mapping – iLearn Technology

Pinball: Bounce Ideas Around

October 6, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4028 views

What it is: Pinball is a neat site from the BBC that helps students kick-start new ideas to get thoughts flowing and develop creative talents. There are four tools that will help students brainstorm and bounce ideas around. Dot Dash is for firing out ideas, start with a main idea and branch out with connected ideas in a web. Drop Zone is for making quick decisions, add ideas, name the zones, click “go”. As ideas speed by, quickly make a decision and select a zone; analyze the results. Snap Shot lets kids play with images; here they can upload an image or select a random image or word in “Lucky Dip” and then use the tools to play with the idea. Students can reflect, rotate, scale, bend, erase or cut an image or word to get different effects. Wild Reels is for mixing up ideas. Students can create reels of images and words, then they can label the reels. When the ideas are all in, the ideas can be “spun” to see what combination comes up. In each of the tools, the results can be “flipped” to another Pinball tool. Each tool allows students to think about a subject and explore ideas they may have about the subject.

How to integrate Pinball into your curriculum: Pinball is a fantastic tool to help kids think through their ideas for writing, research, science hypothesis, making connections in their learning, brainstorming, and fleshing out ideas. Each tool is designed to let students think visually in a way that lets their ideas flow freely. The integration of one tool with another is really helpful for transferring loosely related thoughts into a more cohesive thought process. Pinball can be used for whole class thinking with an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. For example, as students read about a time period in history, and related events, they can use Dot Dash to show how the events and people are related. Students can each add to the class understanding of the time period. Drop Zone would be a great way for students to generate ideas for a creative writing, or journal project. Students can enter the ideas they have and let Drop Zone help them decide which to write about. Bookmark Pinball on classroom computers so that students can use them as an inspiration station center. Any time your students need to bounce ideas around or think through their learning visually they can visit Pinball and work through their ideas. Pinball would also be helpful for structuring thinking prior to a research report, or science experiment. If you have access to a computer lab or 1-to-1 setting, allow your students time to think about their learning and connect new learning to knowledge frameworks they have already built. The possibilities with these tools are endless.

Tips: Pinball offers links to additional thinking tools that are available on the web including Exploratree, Mind Tools, bubbl.us, Aviary, Mind 42, and Wisemapping. Each of these tools is fantastic for mind mapping, creative thinking, brainstorming, and visualizing ideas.

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

NASA’s Be a Martian

February 22, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4025 views

What it is: I have always been intrigued by space exploration. NASA’s Be a Martian feeds this intrigue by giving an up close view of Mars exploration. Here students can virtually explore and learn about the human-robotic partnership that makes virtual exploration possible. Students can become citizens (this requires them to create an account) or explore with an “Anonymous Tourist Visa”, which is how I explored. Students can send virtual postcard messages to the Spirit Rover in her new home. After composing their own message, students are taken to a virtual Mars where postcards with messages rain down. Students can click on a postcard to read what others around the world have written. In the map room, students can watch a video detailing the history of mapping and learn how NASA scientists map today. Students can become virtual map makers by matching up map image fragments, and counting craters. In Two Moons Theater, students can watch videos starring NASA scientists, explorers, and Mars. Students can ask and vote on questions that they would like to see answered in the Polling Place. In Tourist Mars Atlas, students can explore the surface of Mars and learn that there is more to Mars than a giant expanse of tan.

How to integrate NASA’s Be a Martian into the classroom: Feed your students curiosity about space exploration and Mars with this great interactive environment. Students have the opportunity to learn about the work that NASA scientists do, practice their observation skills in map making, and learn some great history about space exploration, and map making. I really like that NASA has included a place for students to ask and vote on questions that they would like answered. What a neat way to help students understand that we don’t have all the answers and that scientists ask questions, explore, and experiment to learn more. I think that younger students (primary elementary) would really enjoy the crater counting activity. Do this activity as a class using an interactive whiteboard/projector or individually as a center. This will help students to look for detail and practice counting together. Older students will enjoy trying their hand at mapping Mars and learning more about the history. Have students learn about the Spirit Rover and her job on Mars before sending a message. Some of the postcards include location information, it might be fun to track the locations of the postcards in Google Earth with placemarkers. Then, explore Mars using Google Earth or Google Space. The Google tools complement this site nicely.

Tips: There is an impressive contest section on NASA’s Be a Martian site, the deadline for entries is April 16, 2010. The contest challenges us to come up with videos about Mars, interactive software or games, or write an efficient image processing application. NASA is including us all in the exploration of Mars. These challenges would be outstanding for older students to take part in…talk about authentic learning!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using NASA’s Be a Martian in your classroom.

Airtight Interactive

August 29, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1326 views

What it is: Airtight Interactive is a Flickr connected program that allows students to search a word and see various other words associated with the initial word.

How to integrate Airtight Interactive into your curriculum: Use Airtight Interactive to build word maps for association. When students are given a new vocabulary word, they can create a map using software such as Inspiration with a definition, synonyms, antonyms and the word used in a sentence. Airtight will give students a starting point to understand how words are associated.

Tips: Be sure to search words that students will search before letting them loose on Airtight Interactive. Because Airtight is Flickr connected, pictures aren’t always school appropriate.