SumBlox: explore number relationships through visual/kinesthetic play

July 10, 2015Kelly Tenkely3 Comments14483 views

** This is not a sponsored post, I’m just super excited about this product and can’t wait to see what our students do with it!

What it is: Why yes, this is a technology blog. But no, this manipulative is not a technology product. I’m writing about SumBlox here anyway because technology led to the happy discovery of SumBlox and is a great reminder of why it is important to be a connected educator! I learned about SumBlox just a few weeks ago on Twitter as a share from ISTE from @michellek107 and @sumblox. This also isn’t a free tool (like I normally share), but I’m already so impressed by the brilliance of this tool, that I’m sharing it anyway!

SumBlox are a wooden block set of numbers 1-10. What makes those blocks and numbers super amazing: each block size corresponds to the number that it represents. (1 being the smallest and 10 the biggest). Even more super amazing, when the blocks are stacked, they represent the equivalent number. For example, when the 2 and 3 blocks are stacked, they are the same height as a 5 block! GENIUS!! These blocks are a visual and kinesthetic representation of our base-ten number system.

I purchased the Educational Set for our classrooms which comes with 100 solid hardwood blocks including: Thirty 1 blocks; twelve 2 blocks; eight each of the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 blocks; two 10 blocks and four teaching manuals. The purchase was right around the $300 mark with free shipping and a 10% discount with the code “sumfun.”

How to use SumBlox in the classroom: These blocks allow students to visually represent and discover math relationships. Students can stack blocks to explore and visualize addition equations, if the stacks are the same height, they also have equivalent values. Students can stack multiples of a number to represent abstract math concepts like multiplication grouping or addens of ten. Students can also explore the concept of fractions and of the mathematics behind adding fractions with different denominators by stacking and scaling fractions. SumBlox also are a fantastic introduction to algebra concepts.

The educational set comes with 4 guides that lead you (the teacher) through exercises and lessons to do with your students. While these are extremely well done, because we are inquiry based, my excitement comes in seeing how students will explore these independently first. I’m excited to see students discover the number/size relationships and number patterns.

At Anastasis, we have a 1:1 iPad program. I anticipate that students will use these blocks for stop-motion animation projects as they explore (iMotion HD is the app they use), capture their discoveries of number relationships in their eportfolio (we use Evernote), and even in Explain Everything videos.

Tips: If you are an administrator purchasing these for your school, go ahead and purchase a few of the educator kits. I only purchased one and am already going back to order one for each classroom. These are going to be popular!

3D Toad- 360* images worth more than a thousand words

April 16, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2949 views

What it is: 3D Toad is a site I learned about from @rmbyrne‘s fantastic blog, Free Tech for Teachers. This is like hitting the lottery of educational image libraries. It goes beyond your typical image library and has 3D images that students can spin all around and explore from every angle. Stinking awesome! Even better? (Yes, it gets better.) It works on mobile iDevice browsers! There are great images to explore on a variety of educational topics including: dissections, animal skeletons, human skeletons, music, geology, dental hygiene, coral, yoga, ballet positions, fossils, history, chemistry, emergency preparedness and computer networking.

Our students are learning all about earth systems right now so the fossils, geology and coral are especially exciting!

How to integrate 3D Toad into the Classroom: They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If a regular picture is worth a thousand, these 3D images are worth at least 360 times more. The 3D images on 3D Toad let students examine all 360* of an image. Students can examine, discover, and analyze images from various angles. 3D Toad helps students really visualize learning in new ways.

Use 3D Toad as a visual glossary on classroom computers. Students can visit this “visual glossary” center to explore objects and new vocabulary that they are learning. It would also be great on an interactive whiteboard or classroom computer where students can examine objects together. 3D Toad has a video on their site that shows a teacher using 3D Toad with students. I don’t love their example because the teacher is at the center of a review time before a test. The best use of this site would be to let students loose on it so that they can explore the images on their own.

3D Toad would be a great place for students to practice their observation skills. Each student could choose an object to explore in depth, write a detailed description and observation of the object. Working with a partner, they can describe their object and see if their partner can identify the image from the description alone.

These 360* images can be used for introducing new concepts, as a visual aid for students who are presenting learning, and as a place for further exploration of a topic or object.

Tips: Double click to zoom-in on an image. ***Some of the images have alternate 3D views that can be viewed with 3D glasses! The Giraffe skull is a good example of this. How cool would it be to outfit your students with some cheap 3D glasses for this lesson? I’ve asked local theaters to share leftover glasses in the past, they are usually very willing/happy to help out!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using 3D Toad in your classroom!

