Primary Elementary – Page 19 – iLearn Technology

America’s biggest story time with Tim Tebow!

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5329 views

What it is: Book-it and Suessville have teamed up to do a live read-aloud story time with Tim Tebow. On February 15, 2012, Tim Tebow will be live in a webcast reading Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham. This is especially exciting for our Colorado kids who are huge Tebow fans-HUGE. There are lots of fun printables to pump your students up for the big-day including some tail gate party fun. There are coloring pages, bookmarks, graphing activities, green activities, games and more.

How to integrate America’s Biggest Story Time into the classroom: Set up a reminder for this one, it is sure to be a good time. You just can’t beat a good story…Green Egg and Ham is a classic! Hold a reading party in your classroom, using this event to kick it off. Start by holding a tail gate party complete with fun snacks, a book exchange, etc. Watch Tim Tebow read Green Egg and Ham live in the webcast on an interactive whiteboard or on a projector-connected computer. Set up tents, pillows and blankets around the room where students can choose a cozy spot for a day of reading. This is a fun way to celebrate the joy of reading.

Here are some more ideas I have been collecting on Pinterest for your read-in book party:

Screen Shot 2012-01-30 at 9.10.18 PM — Book cakeBook party inviteBubble Gum TimerCaterpillar kabobs

Screen Shot 2012-01-30 at 9.11.51 PM — Book cakeBook party inviteBubble Gum TimerCaterpillar kabobs

Tips: Sign up for an email reminder for this event on the Book It website! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you should be on Pinterest.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using America’s Biggest Story Time with Tim Tebow in your classroom!

Extreme Speed Booking:Using Technology to help kids love reading

January 23, 2012Kelly Tenkely10 Comments7723 views

What it is: What makes technology SO great is the way that it can make life (and teaching) more productive and fun. Over the years, I have found so many ways that technology can make reading more rewarding for both kids who love to read, and kids who dread reading. Today, I created an “Extreme Speed Booking” website for @michellek107′s class at Anastasis. I created the site quickly using Weebly, an awesome WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website editor. Drag and drop website building is where it is at! The idea behind the site is to introduce students to a variety of books and form classroom book groups. How does Extreme Speed Booking work? A whole lot like speed dating. 🙂 Students spend a little time with each book and then rate them accordingly with “I want to read more”, “Interesting”, “Not for me”, or “I’ve already read”. Students can also make a note of how interested they are in reading the book (maybe a 1-10 scale)? This process introduces students to a variety of books, genres and authors. Students may come across titles and authors they wouldn’t otherwise find. It also helps teachers form classroom book groups that are of high-interest and investment to students because they had input.

How to integrate Extreme Speed Booking into the classroom: Extreme Speed Booking is a fun way to build book groups/literature circles. I love this method of exposure to a variety of books, authors, and genres.

For our purposes at Anastasis, I created the Weebly website with a link to the “look inside” on Amazon. Because all of our students have an iPad, this was the simplest way to get the book preview into the hands of the students. Don’t have technology? No problem! Just make sure that you have enough copies of books so that each student can sit with the physical book during the Extreme Speed Booking sessions. If you have classroom computers, you can do a blend of both.

Explain to your students that they will have 2 minutes with each book. During that time, they can choose to read the introduction or first chapter, read the book jacket, or flip through and look at chapter titles and pictures. The goal during this time is to discover whether this is a book that they would like to read. It is okay if it isn’t a book they would want to read…the goal is to find out which book they are most excited about. After the two minutes is up, sound a bell that signifies it is time to switch. Before they switch, students can quickly make a note of the Title and rate the book. Continue on until students have had 2 minutes with each book. Collect the notes students have made and formulate book groups based on interest in the book.

I’ve added a few extra pages to our Extreme Speed Booking website including places where students can explore other books that they may like to read (Shelfari and Book Wink). I’ve also added a form that book groups can fill out as they are reading. The form gets emailed directly to the teacher. Our students will probably be blogging quite a bit of reflection about their reading. I thought it might also be useful to have a place for groups to answer questions, make comments, or update their teacher with their progress as a group.

