Category: Interactive Whiteboard

Pinky Dinky Doo

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Pinky Dinky Doo2229 views

What it is:   Pinky Dinky Doo is a site I was destined to review, I saw the show advertising the website while channel surfing one day, and on the very same day, Kevin Jarrett Tweeted about it.  Needless to say, I checked it out and was immediately hooked.  This is a great website for pre-k through first grade students.  The site is based on a PBS show of the same name.  The website has fun activities for kids to take part in including word games, story podcasts, videos, and a place for students to create their own story podcast.  Pinky Dinky Doo loves making up stories and teaches students that every story has a beginning, middle, and end.  The stories are often full of metaphores and similes and often have a great message for kids too.  Every story also has one giant fancy word like “collaborate” or “gracious” teaching students rich vocabulary as well.  I love the way that this site expands student vocabulary!

How to integrate Pinky Dinky Doo into the classroom:  Put your students listening skills to work, listen as a class to a podcast story and discuss parts of a story together afterward.  Every story has a distinct beginning, middle, and end.  Students can draw and visualize the story while they listen to it.  The podcast stories would also make an excellent listening center in the classroom.  Pinky Dinky Doo is a great way to teach students new vocabulary, each story has a ‘fancy word’ that will expand your student vocabulary.  It would be fun to use the ‘fancy word’ from the story as  the classroom word of the day.  See how many times your students can use the ‘fancy word’ correctly during the day.  I love the section where students can create their own story podcasts.  Set up a story station in the one or two computer classroom where partners can create a story and listen to a classmates story.  Students in a computer lab setting could create story podcasts of their own and play the word games independently.  The site is easy enough for students to work independently.  

 

Tips:  Check out the grownups section on Pinky Dinky Doo for some great offline activities.  They even have directions for creating a Fancy Word box of your own and directions for playing the circle story game. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Pinky Dinky Doo in your classroom.

The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults3562 views

What it is:   Digital Vaults reminds me of Museum Box that I wrote about a few weeks ago.  The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources.  Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them.  Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie.  Students can also create a Pathway Challenge.  In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records.  Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges.  There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge.  Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue.  Very cool!

How to integrate Digital Vaults into the classroom:  This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history.    While the site may be too hard for primary elementary students to use on their own, the Lincoln Pathway Challenge could be used with an interactive whiteboard with the teacher guiding the challenge.  Teachers could also create a unique challenge that directly matches your curriculum for students to complete.  The poster, movie, and create your own Pathway Challenge are an engaging way for students to learn about history in a hands on approach.  Give students a direction to go and then give them time to collect resources, and create their digital history vault.  This is not history as I remember it…in fact, I’m sure I would know much, much more about history if I were involved in my learning this way!  This is so much better than learning history from an outdated text book, the Pathway Challenges are like virtual field trips through history.

 

Tips:  I learned about this awesome website from Free Technology for Teachers, a great blog!

 

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

Jeopardy Labs

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on Jeopardy Labs3739 views

What it is:  Jeopardy Labs is an awesome website that lets you build a Jeopardy game board without the use of Power Point!  All that you have to do to start is enter a password so that others can’t edit your game.  Then it is as simple as titling it, typing in categories and then entering questions and answers.  This is really SO easy to use!  You can also search through Jeopardy games created by others.  You won’t be able to edit these but you may find a ready made game that fits your needs perfectly.  Jeopardy Labs was created by Matt Johnson, an undergraduate at WSUV.  Impressive!

How to integrate Jeopardy Labs into the classroom:   Jeopardy Labs is a great way to review and practice class material in a fun, engaging way.  Use Jeopardy Labs to help your kids study for a test, to review a unit, or just as a fun learning activity on a Friday afternoon.  In the computer lab, I have used Jeopardy as a way to teach students how to perform searches.  Students can Google the questions and the first team to find the correct answer wins the points.  

 

Tips:  Before you reinvent the wheel, browse through other Jeopardy games…someone may have already done the work for you!