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5484 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word. Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it. When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit. Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually explore word relationships. Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word. Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe. The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag. Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter. Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas. Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for whole class inspiration with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important*** Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students. You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups. When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class. In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first. On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them. This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

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

Photovisi- Make a free online photo collage

November 10, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3333 views

What it is: Photovisi is an online photo collage creation tool. Students can use saved photos or a webcam to add pictures to their collage. The finished result can be downloaded and printed out. Photovisi is exceptionally easy to use and requires absolutely NO sign in or registration! This makes it the ideal online tool in my book. Students can get right in and quickly create a photo collage, add text, and download it. There are several collage templates to choose from, and each template is highly customizable.

How to integrate Photovisi into your curriculum: Photvisi is a great online creation tool. It doesn’t require any sign up or registration making it ideal for using in any classroom. Students can make collages to document learning, a science experiment, field trip, or special project. Students can upload pictures from their computer to add to the Photovisi. Students can add text labels and titles to document learning. Collages can be used for getting to know you activities. Students can create a collage of pictures that represent themselves and their interests. Use text to create an auto bio poem over the collage of pictures. Students could also create collages as a place to visually document their learning. Students could create “time capsule” collages that represent a period in history. Students can add pictures, key dates, people, and places to their time capsule collage. Collages are a great way to visually group items, younger students could create their own class alphabet display. Each student could create a collage of a different letter, all finished collages could be printed to create a class created bulletin board. The same could be done for phonics or word study. In math class, collages could be used to create a visual representation of shapes found in buildings or nature, angles, or scale. In art, students could create a collage of artists, a style of art, or of their own art.

Photovisi would be ideal in a computer lab setting where each student has their own computer. Photovisi could also be set up as a creative center on classroom computers. Students can rotate through the center for a specific project, or visit any time as a creative center.

You can see an example of a Photovisi collage above, I created this World War 2 collage in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Tips: Photovisi does have Google Adwords on the site. These are not obtrusive at all and are all related to photos and collage creation. You may want to teach younger students how to spot these advertisements so that they don’t inadvertently click on them.

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

Symbaloo EDU and Weblist: Sharing the web with students

October 26, 2010Kelly Tenkely26 Comments6105 views

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What it is: Sharing the web with students can be a challenge. Websites can often have urls that feel unending, students can copy down a url incorrectly, students type with different speeds, or characters show up in the address that they are unfamiliar with. Complicated urls can single-handedly convince teachers to ditch a wonderful web resource for something easier to manage…like a worksheet. Sharing websites with your students doesn’t have to be a challenge. Symbaloo EDU and Weblist are two of my favorite ways to quickly and easily share websites with students.

Symbaloo EDU is fabulous because it was created with educators in mind. Symbaloo lets you gather all of your favorite online tools and sites into a webmix about the topics you teach. Symbaloo web mixes can be published and shared with colleagues, students, and parents. Symbaloo can be used by students or teachers to create a personal learning environment. With Symbaloo folders can be created that contain sites and resources that are related. Symbaloo can be used year-long, just continue adding sites and resources for your students throughout the year. Everything that you have used all year-long will be in one easy place for students to access.

Weblist lets you pull together and organize content on the web. Create a list of urls centered on a theme and it is combined into one easy to navigate url. The list can be saved as a bookmark or a homepage. What I like about Weblist is the visual aspect. Each website is saved as a snapshot of that website with the website name and a description below. The visual organization is perfect for younger students who may not be able to navigate links designated by text.

How to integrate Symbaloo EDU and Weblist into your curriculum: Symbaloo can be used by students to create their own “textbooks”. As students search the web for resources based on subjects or inquiry questions, they can save what they find and create a virtual e-book of sorts. Symbaloo can also be used by students to organize all of their online work in one place. Students can add links to the slide shows, documents, videos, images, etc. that they create online. Symbaloo becomes an e-portfolio. Teachers can also use Symbaloo to create a customized “textbook” for their students complete with articles, maps, video, images, and interactive content.

Weblist is great for quickly sharing a collection of sites with students. Weblists are fast and easy to create (you don’t even have to login or register first!). Weblists are perfect for sharing a collection of sites in a computer lab setting or with colleagues. The visual interface of Weblist is perfect for students. Students can easily travel from one site to another because the web page is embedded in the Weblist, the url never changes.

Want to get really crazy? Combine Symbaloo and Weblist. Create folders for your students on Symbaloo so that there is one central url to go to. Have Symbaloo link to your various Weblists. This combines the great organization and collaboration aspect of Symbaloo with the awesome visual interface of Weblist. It is a powerhouse of learning for your students created by you. Cool!

Tips: Don’t forget that both Symbaloo and Weblist make for a great way to share online resources with your colleagues!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Symbaloo EDU and Weblist in your classroom!