@michellek107 created a Google form for her students to fill out while they are speed booking. Great idea! She is so smart. This will make it easy to collect all of the responses in one place to form groups.

Suggestions for books:

Choose books from a variety of levels, make sure you have a few book options for each reading level in your classroom.
Choose a variety of authors and genres, this is a great way to expose students to authors and genres they don’t normally seek out on their own.
Set up classroom computers with some book trailer videos from a site like Book Wink…this is a great “introduction” to a book or genre and acts much like a movie trailer.
Choose a variety of books from ONE author. After students have completed reading in their smaller groups, they can come back together and do an author study as a whole class; each group contributing something a little different.
Choose a variety of books from ONE genre. Students can read books in the smaller groups but discuss common features of the genre as a class.
Choose a variety of books on a similar topic. Students can read books in the smaller groups and then discuss the different character perspectives, author approaches, etc. This would be really neat to do with historical fiction, Holocaust fiction, etc.
Use non-fiction books that reinforce topics and themes that you are using in other academic areas.
Use biographies of presidents, change makers, authors, etc. Students can learn about a specific person in the smaller reading group and share what they have learned with the larger group later.

Tips: Extreme Speed Booking is a lot of fun with tech, but equally doable without tech! If you have access to a 1-1 tech environment, or can reserve the computer lab for a round of speed booking, you can use my technique above. Weebly makes it very easy to do this!

If you haven’t already, check out Shelfari and create a virtual bookshelf of book recommendations for your class or school. You can see our Shelfari shelf for Anastasis below. If you teach 3rd-12th grade it is worth checking out Book Wink!

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Extreme Speed Booking in your classroom!

A Plethora of habitat websites and activities

January 19, 2012Kelly Tenkely5 Comments7681 views

This post is going to be formatted a little differently than most are-so fair warning. 🙂 I do a lot of digging for resources and tools for our inquiry block at Anastasis Academy. I thought it might be about time I shared the love here! If you find it useful, I may include some more of these kinds of posts periodically.

Right now our students are learning about how the world works. They are inquiring into animal habitats and needs.

Websites:

Draw a habitat– my favorite from PBS!
Plant and Animal Habitats from BBC has students working with the Sarah Jane Adventures team to complete a habitat interactive activity where students match aliens with the best habitat based on clues about both creature and habitat.
Learn about habitats with this virtual text from BBC.
Create a butterfly habitat by adding and removing plants.
Explore the Deep Sea habitat with this interactive from National Geographic.
Explore the Antarctica habitat with National Geographic’s Critter Cam.
Build an online habitat with Switch Zoo.
Design a Habitat with ARKive education.
The Great Habitat Match with the Magic School Bus Gang.
Walk in the Forest helps students learn about layers of habitats in the forest.
Animal Homes (this is a good one for kindergarten or younger).
Frog habitats– students help a frog find a new home.
e-Learning for kids habitat interactive.

Activities:

Remember cootie catchers? Or fortune tellers? They are easily folded out of a regular 8.5×11″ piece of paper. Students can use cootie catchers to show their knowledge, and quiz each other, about habitats. Ask students to each choose a different habitat to create their cootie catcher about. Each flap can have a different word that describes the habitat (for example: desert might say “dry”, “barren”, “extreme temperatures”, “low vegetation”). The next flap can have a type of animal that lives in that type of habitat. The last flap can include a fact about why that habitat is perfect for the animal. To play with the cootie catcher, one student chooses a word and the other spells the word out while opening and closing the cootie catcher. The first student chooses a new word and the second student spells the word out while manipulating the cootie catcher. On the final turn, the student chooses a flap to be opened to reveal the fact.
Create a complete ecosystem: photosynthesis, rain, decomposition, life cycles http://cranberrycorner.blogspot.com/2010/07/summer-fun-ecosystem-edition.html

There are SO many fun ways to explore habitats and animals…if you have outdoor space at your school, send students outside to explore the habitats they walk right by every day.

