Primary Elementary – Page 22 – iLearn Technology

Math Pickle: Put your students in a pickle encouraging genuine problem solving!

August 9, 2011August 9, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments11361 views

What it is: Math Pickle is a FABULOUS site for mathematics inspiration that I learned about from @davidwees Reform Symposium session. 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. The videos featured on Math Pickle do just that, put your students in a math “pickle”. If you think about the purpose of mathematics, this makes perfect sense. What we really want is students who are great problem solvers and can use mathematics to help solve those problems.

How to integrate Math Pickle into the classroom: Math Pickle is the most excellent mathematics inspiration I have come across. It approaches mathematics from the standpoint of a problem solver instead of from the standpoint of a rules follower. Already that shift in thinking makes my brain happy. Brilliant. Math Pickle has problems and videos for every grade kindergarten through twelfth.

Use these videos to pump some inspiration into the way you approach and teach math or show them to your students and encourage them to continue solving the problems. Don’t forget to film your students working through their own math pickles!

The Inspired page of Math Pickle is a must see. Students can take a look at what mathematicians do in real life. They can also learn about the source of Math Pickle problems.

Tips: Be sure to check out Muse, news and reviews for additional ideas, puzzles and reviews of math products, puzzles and games for the classroom.

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

Moneyville: Economics and money virtual world for elementary students

August 4, 2011August 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2532 views

What it is: Moneyville is a fantastic site I learned about from iLearn Technology reader Tania. This is an impressive site from the UK that teaches young kids (5-9 years old) about money and economic principles. Moneyville is a fun interactive environment/virtual world where students can explore where money comes from, what money is worth and how they can prioritize spending and save (perhaps the US government should be playing this game?). Throughout the game, students are asked to make a number of decisions that can affect their finances for the year. In Moneyville students can make money by picking apples and selling apple juice, work at the post office to sort packages according to value, work at the city gates where they can earn money by painting, purchase items for their virtual room with the money they have earned, visit with a wizard who can reveal a secret treasure and add items to a wish jar where students can place items they are saving for. Students will also find a time machine in Moneyville where they can journey to ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, or to the time of the dinosaurs. The money in Moneyville is generic so it can help students of any country the principles of where money comes from, how to prioritize money, the value of money, and why it is important to save.

How to integrate Moneyville into the classroom: Moneyville is a fun way to help young students understand the basics of money and economics. The site is a fun way for students to explore economic principles. It provides a great place to start discussions about what it takes to make money (work), why money is important, why saving is important and how the economic cycle works. Moneyville would be a great site for students to play on individually in a lab setting at the beginning of a money/economics unit. Expand the game into other disciplines. Students can learn about persuasion and advertising by creating advertisements for their businesses in Moneyville using a paint or word processing program.

Don’t have time/resources at school for students to play Moneyville in the classroom? Introduce them to the game using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. This is the type of site that my students begged to be able to continue on at home. I never made it homework but rarely had a student who didn’t play at home! If you do have an IWB or projector, create a class Moneyville account. Let students take turns making decisions in Moneyville and talk as a class about the consequences (and unintended consequences) of those decisions.

Tips: Students create a username and password so that they can play in Moneyville with all of their progress and money saved.

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

Science Toy Maker

August 2, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2442 views

What it is: Science Toy Maker is a teacher-created website with fantastic instructions and ideas for science toys and projects. These are mysterious, kinetic, noisy, do-it-yourself science projects that spur scientific investigation. The science toys and projects are inexpensive (seriously so cheap that anyone can make them!) and don’t require special skills, tools, materials, or work space. Each toy or project has a “more about” page that includes explanations, historical context, related activities, and high-quality links for more research. Each toy/project also has a clear step-by-step video directions or text instructions with helpful pictures. This is a GREAT resource for the classroom, for students interested in science and for parents.

How to integrate Science Toy Maker into the classroom: Science Toy Maker is a fantastic place to visit for fun science projects and inspiration. These simple toys/projects demonstrate powerful science concepts and can be used as an introduction to a new concept or an illustration of a concept. They are easy enough to follow for kids to do them independently making this a great stop for a center activity.

Do you have students who just can’t get enough science? Send them to Science Toy Maker to continue that passion inside and outside of school. Parents will appreciate the resource to keep their kids learning and students will enjoy the continued exploration and creating.