Juxio: Online Visual Creation Tool

October 25, 2010October 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments5253 views

What it is: Juxio is a new visual way to create and communicate. The web application lets students take their own images (or images from Flickr, FaceBook, or Picasa) and add them to an image stream or panel. Text descriptions can be added to the stream to describe the images. Streams are where text and images get placed. Streams expand in width as elements are added. A Jux (Juxio creation) can be expanded vertically by adding additional streams. This is useful for organizing content into categories or for comparison. Each stream can have its own header to add meaning or depth to a Jux creation. Events are used to visually segment streams. For example, students might have an animal stream of pictures that is segmented into the events “mammals” and “reptiles”. After students create a Jux, they can save it as a PDF file, print it, or share it online via email, Facebook, Twitter, or url.

How to integrate Juxio into your curriculum: Juxio is a fantastic online tool to use for online visual creation. Students can mash-up text and photos to create their own Jux that can be used to organize information or display understanding. Use Juxio for animal classification, vocabulary, historical time lines, changes over time, to tell a linear story, or display any information in an organized fashion. Take pictures of a science experiment for students to turn into a Jux, they can start at the beginning of the experiment adding captions to each picture. Text boxes can be added for students to type in their hypothesis at the beginning of the experiment and to add a concluding statement at the end. Take pictures of a school field trip and create a Juxio to tell the story of what happened on the field trip. A Jux can be created individually by students in a computer lab setting, or by a whole class using an interactive whiteboard. Class Juxio’s can be created to display new learning, each student contributing to one Jux. The finished product can be printed and saved in the classroom with the URL sent home so students can access the learning from anywhere. Use Juxio in place of a traditional Friday newsletter. Take pictures of students throughout the week, add captions explaining what learning happened during the week and add a stream for upcoming events and reminders. Anytime you add student pictures to a newsletter, the chance that a parent takes the time to read it goes way up!

Tips: Juxio requires an email address for sign up. In addition, students must be 13 or older to obtain their own account. If you teach younger students, create a class account where you are the owner. Students can create a Jux using the class account and save it with their name in the title.

Juxio offers the option to purchase the finished Jux as a poster. Prices are very reasonable and can be used for customized classroom decoration. Cool!

If your school has access to an iPod Touch or iPad lab, Juxio can be downloaded directly to the device as an application.

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

Fotobabble

March 23, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments6195 views

What it is: Fotobabble seems to be everywhere I am lately, and now that I have had a minute to play with it, I can see why. Just upload a photo, record your voice, and send or embed away. It is very simple to use and has really fun results! The only downside for use in education are: 1. on the home page of Fotobabble you can see other members creations, at the time of writing they are all clean but I would hate to send my kids here without knowing exactly what content they would run into; 2. To use Fotobabble as a student, you must first sign up. This requires an email address 🙁 Which means that under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, that children under the age of 13 cannot sign up for an account on the site for their own creations. I would love to see Fotobabble create an education version that can be used by students under 13 if monitored and signed up by an adult, and without the other user generated content on the home page. That being said, Fotobabble is a fantastic tool for the classroom.

How to integrate Fotobabble into the classroom: Fotobabble can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. For students over 13, it is a great creation tool. Students could take pictures, or find creative commons images that illustrate vocabulary that they are learning and record themselves saying the definition and using the word in a sentence. Students could collect and trade Fotobabble vocabulary with other students in the class and embed them in a blog or wiki to create their own visual talking dictionary. If you teach students younger than 13, have teachers or parent helpers build audio visual dictionaries that can be added to throughout the year. How neat would it be to have a talking, visual word wall?! This would be helpful for math, science, social studies, history, and regular vocabulary words that students learn. The format will be so valuable to your audio and visual learners. Did you take pictures of that field trip? Upload them to Fotobabble and students can record thoughts, observations, and lessons they learned on the field trip. Consider creating a class Fotobabble account that you (the teacher) are in charge of. Upload student illustrations and record a story that they have written using their own voice. This is the perfect type of project to share at parent teacher conference time. Parents can get a good idea of their child’s writing, reading, and fine motor skills all in one spot. If you complete a similar project several times through the year, both students and parents can see the growth and progress that has been made during the school year. Fotobabbles are an outstanding way to send your young students on an Internet scavenger hunt. Along the way, record directions with Fotobabble and embed on your class website, wiki, or blog. Non-readers will be able to listen to, and follow directions for any assignment. Upload a picture of a landmark or map and have students record fun facts that they have learned about the place. Send special messages from your class home to parents in the weekly newsletter. Take a picture of a project that the class has done, or of a fun activity from the week. Students can record a message about upcoming events, fun highlights of the week in learning, and a list of helpers who have signed up for the week. Parents will love hearing their kids give the news updates for the week! Are you wracking your brain for a fun Mother’s/Father’s day activity? Why not record the kids leaving a special message to their parent with a special picture made just for them? Now that is a keepsake!