A catalog of apps sorted by Bloom’s Taxonomy #standagain

January 17, 2012Kelly Tenkely5 Comments5875 views

Open publication – Free publishing – More apps

What it is: This week Apple is all set to make a BIG announcement about education. I always tune in when Apple has something to say, but this week I am particularly interested in what they are going to do with education. The announcement has been connected to some of the big 6 (publishers). This worries me a little bit because I find that the 6 are pretty traditional and in-the-box kind of thinkers. It will be interesting to see how (or if) Apple has managed to convince some of them to break free a little bit. What I am not excited for: a re-invention of the old way. Been there, seen that. We need something that will let students be creative and innovative, NOT rearrange their textbooks! I digress.

In honor of Apple’s announcement, I thought I would do an early release of a catalog of apps I have been working on organized by Bloom’s Taxonomy. I’ve been putting off publishing it because frankly, there are ALWAYS more to add. I just keep chipping away at it as I find it. To be honest, I have a large collection on my iPad that are ready to be added but haven’t yet. So…bear in mind this is incomplete and will continue to grow! For those of you who have iDevices in your classroom or at home, I hope it is helpful!

How to integrate Bloom’s Taxonomy of apps into the classroom: Bloom’s Taxonomy is by no means the best or only way to categorize websites, apps or other educational tools. However, I often find that for my purposes, it is a really nice way to organize tools so that I can find them later. It also keeps me (and my students) thinking about the learning process and keeps us all from getting stuck in a one-type-of-learning rut. Bloom’s is also extraordinarily handy for categorizing apps that don’t fit neatly into a subject matter or that fall into several different subject categories.

In the apps, I have given you a little guide. If an app cost money, I’ve added a $$ on the app. The others are free. The free apps are just as wonderful as some of the paid!

Keep the guide of apps handy for those parents who ask for your best app recommendations!

Tips: Use the Bloom’s Taxonomy app guide with my Bloomin’ posters! Stay tuned for BIG versions of the posters coming soon with my launch of the Learning Genome project on Kickstarter! Woot!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Apps in your classroom!

We Give Books: Read digital picture books online for free

January 9, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments7698 views

What it is: We Give Books is a fantastic initiative from Pearson. Here, you will find award winning digital picture books for students through age ten. There is a mix of fiction and non-fiction, a variety of authors, and a balance of read-aloud books and independent readers. New books are added every month along with special, seasonal books. Now any student with internet access also has access to high-quality picture books! Even better? The more books you read, the more books that are made available for everyone. Choose a book to read, choose a literacy partner campaign to support through your reading, and the more that you read, the more books that are shared with those that need them. Way cool! The site reminds me of Lookybook (which is sadly no more). I’m happy to *finally* see another option!

How to integrate We Give Books into the classroom: We Give Books instantly increases your classroom library and puts high-quality books within reach for children everywhere. We Give Books makes an excellent companion to the interactive whiteboard or projector-connected classroom computer for a class read along. Pull up a story and read the book chorally, ask students to take turns reading, or simply follow along. Everyone can see the pictures and words! This is a great resource for practicing reading strategies together as a class.

We Give Books makes a wonderful reading station on classroom computers. Students can access wonderful stories any time through We Give Books. For those students that struggle with indpendent reading (or are emergent readers) there is a read-along option on some of the stories. Students can follow along with the reading building fluency, flow and vocabulary.

If you are a primary or elementary teacher, this is a must-add link to your classroom website or blog. Be sure to share the site with families so that students can access the same wonderful library of books from home. Students (and teachers) can create their own library where they keep the books they have read (or enjoy reading). To add a book to a library, you must be a member of We Give Books- no problem, it is quick and free to become a member!

Tips: Students can use the word cloud on the right side of the We Give Books page to find books about their favorite subjects. Thank you to @Shannonmmiller for pinning We Give Books on Pinterest, it is a great find!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using We Give Books in your classroom!