I love sites like this one, it may not be the most visually appealing site, but the content and ideas behind it are wonderful. Why not have your students create their own science experiment site? Throughout the year, students can record science experiments with photos or videos and add information and research they have gathered. This can be added to a class wiki for reference later in the year and to share with other students.

Tips: The most developed projects and toys are at the top of the site with those that are still a work in progress toward the bottom.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Science Toy Maker your classroom!

Pinterest: My new obsession

August 1, 2011August 1, 2011Kelly Tenkely33 Comments7578 views

What it is: Pinterest is a new obsession of mine. I signed up for the invite-only version a while ago but hadn’t done anything with the service since. In between Reform Symposium sessions I wandered back on to check it out. Wow. I know there are other tools out there that do what Pinterest do but none that are so immediately user friendly and visually appealing. I am impressed and addicted. Pinterest lets you “pin” things from around the web on virtual pin boards. You can create as many boards as you want and share them with others. Each time you pin something you can give it a description and tags if you want. Pinterest does the rest and automatically cites the source and provides a trail to get back to the original. As a teacher I love Pinterest for pinning all of those great ideas I find around the web visually. I can write a quick reminder to myself about what I was thinking when I pinned it or how I want to use the tool. SO great! A lot of times I come across some random craft or picture that spurs an idea for something I want to do for the classroom. Because it isn’t a tech-tool or related to education it often gets lost. Pinterest is helping me grab all of those ideas and keep them around so I actually put them to use. Very nice.

How to integrate Pinterest into the classroom: Pinterest is a great way to organize yourself as a teacher. Gather up all those ideas you see online and then share them with other teachers (who may or may not be Pinterest users…it really doesn’t matter).

Because you can share Pinterest boards with non-Pinterest users, this is a great way to share things with students. The resource could be anything- pictures, a website, a video. Create a board for every unit that you do and share those boards with students so that they can continue exploring and learning.

Students can use Pinterest too, invite young students to help build boards in a class Pinterest account. Create a board for every letter of the alphabet and let students add pictures that they come across to the letter board that it matches. Pinterest has a bookmark tool that you can put in your bookmark bar to make this as easy as one click! Students can put their first name in the description so you (and other students) can keep track of who found what. Like a year-long web scavenger hunt!

Older students can create their own Pinterest boards. Pinterest would be a great place for them to collect images that they feel say something about them-an identity board. These boards can be shared with others and added to all year. Not only will you get to know your students better, but other students will find connections they didn’t know they had.

Pinterest is a nice visual way for students to share their web findings. Pinterest even lets students decide if they want to be the only contributor to their board or if they want to open it up for collaboration so others can add their findings to the board. Way cool.

I have two Pinterest boards that may be of interest to you, one is Classroom Inspiration where I am keeping ideas of things I want to do with students or for our classroom. The other is School Design where I am collecting inspirational designs that I want to see in our school when we build our own building.

Tips: Right now Pinterest is an invitation only site. You can sign up to receive an invitation (I received mine in about 10 min) or you can let me know you are interested in an invite and I can get you on the list. See that? It is worth reading to the bottom of posts- VIP access! Leave a comment if you want an invite and be sure to use a real email address because that is how the invite gets to you.

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

Visual.ly- Infographics Galore!

July 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2680 views

What it is: I am a geek for infographics. I love the way they convey ideas so clearly (especially for visual learners like me!). Visual.ly is infographic geek heaven. At Visual.ly you can search all the best infographics from the web in one convenient place. Do you (or your students) have infographics to share? Upload your infographics to Visual.ly and share them with others. Visual.ly even has a lab where you can create your own infographics! Way cool! Right now the create feature is limited to a Twitter infographic.

How to integrate Visual.ly into the classroom: Visual.ly is a great place to find infographics on any subject. Search infographics by subject or keyword. Use infographics to introduce new concepts, to begin a research project (is the infographic accurate?) or for review. Infographics are brilliant in the way that they help communicate complex ideas in a clear, compact and visually appealing way.

Visual.ly can help students better understand infographics so they can create their own. Right now Visual.ly only has the option for creating a Twitter related infographic (see mine below). This is great if your class has a Twitter account, students can see what their connections online look like (of course just part of the story!). You don’t have to wait on Visual.ly to finish their creation tool, use Excel, Numbers, Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, etc. to create your own infographics! Any time data is involved (science, math, geography, economics, history, government) students can create an infographic to visualize the learning. It would be fun to create a class infographic bulletin board for the first weeks of school. Collect data about students and use picture, shapes, etc. to create a customized infographic. If you do this, come back and share pictures!!