 

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

Vista Zoo

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Vista Zoo2931 views

What it is:  Vista Zoo is a website where students can create incredible virtual tours of the world by combining pictures, video, audio, and objects in 3-D.  The tours are uploaded and placed on a map.  Tours can then be embeded into any website.  Students can also sign up for their own Vista Zoo portal that they can customize and save their projects.  Vista Zoo is also available on the iPhone and iPod touch (if you are so lucky to have a lab of them!)

 

How to integrate Vista Zoo into the classroom:  Vista Zoo would be a neat way for students to display geography learning.  Students could collect images in history or current images to embed in their maps to learn about a subject.  Teachers can also create virtual tours for students to take individually or as a class with a projector or interactive whiteboard.  This is a great way to teach geography and history, your visual students will love it!   The ability to add audio and video makes these virtual field trips around the world pretty amazing.  If your class has a pen pal class in another country, it would be fun for each group of students to create a virtual tour of their town for the pen pals to view.

 

Tips:  Use Creative Commons images from Flickr or open stock images from a site like stock.xchng for images to embed.

 

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

The Tale of Despereaux Adventure

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The Tale of Despereaux Adventure2543 views

What it is:  I learned about this awesome interactive site from Larry Ferlazzo’s blog.  It is just too good to pass up blogging about it!  This interactive story book lets students create their own tale in the Kingdom of Dor.  The students become a part of the story as they create a character version of themselves that takes part in the story adventure.  Students can choose to have interactive games and puzzles included in their story.  The story is a virtual pop-up book, it is read to students and they can read along with subtitles.  Along the way, students have to help solve problems in the story by playing an interactive game. 

 

How to integrate The Tale of Despereaux Adventure into the classroom:  The Tale of Despereaux Adventure is a really impressive site.  This would be a great introduction to the book by Kate DiCamillo.  The site would act as a teaser for the book that would have students eager to read.  Even if you aren’t reading The Tale of Despereaux, this is a fun way to get students interested in reading (most of them won’t even realize that they are reading!)  Set up a Tale of Despereaux center on your classroom computer during reading time for a month.  Each day two new students can visit the center and take part in their own adventure.  This site could also be used with an interactive whiteboard or projector for the students to create a whole class story.  If students choose to read the story with the interactive games, they  will be stopped along the way to complete puzzle and logic games throughout the story.  These type of games are great to get kids thinking creatively and outside of the box.  The story can be viewed in different languages, this would be a fun site for foreign language classes to visit in the language they are studying!

 

Tips:  One thing I don’t love about this site is that it asks students to enter their first and last name to be part of the story.  I teach my students never to put their last name online.  I ask my students to make up a last name when creating their story. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Tale of Despereaux Adventure in your classroom.

World Math Day 2009

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on World Math Day 20093279 views

What it is:  World Math Day is March 4, 2009!  If you participated in World Math Day last year with the World Math Day website, you know how motivating and fun it was.  If not, this is your year to join in the fun!  Students play against other students in countries around the world in real time mental arithmetic games.  Each game lasts for 60 seconds.  Students can play as many games as they want to.  When you sign up your class, you will choose the level of difficulty based on age and ability.   World Math Day is best for students who are 5 to 18 years old (k-12!).   There are even prizes awarded including student prizes, and school prizes for highest achievers.  Registration for World Math Day is open (and free), your students can start practicing right now!

 

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom:  World Math Day was one of the highlights of math class last year.  The students who participated had a great time competing against other students from around the world.  I have never seen students so excited to practice math facts and many asked, “can we do this at home too?”  How often do you get students asking for more math practice at home?!  Get your students excited about competing on March 4 and start practicing now.  If you have one or two computers in the classroom you can set up a training center.  Reserve a computer lab during math class to practice as a class.  You can also split your class into teams of 3 to complete the 60 second games using a projector or interactive whiteboard.  You will not believe how motivating this site is for students!

 

Tips:  This is an amazing development, World Math Day 2009 is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch!!!  Woot, woot! Students can join in the fun of the practice period and work on their skills against other students before the big day. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.