Google Digital Literacy Tour

January 4, 2012Kelly Tenkely6 Comments5583 views

What it is: No matter what subject(s) you teach, digital literacy is something we all need to take the responsibility to expose our students to. iKeep Safe (one of my favorites for Internet safety with Faux Paw the Techno cat!) teamed up with Google to create a curriculum for educators to teach what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. The outcome is wonderful, it is designed to be interactive, discussion oriented, and hands-on. Each separate piece of curriculum (workshop) includes a pdf resource booklet for both educators and students, videos to accompany lessons, and presentations. The three workshops available are:

Detecting Lies and staying true
Playing and staying safe online
Steering clear of cyber tricks

How to integrate Google Digital Literacy Tour into the classroom: Google never disappoints, and the Google Digital Literacy Tour is no exception! These are a great discussion starters for every classroom. I like this Digital Literacy Tour because it doesn’t give a lot of drill and kill type exercises to find out if the student can tell you the “correct” answer. Instead, it invites conversations and deeper thinking…exactly what is needed for true digital literacy!

The videos and presentations can be used throughout the year (and multiple times throughout the year) to open discussions about online behavior. Too often educators assume that because students are adept at using technology, that means they know how to properly use that technology. Students can understand the freedom and benefits that technology brings without knowing how to properly manage that freedom, that is what digital literacy is all about! It is up to us to help students understand what their digital relationships represent in real life, and how their actions online can affect what they do in real life.

Use the Google Digital Literacy Tour as a conversation starter for the whole class or ask students to break into smaller groups to discuss before they share with the larger group. If you have some added time for reflection, ask students to write about their own experiences, or reflection, on why digital literacy is important. Every year I have taught Internet safety, I am amazed by what students tell me they have encountered online! I am telling you now, no matter what grade you teach, your students have encountered something online that they didn’t know what to do with. Help them navigate that!

Tips: Share these resources with parents. They often hear reports that emphasize the negative aspects of online behavior and, instead of teaching students how to properly manage their freedom, restrict it all together. This is okay for the short term but does nothing that is beneficial for students long term!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Digital Literacy Tour in your classroom!

Living Math Book List: Fiction for (almost) every math concept

January 3, 2012January 3, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment6239 views

Happy New Year!! You may have noticed…I took a tech break for the holidays! There may not have been an abundance of posts and sharing happening, but I was still collecting away and have more resources than ever to share in 2012. Thank you all for making my 2011 such a wonderful year to be a part of!

What it is: You know what I love? Reading and books. Particularly fiction. Living Math Book List is a fantastic site that introduces books (mostly fiction) for every math concept (okay, almost every math concept!). The site is SO easy to use, just click on the “Search categories” tab and choose the math topic your students are working on. A list of books with links to Amazon is at the ready. The site is being updated regularly so new books pop into the different categories on occasion. Isn’t it great to stumble on a new jem-of-a-book that you can use in your classroom? I love teaching through story, and Living Math Book List makes it easy to bring stories into your math class. Including books in math gives students who struggle with math concepts a new vantage point and understanding. It makes math meaningful by showing students why they learn the math concepts they do and how math really is all around us. You have to love that! Topics include: addition, angles, area, calendars, capacity, combinations, comparisons, counting, skip counting, data collection, division, doubling numbers, equal sets, equations, estimation, even/odd, fractions, graphing, making predictions, matching, measurement, metrics, money, multiplication, negative numbers, opposites, ordinal numbers, patterns, percentages, perimeter, place value, positional words, probability, problem solving, proportions, ratio, reading a schedule, regrouping, rounding, sequences, shapes, sizes, sorting, subtraction, symmetry, time, and weight. So yeah, something for everyone!

How to integrate Living Math Book List into the classroom: As I said, I am a big fan of reading and books. Any time you can tie learning back to story is a win in my book. Use the books you find on Living Math Book List to introduce new concepts, to enrich students interaction with a concept, as a launching point for writing their own math-related fiction, or just to expose students to a new way of thinking about the math they are learning. The books make a great classroom read-aloud or can be used as a math center during a unit.

At Anastasis Academy, we made sure to have plenty of these types of math books available to students during silent reading. They really enjoy reading them with a partner and pointing out the math concepts they recognize along the way.

