Social Studies – Page 11 – iLearn Technology

ZuiTube

November 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment11130 views

What it is: KidZui is a site I have written about in the past. The KidZui network has added some sites to the network that I just learned about. ZuiTube is a kid friendly You Tube portal. It is the largest collection of kid friendly videos online. New videos are added to ZuiTube daily. All videos are approved by parents and teachers before being posted on ZuiTube. Students can watch educational videos, funny videos, movies and movie clips, silly songs, and music. There is also a special section on ZuiTube just for videos related to Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving collection includes everything from the Turkey Dance to videos about Native Americans and Pilgrims.

How to integrate ZuiTube into the classroom: ZuiTube videos can be used as an introduction to new teaching (on nearly any subject), to add some humor to the classroom, or to reinforce teaching. Videos are a wonderful way for students to make connections to new learning. I have found a video that correlates with nearly every part of our curriculum. I even found a great Berenstein Bears video for character education…gotta love that! With all the snow we get in Colorado, there are bound to be some indoor recess days for the kids. ZuiTube is a safe place to find kid friendly videos that students will enjoy while they are staying dry and warm inside.

Tips: I often have parents asking me what they can do at home to keep their kids safe online. KidZui is an excellent recommendation, the parent reports are a great way to keep parents involved in their children’s online activities.

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

BBC Primary History World War 2

November 5, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment7823 views

What it is: The BBC has so many incredible technology resources and websites for students. Today I learned about the BBC Primary History World War 2 website. I am really impressed with the wealth of information on this site, but also the age group it is targeted at: primary students. So much of the time, history websites (especially on WWII) are geared toward older students. This site is very kid friendly in its verbiage, images, and content. This is a great site to explore with your class to learn more about World War II. Students will learn about the world at war, evacuations, wartime homes, food and shopping, the war time efforts, children at war, air raids, daily life, growing up during wartime, and the end of the war. Each section has easy-to-understand information and pictures. Students can also be a historical detective with a World War II time capsule game. The teacher section has an amazing collection of related worksheets, activities, and links that can be used with the site.

How to integrate BBC Primary History World War 2 into the classroom: I am so impressed with the content presented on this site. It is easy enough for young students to gain an understanding of World War II. This would be an excellent website to share and explore with your whole class with a projector or interactive whiteboard. Read the facts and discuss the stories together while browsing through the primary resource photographs. Encourage students to imagine what it would have been like to be a student during the war. After you have viewed the site as a class, students can explore more on their own in a computer lab setting or on classroom computers. Allow the students to play the time capsule game to reinforce the skills they are learning.

Tips: This site could take several class periods or days to explore. The additional activities are wonderful, students can do everything from exploring a war time shelter to learning about rationing by shopping for a meal in 1943. I so wish that I had learned history this way!!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using BBC Primary History World War 2 in your classroom.

Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin

November 3, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2836 views

What it is: You really can’t beat free clip art and this collection of clip art beats all I have seen for the classroom. Phillip Martin has created a great educational collection of free clip art for classroom use. Great features: it is easy to use (when you click on a subject or topic you are taken straight to the clip art selection, this is not true of most free clip art sites), there are no advertisements flashing and taking you to other clip art sites, all of the clip art is perfect for educational use, and the clip art is really great quality. This is seriously one to bookmark right now!

How to integrate Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin into the classroom: This clip art is ideal for educational use, there are so many great images that would liven up any worksheet, blog, class website, newsletter, slide show, flipchart, notebook, or classroom wall. The clip art would make creating a bulletin board a snap.

Tips: If you Phillip Martin (who created the clip art) has the following on his website: I would like to relocate to New York City. So, I’m asking for some networking here. You’ve seen the art. Do you know a private school that needs an art teacher ? Or, I could turn to publishing with Children’s books, magazines, literature or for museums, UNECSO or the UN. Or I could paint murals in hospitals or private nurseries. I’m open to suggestions. Are you connected?

If you can help him out please do!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin in your classroom.

Link Up

November 2, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments1866 views

What it is: Link Up is a web app that helps kids link words to categories. Each game requires two categories with six linked words each. Once you have created a game you can save it to access at a later time or to share with others. Students use Link Up by dragging links between categories and words. The game is easy to customize and create on the fly. It would be a great site to use with an interactive whiteboard.

How to integrate Link Up into the classroom: Link Up is a great way to help students organize information and discover similarities and differences. Use Link Up for word sorts in science, language arts, geography, social studies or math. Students could sort living vs. non-living things, events in WWI vs. WWII, long vowel words vs. short vowel words, odd vs. even numbers, and a host of other topics. The click and drag interface makes this site perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard as a whole class activity or as a center on classroom computers.

