iPod App coming soon, check back with the official site for more information.

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

GeoEdu

June 22, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment15907 views

What it is: GeoEdu is a free software download for both Macs and PC’s. The software contains two parts, the first is an atlas with interactive maps and details for each country including the capital, flag, land and water borders, length of the coasts, the population, official languages, internet and country code, currency, international organization membership, and more. The second part of the software is a game offering more than 100,000 geography questions about worldwide geography. The game lets players give an answer or choose to answer with clues or multiple choice. After answering a question, students can view their score and look at detailed data for the territory.

How to integrate GeoEdu into the classroom: I’m not sure why school supply stores still sell the pull down atlas, with all of the amazing atlas and map tools available for free, buying a map seems so last century! GeoEdu is a bright and colorful interactive atlas with great details for each country. This free software is perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard or projector. The game included is a great way to increase student geography knowledge. Play the game as a class during geography or any time you have a few extra minutes. Keep a running score going throughout the year that can be added to easily. GeoEdu is also a great download for classroom and library computers. Use GeoEdu as a geography/atlas center where students can stop by and interact with maps and play the game.

Tips: This site does require a download so be sure to add it to your wish list before the start of school.

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

Statetris

September 1, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2750 views

What it is: Statetris brings one of my all time favorite Nintendo games into the education realm. Statetris mixes aspects of the game Tetris and geography. Instead of positioning typical Tetris blocks, students position states or countries to their proper location. There are 3 levels to play Statetris. The easiest level gives students the shape and name of the state or country. The medium level gives the students the state or country that rotates with the name of the state or country. The hardest level gives students the sate or country rotating without a label. The medium and hard levels can be very difficult because you get a state or country that isn’t straight up and down but may be rotated. Students can play Statetris with a map of the United States, Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, and UK.

How to integrate Statetris into the classroom: Statetris is a great place for students to learn and practice geography. The familiar game platform is popular with students and will be a fun way to memorize geography locations. This is the perfect place for students to study before a geography test.

Tips: Save this site in your bookmark bar for easy access. This is a great site for kids to visit when they complete work early and are looking for extension activities.

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