Tips: Embed the link to Living Math Book List on your class website or blog, this will make it easy for you, and your students, to find math-related books any time.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Living Book List in your classroom!

Math Puzzles from Math Pickle

December 14, 2011December 14, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4649 views

What it is: Math Pickle is one of my very favorite math sites. It goes WAY beyond your traditional math drill and skill games or math problem worksheets, and has students looking into challenging problems, and having fun doing it. Math Pickle features mathematics videos for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The videos feature real students engaging in inspiring math problems and puzzles. The videos often speak to unsolved math problems throughout history that students work to solve. In the unsolved problem, students must use developmental level appropriate math to work out the problem. Math Pickle is the brain child of Dr. Gordon Hamilton who wants to abolish elementary mathematics as a subject and push the idea that problem solving is at the very heart of mathematics.

Recently Gordon (Gord) sent Anastasis Academy his curricular puzzle books. They are beautifully done! The puzzle books reveal the beauty in nature that is mimicked in mathematics, math in machines, and slicing fruit based on symmetry. Our students (and teachers) immediately picked up the books and started flipping through the pages, filled with pictures of insects, fruit, and machines. They didn’t believe me when I told them they were math books! The students saw puzzles and problems to be solved and were eager to jump in and do just that. The BEST way to learn math skills.

The curricular puzzle books are available in PowerPoint form (for projector-connected computers or interactive whiteboards), as PDF documents, or as a Keynote file. The free files are wonderful for whole class instruction and exploration. You can also purchase the books. They include higher resolution images and, as I said, they are beautiful!

How to integrate Math Puzzles from Math Pickle into the classroom: Any time students spend solving engaging problems is a win in my book. These Math Puzzles give students opportunities for problem solving, trial and error, and exploration. The Math Puzzle books help students start seeing math with new eyes, they start understanding that math is all around them. Math is in nature, inventions and games. It makes our world beautiful.

Students who love nature and art will be particularly drawn to these puzzles.

The puzzles make excellent whole class challenges or center activities. The books are appropriate for 1st through 8th grade and cover topics such as:

Pattern
Problem Solving
Multiplication
Problems with multiple solutions (not the typical one answer only they are all used to)
Mirror symmetry
Rotational symmetry
Prime Factorization

These are a great way to stretch the brain and discover that there are multiple ways to approach a problem.

Tips: Thank you, Gord! We love the books and are enjoying problem solving and exploring!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math Puzzles from Math Pickle your classroom!

Zoo Whiz

December 13, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4795 views

What it is: Zoo Whiz is a new education site that encourages kids to be “whizzes” in math, reading and word development. There are levels and content for students from 5 to 15 years old. There are over 11,200 interactive activities to help unleash the whiz in every child. The games and activities go beyond simple drill and skill to build higher order thinking skills and problem solving strategies. The activities build fluency in math, reading and word development. Zoo Whiz has kids practice math, reading and word skills through a series of activities and games that gets progressively difficult. As students play games, they earn Zoo Whiz “money” that will allow them to purchase animals to build up their zoo. Young students will really enjoy this aspect of Zoo Whiz!

In the math sections, students will learn:

Numeration: integers, operations, money
Addition & subtraction
Multiplication & division
Fractions & decimals: ratio, percentages
Patterns & algebra: patterns, relationships
Data: recording, displaying and interpreting data
Measurement: length, area, volume/capacity, mass, time
Space & geometry: 2D, 3D, position, angle, transformations, symmetry

Currently Zoo Whiz is in public beta. There are still some areas that are being developed and released. There are two versions of Zoo Whiz: a free account and a premium account that provides students with additional content and abilities within the game. In the public beta, both versions are free. While the site may have curricular material for students up to age 15+, I’m not sure a 15 year old student would spend any amount of time on this site. It is definitely more geared for the under 10 crowd.

How to integrate Zoo Whiz into the classroom: Zoo Whiz is a fun new way for students to hone their math, reading and word skills. Because every student has their own login, they can practice the subjects at their own level and at their own pace. The site makes a great center activity, providing students extra practice for basic, key skills. I like the way Zoo Whiz activities present concepts in a variety of ways to ensure that students have a real understanding of a concept (instead of memorization of a fact alone). Zoo Whiz is a great place for students to build fluency.