Tips: Link Up allows you to save and share your activities (hooray!) this makes creating activities for lessons significantly easier.

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

Word Magnets

October 29, 2009October 29, 2009Kelly Tenkely6 Comments16466 views

What it is: Word Magnets is a fantastic little website that lets you type or copy and paste words into a field and create virtual word magnets out of them (think of the popular word magnets sold for refrigerators). After you have typed in the words to transform into magnets, you can choose a “magnetic” background for your words. There are several backgrounds to choose from including grids, venn diagrams, time lines, arrows, stair steps, targets, boxes, numbers, alphabet, circles, webs, flow sequences, tables, present/absent, and many more. After you choose your background, students can create sentences, sort, and interact with the virtual magnetic words. Words can be added to the board at any time and the color of the background and size of the magnets can be adjusted.

How to integrate Word Magnets into the classroom: The background options for your word magnets are really the highlight of this website. You can do everything from word sorts, to venn diagrams, to practicing alphabetic order. Create tables; sort words by their root, prefix, or suffix; link ideas; practice building sentences; create a time line of events, take attendance…the possibilities with this site are endless! If you are going to use this site for taking attendance, I would suggest creating a master list in a saved word document that you can copy and paste from (this will save you from re-typing names every morning). This is an excellent site for an interactive whiteboard or to use as a center activity. This is an easy way to create customized interactive lessons for your classroom. Because you enter the content, this site is appropriate for any grade level.

Tips: One thing I wish this site had: the ability to save. If you want to save words to interact with over and over, create a document that you can copy and paste from. If you want to save a copy of the word magnets after students have interacted with them, take a screen shot of it.

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

HippoCampus

October 22, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2719 views

What it is: HippoCampus is a website with incredible vision. The goal is to provide high-quality multimedia content on general subjects to high school and college students free of charge. Subjects on HippoCampus include algebra, American government, biology, calculus, environmental science, physics, psychology, religions, statistics, and US history. Each of the subject has a large library of multimedia content from students to learn from. HippoCampus was designed as part of the Open Education Resources, a worldwide effort to make education available equitably to everyone. Each lesson includes multimedia lessons, the text of the lesson, and related resources. I believe the HippoCampus model will be the textbook of the future. Students are able to learn at their own pace, pausing, reviewing, and receiving instruction on demand.

How to integrate Hippo Campus into the classroom: HippoCampus has an incredible library of content for teaching and learning. Use the multimedia lessons in place of traditional textbooks or as a supplement to your current curriculum. Teachers can build their own HippoCampus homepage where students can access specific lessons targeted for them. You can even create custom announcements to be displayed to students. Although HippoCampus was designed with high school and college students in mind, many of the multimedia presentations could be used to teach middle school students as well.

Tips: HippoCampus uses Adobe Flash and QuickTime. Make sure that you have each on your computers before using HippoCampus.

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

Virtual Dinosaur Dig

October 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments13551 views

What it is: The Smithsonian site is full of amazing activities and interactives. A few weeks ago I stumbled on their Virtual Dinosaur Dig interactive and immediately sent it on to our second grade teachers who are teaching a dinosaur unit. During the Virtual Dinosaur Dig, students act as paleontologists who find a virtual fossil, learn how vertebrate paleontologists excavate the specimen, learn about the anatomy of the specimen and where it lived, view an illustration of what the specimen may have looked like, transport the speciman to a museum, and reconstruct the speciman (a stegosaurus) at the museum. Each step of the interactive gives students information about the tools used to excavate, and why the tool is used. Students get to virtually use each tool to excavate, transport, and reconstruct the dinosaur.

How to integrate Virtual Dinosaur Dig into the classroom: This Virtual Dig makes students virtual paleontologists. The activity is perfect for a interactive whiteboard or projector. Choose a student team of paleontologists who will help with the excavation. Each student can use one of the tools and explain their portion of the excavation to the class. While these students are at the board demonstrating the excavation, students at their seats can fill in their official “Paleontologist Field Guide” to record the steps and tools used in the excavation (I created the field guide for our second grade teachers and will post the pdf version below). The Virtual Dinosaur Dig could also be used as a center activity for teams of paleontologists to visit on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting. Students can fill out their Field Guides as they work. After the virtual dig, set up a hands on dig. Students can “excavate” chocolate chips out of a chocolate chip cookie by carefully digging with toothpicks.

Tips: I created this Paleontologist Field Guide journal to accompany the Virtual Dig. Included in the pdf is an answer guide. Print these pages back to back to create a book that is folded down the center. dino dig field guide The field guide asks students to match the tool picture with its name and order the sequence of events during the excavation.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Virtual Dinosaur Dig in your classroom.

Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth

October 14, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3009 views

What it is: Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth with the combination of Discovery channel “Planet Earth” and Google Earth. Witness animal behaviors, dive into the deepest cave on the planet, and come eye to eye with a 30-ton humpback whale in this interactive tour. Explore the earth through Discovery channel’s Planet Earth series embedded in Google Earth. Just zoom into a location in the Planet Earth tour and view video clips from the popular 11 part series. The tour is free to download and plays directly in Google Earth.

How to integrate Video Tour of Planet Earth into the classroom: Geography lessons come to life in Google Earth. The Video Tour of Planet Earth infuses even more life into your classroom with an up-close look at the incredible animals and vegetation around the world. This tour is an excellent resource for teaching students about habitats, ecosystems, geography, animals, animal kingdoms, and more. Your students will be able to virtually ‘fly’ to locations all over the world and get a real life look at each stop. This is an outstanding resource to view on the big screen with a projector or an interactive whiteboard. Allow your students to take turns acting as tour guide at each stop. Students can preview the video, do some additional research and present their findings as the class visits their stop along the tour. Set up the tour on classroom computers for a fun geography or science center. Use a stop on the video tour as a writing prompt for journaling.

Tips: Google Earth is a free download, if you don’t already have it, this is a MUST have for every classroom.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth in your classroom.

Big Universe

October 14, 2009October 14, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4813 views

What it is: Big Universe lets you read, create, and share children’s books online. Read hundreds of children’s picture books right from your web browser. It’s like having a huge library of big books for your whole class to read and enjoy. Publishers that contribute picture books to Big Universe include: Charlesbridge, SeaSquirt, Lobster Press, Saddleback, Matthew Price, ISSA Step by Step, Andersen, Dawn Publications, Tanglewood Press, ee, Teacher Created Materials, Illuminations Arts, Weekly Reader, and Elora Media. Big Universe has both fiction and nonfiction picture books to read with your students. Books are easy to search by category, grade, reading level, interest age, and language. Students can create their own ebooks on Big Universe or share books on a virtual bookshelf. The catch: the free version of Big Universe offers a limited look at the premium publisher books (you can read through half the book before being prompted to upgrade or close the book). You can read any of the user created books for free. With the free version you can only create one ebook per user account. Students can create bookshelves and share an unlimited number of books, recommend books to others, and add friends. The accounts on Big Universe are reasonably priced (especially considering how much it would increase your classroom library).

How to integrate Big Universe into the classroom: Big Universe is an awesome way to expand your classroom library and share quality picture books and stories with your students. The big books on Big Universe are ideal for use with an interactive whiteboard or projector. Students can read along and see the rich detail in the illustrations. Big Universe also makes for an excellent reading center on the classroom computers. Allow students to create their own book on Big Universe to add to the library. They will be published authors! Students can share the books they are reading on Big Universe on their own virtual bookshelf. They can swap book recommendations with friends and share stories they create.

Tips: If it is possible for your school to purchase a school license of Big Universe, students would have access to an extensive library of books at school or home. This is a fantastic way to get hundreds of books into the hands of your students. Because they can be accessed from any Internet connected computer, students can enjoy the books and stories from nearly anywhere.

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

DomoNation

October 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments5635 views

What it is: DomoNation is a free animation website that is powered by Go! Animate. The site is very intuitive to use and makes impressive cartoon animations. Students can create animations with backdrops, characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects. Students can create on scene or several to make up their animation. The interface is very simple to learn, the drag and drop platform will be familiar to students. To make their cartoon come to life, each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by clicking on the character and choosing from a drop down menu. Special effects, such as weather occurrences or zooming, are simple to add to the project. Animations can be saved for personal or public view on the DomoNation site. This is an impressive little web application that makes students the director of their very own movie.

How to integrate DomoNation into the classroom: Allow students to present their knowledge creatively using DomoNation instead of requiring the traditional report, diorama, or poster plastered with pictures and information. Students can create an impressive alternative book report by creating an animated book talk, interviewing a character from the story, or re-creating an important scene in the story. Students can display their knowledge about a historical figure by “interviewing” the historical person of interest or an eye-witness of a historical event. DomoNation would be a great platform for creating public service announcements (how about the importance of hand washing with the H1N1 outbreak?) or short video commercials that persuade in a debate. Students can write a screen play and then transform it into an animation. Animations are also a great way to illustrate vocabulary words and story problems in math. In the foreign language classroom, students can create short cartoons practicing the new vocabulary they are learning. The possibilities are endless! Hold a DomoNation premier party day in your classroom so that students can watch each other’s finished animations and learn from their peers.

Tips: Direct your students to the Create page of DomoNation, some of the content created by other users may not be appropriate for your school.

Related Resources: Kerpoof, Shidonni, XtraNormal, DoInk

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