FontStruct

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on FontStruct1753 views

What it is: FontStruct is a free website that lets students build, share, and download fonts that they create in a simple font editor.  First students name their font, then they use the font editor to draw each character of the alphabet using font bricks and a grid system.  After each character has been created, the font can be downloaded and added to the fonts folder to be used in any word processing program or desktop presentation program.

 

How to integrate FontStruct into the classroom:  It would be fun to come up with a class font where each student is responsible for a letter in the font.  The font could be used for typing practice, or as a header for newsletters that go home each week. FontStruct is a motivating environment for students to practice forming their letters.  They love knowing that they created a font of their very own.  The fonts can be used for anything, I have found that my students love creating a font and using it for typing practice or as titles for projects or slide shows.  If you are creating a class font, this can be done on an interactive whiteboard or on a classroom computer.  If each student will be creating their own font, individual computers are needed.  

 

Tips:  FontStruct does require registration with an email address.  In my class, I created a school username and password so that each student didn’t have to register for an account individually. 

 

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

Animal Games

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Animal Games4657 views

What it is:  Animal Games is part of the Sheppard Software’s Kids corner.  The site has games about animals that help them learn animal classification, the difference between herbivores and carnivores, the food chain, endangered animals, producers and consumers, animal diet, and animal characteristics.  The games are fun and easy to play and teach some important animal science concepts.

 

How to integrate Animal Games into the classroom: These games are perfect for the kindergarten through second grade classroom.  They teach the basics of the food chain, animal kingdom, and animal classification through an interactive game environment.  These games would be appropriate for the one or two computer classroom as a science center, with a projector and whole class instruction, or in the computer lab setting.  

 

Tips:  This site does have some advertisements, use this opportunity to discuss ads with your students and help them spot the ads on each page (some advertisements look like a game). 

 

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

The Periodic Table of Videos

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on The Periodic Table of Videos2583 views

So today is going to be another whirl wind of posts day.  I am cleaning out my Google Notebook saved sites, hopefully you will find one of these awesome resources helpful for your classroom!

What it is: If I had access to the Periodic Table of Videos when I was going through chemistry, my understanding would have exponentially increased!  This site literally looks like a periodic table, when a student clicks on one of the elements, a video opens up that explains the element.  So neat!  The site was created by the University of Nottingham, who is continually updating the videos with the latest and greatest experiments and explanations.  There is a section with extra videos, a collection of science bloopers that are entertaining.

 

How to integrate The Periodic Table of Videos into the classroom: The Periodic Table of Videos is a great way to introduce the elements to students.  I remember spending hours memorizing the Periodic Table but never really understood the properties of the elements.  This site will help your students get a grasp on exactly what the different elements do.  This is also a great way to bring those elements into your room that aren’t practical or readily available. Use this with your chemistry classes in the computer lab setting or with a projector.

 

Tips:  The Features section has some extra videos on topics such as experiments and noble gases.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Periodic Table of Videos in your classroom.

Splat Square

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Splat Square13152 views

What it is:  Splat Square is one of those very simple websites that you will end up using weekly in your math classroom.  Splat Square is a 100 grid that starts out blank.  There are different ‘splat’ colors on the right side of the screen.  Choose a color and then click on the square, ‘splat’, the number is revealed with a splatter of colored paint.  The interactive grid is wonderful for several applications in the math classroom.

 

How to integrate Splat Square into the classroom: Splat Square is perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard.  Teach students to count by 2, 5, 10, etc. by ‘splatting’ those spaces as you count aloud as a class.  Teach students the difference between odd and even numbers by color coding the 100 grid, prime numbers, skip counting, and ordinal counting can also be practiced with Splat Square.  This is a great grid to use with the whole class with the students interacting with the grid on an interactive whiteboard.  It can be used as a interactive math help center or individually in a lab setting.  I like using the grid for whole class math games, I call out what rule I want the teams to follow and they can take turns at the board.  

 

Tips:  Share this one with parents, it can be a big help for your visual learners during math homework. 

 

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