Tips: Because younger students can’t sign up for their own Fotobabble account, consider creating a class account that you can be in control of. For younger students, having a Fotobabble recording center set up on one of the classroom computers might be appropriate. Since you will control the account, you will be in charge of what content is added by students.

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

Weboword

March 9, 2010March 16, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3335 views

What it is: It can be really difficult for visual learners to get a good handle on vocabulary. Without good visual aids, the definitions behind words can feel abstract and hard to grasp. Weboword is a fantastic visual vocabulary site that offers students illustrations that help students understand vocabulary. I believe that everyone remembers concepts better when they are surrounded by story. Think about a tsunami. What comes to mind is probably not a word for word definition of the word but images, and stories about tsunamis. You probably think about the destruction that they cause, a story you heard from someone affected by a tsunami. Because we make deeper connections with stories, it only makes sense to offer students vocabulary words with a visual aid that will help them create story references and pictures. Each vocabulary word is accompanied by a sketch of the word, a definition of the word, a history of the word, the pronunciation, and situational uses of the word. There is a limited number of words pictured, but it should help students to build up a stronger vocabulary and word fluency. Each day a new vocabulary word is featured on the Weboword home page. Students can also review past vocabulary words on the “vocabulary” page. Students can complete crossword puzzles based on the Weboword vocabulary.

How to integrate Weboword into the classroom: Vocabulary and word fluency is an important ingredient for strong readers. Begin each day with the newest Weboword vocabulary on your projector or interactive whiteboard. You can subscribe to Webowords free daily updates to get a word each day delivered to you. Because the vocabulary on Weboword is limited, you may not find the specific vocabulary you are looking for. Encourage your students to create their own visualizations and cartoon sketches for the vocabulary they are studying. Weboword is excellent preparation for the SAT’s but can also be used with younger students to build vocabulary. My elementary students really enjoy learning “big kid” words. The advanced vocabulary can make them feel empowered. Webowords is also a great way to spice up student writing, when they have a greater vocabulary base to pull from, their writing will become richer.

Tips: Embed the Weboword widget in your classroom website. Students can get the vocabulary word for the day with one stop.

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

eyePlorer

March 31, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2711 views

What it is: eyePlorer is a really cool site that allows students “explore and process knowledge.” Student type in a word or words to research. eyePlorer pulls information from Wikipedia and puts it into a color wheel of information. When students hover over the different areas of the color wheel, they get a sentence or two about their subject. There is a notebook where students can drag and drop facts that they want to remember. Students can drag facts to the notebook and rearrange them as they need to. Students can click the “i” button under the search box to get a quick summary of their topic, click on the “+” button to add search parameters, and click on the paper button to go to a Google search. The idea behind eyePlorer is to improve the way “users interact with knowledge and information online.” The goal is to provide innovative, interactive, visual methods for working with and discovering facts and information. I think the result is pretty amazing and perfect for the educational setting!

How to integrate eyePlorer into the classroom: This is a truly unique way for students to research and explore new information. Students quickly get a visual guide to their inquiry and can drag and drop what they are learning into a notebook. This is a fantastic tool for research projects but would also be amazing for use with an interactive whiteboard. As students are learning about a new concept, they can type the subject into the search and as a class decide which information they want to save in the notebook for later. What a great introduction to any new material. This site will definitely help wet students appetite for learning! Make sure to bookmark this site on the classroom computers as a classroom research center.

Tips: eyePlorer was created in Germany so the home page information is all in German, once you start a search you can choose to search in German or English. When I searched “shiba inu” it automatically searched in English for me.

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

Middle Spot

November 11, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3122 views

What it is: Middle Spot is a spectacular new search engine for teachers, librarians, and students performing research. Middle Spot lets you see your results, you can pan and zoom individual website results. Workpads allow you to save and annotate results and sort by collections. Workpads can also be shared with others (colleagues, students, or professional learning communities). What I love about Middle Spot is the blending of the traditional search results (listed along the left side of the screen) with the snapshot results where you can see the results. When your cursor scrolls over a screen shot, the related traditional result and information is highlighted on the left making it very quick and easy to find exactly the results you are looking for. Middle Spot allows you to search the web or search images, very handy!

How to integrate Middle Spot into the classroom: Middle Spot is a great place for students to do research because of the ability to organize their finds and ideas right in the search engine with workpads. If students are working on group projects, they can share their findings and workpads with others in their group. Middle Spot is also ideal for teachers, collect your search results in one place based on topic or curriculum objectives and share with colleagues. Create your own “webquest” with Middle Spot by creating and sharing a workspace with your students. Make workpads for whole class lessons with an interactive whiteboard or projector to save yourself from typing in each url for the activity individually.

Tips: Middle Spot is truly my new favorite search engine. Your students will love the ability to take notes about websites and cite their sources as they go in the workpads. It really is well designed for the classroom setting!

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