I like the way that Zoo Whiz has set up the school and classroom accounts to be linked with a home account. This makes it easy for both parents and teachers to stay aware of what skills students are working on, where they are successful, and where they could use some additional help.

Students will enjoy earning money to purchase animals for their zoo.

If you don’t have the opportunity for students to play these games individually, consider using a projector-connected computer or an interactive whiteboard to play the games as a class. Create one class account for students to play from. Students can take turns helping the class earn money for their zoo and decide which animals should be added. When I had only one computer in the classroom, I turned activities like Zoo Whiz into a class game. Sometimes I would split the kids into teams to see which team could earn the most points and others we would work collaboratively to get to a benchmark that we predetermined. Either way, all students should be involved in game play.

Tips: I learned about Zoo Whiz from iLearn Technology reader, Tania. Thank you Tania! Zoo Whiz looks like a fun addition to the classroom. Be sure to let parents know about Zoo Whiz, this could be a fun way to continue practice at home.

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

Learn Zillion: Learning without limits

December 5, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4212 views

What it is: Today I learned about a resource called Learn Zillion in a Skype conversation with Sam Schillace, creator of Google Docs. Learn Zillion has a tagline that resonates with me: Learning Without Limits. This is why I love technology, it enables learning without limits. One of the things I have dreamed about, is a world where the very best teachers around the world could be connected with the students that need them. Learn Zillion does just that through asynchronous video lessons organized by the Common Core Standards. Learn Zillion was started by E.L. Haynes public charter school who had a passion for sharing best practices across classrooms and to connect students with just the right lesson, at just the right time. The site started small and grew along with the passion that every child should have access to incredible teachers and resources. Learn Zillion is now a place where teachers can learn by “sitting in” on other teacher’s lessons, and students can get a playlist of lessons that meet their needs. Pretty awesome!

How to integrate Learn Zillion into the classroom: It has always bothered me that I only had access to the teachers I had access to. Let me explain that a little: I had some really incredible teachers growing up; my first, third, and fifth grade teachers were beyond exceptional. I think about them often and model my own teaching based on what they did. I had an incredible creative writing teacher in high school. I had an Algebra teacher who made me believe that I was a gifted math student (I’m average at best). I also had years with so-so teachers, teachers who didn’t really inspire the best in me. That is not to say that another student didn’t connect with them and remember them years later. It always irked me that I didn’t get to pick ANY teacher in the world to be my teacher. I knew that there were amazing teachers out there, why didn’t I get to learn from them? Would my education have been different if I was matched up with the very best teachers in the world?

Learn Zillion is the first step in this direction. It may not be the rich experience you get from clicking with someone on a personal level AND learning from them, but does give students the ability to learn a concept in a new way from a teacher who may “click” with them educationally differently than you can. Sometimes it is just a matter of being able to pause, rewind and repeat a concept at will that makes all the difference. With class sizes that are growing out of control, the ability to work one on one with students is diminishing quickly. Learn Zillion allows every child to enter their learning at the right level, it is available on demand (day or night), it utilized fantastic educators from around the world, and it helps teachers create custom playlists of learning for students. Using this technology, students can get the extra support they need with foundational concepts.

Learn Zillion would make a fantastic support center in the classroom. Students can visit the center to find out where they are in their personal learning journey, watch videos and practice new skills and concepts. Because the videos are based on Common Core Standards, your students will get extra support for the foundational skills that support additional learning.

Learn Zillion is a nice resource in a “flipped” classroom where homework looks a lot more like preparation for practice that happens in the classroom. Students can watch the preparation video at home and come to class prepared to practice and explore using the new knowledge. The great thing about a flipped classroom is the ability to offer students support where and when they need it-in the practice and honing of skills.

Tips: I’m impressed with the quality and organization of Learn Zillion. Be sure to take some time to explore some lessons and dream up how you might use it with your students or even as a learning tool for yourself.

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