Tips: Because infographics are user-created, some may not be appropriate for all classrooms. If your students are going to spend time on Visual.ly, make sure you preview first!

**By the way, Visual.ly if you are listening, it would be AWESOME if you had an education version!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Visual.ly in your classroom!

PBS Learning Media 14,000+ k-12 resources!

July 20, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2481 views

What it is: PBS Learning Media is a fabulous collection of 14,000+ resources that are separated by subject area. The collection reminds me a lot of the popular Discovery Streaming with one big difference- the resources on PBS Learning Media are free to use! Resources can be searched by grade level, media type (document, image, interactive or video), language (English, French, Spanish) and accessibility (caption, full mouse control, display, transcript). Resources include great descriptions of the resource, the grade level appropriateness and the ability to add the resource to your favorites. PBS Learning Media is a great stop for high quality resources that will meet the learning needs of your students. Many of the resources have associated support materials for both students and teachers.

How to integrate PBS Learning Media into the classroom: The resources in PBS Learning Media are wonderful for all grade levels. The site is easy to search and “favorite” so that the resources you need for your classroom are always at your finger tips. PBS Learning Media is a great place to find videos that enrich learning in the classroom, can be used for anticipatory sets to introduce a concept or to illustrate a difficult concept. The interactive resources are the high-quality games you find on the PBS and PBS Kids websites. Some of the games are appropriate for an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer and played with the whole class, while others work well in a computer lab or computer center activity.

PBS Learning Media would make a good media center on classroom computers for students to explore areas of interest in learning, research and make connections in learning.

Tips: If you don’t already have a PBS account, register for a free account to gain access to more than 5 resources at a time. 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using PBS Learning Media your classroom!

Automatoon: Create HTML5 animations

July 13, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment14874 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I’m slowly but surely making my way through my Google Reader and stumbled on a post by @rmbyrne on his EXCELLENT blog Free Tech 4 Teachers about Automatoon. I immediately started playing with Automatoon and cannot say enough about how COOL it is! Automatoon makes it simple for students (or teachers) to create animations within a web browser. My very favorite part? It was built-in HTML5!! Do you know what that means? It works on iDevices (like the iPad and iPod touch). A non-flash animations site! Pure genius. This is one of the easiest animation programs I have seen. Students can draw characters in pieces (kind of like a puppet or paper doll) and then create points where the pieces connect. The drawings can animate by moving, bending or adding pieces to the picture. SO cool! After watching the demo video, I think even young students could have Automatoon mastered in no time. The tools built into Automatoon are pretty robust for what a simple program it is to use. Your students will look like animation masters, bringing their creations to life. When students are finished creating their animations, they can download them as a zip file to be uploaded to any site. There are two ways to login, students can login with a “throwaway” login that will not save their animation (but will let them create and download a quick animation) or login with a Google account. This is fantastic for schools that take advantage of Google apps for education!

How to integrate Automatoon into the classroom: Kids of all ages love cartoons and animations, Automatoon gives them the tools to be the creator of those cartoon animations. Students can create animations to animate processes in science (think the water cycle, plant life cycle, rock cycle, etc.), vocabulary words (in either native language or a second language), animate a piece of creative writing, animate a persuasive argument (think advertisement), animate a “book report”, animate solving a math problem, animate a story problem or animate an event in history. The possibilities are really endless on this one, students will only be limited by their imaginations.

Automatoon is easy enough to use that with a little pre-planning, students could create animations in 5-10 minutes. This is handy for those situations where you have one or two computers in the classroom or a limited time in a computer lab. After learning how to use Automatoon, students can quickly create animations to illustrate learning. Automatoon is a FANTASTIC little tool for your visual learners…they will “get” it.

Are your students having a hard time understanding a math or science concept or a vocabulary word? Why not create an animation that illustrates the concept/word and share it on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer? The animation can be saved on the classroom website so that students can go back and access it throughout the year.

If you have a classroom website or wiki you could create a classroom animation collection. Students can upload their creations to the class site for a great collection of learning. It would be neat to animate sight words (Snapwords style), math or science vocabulary and create a visual “glossary” online that all of your students have contributed to. Classes can add to it every year or you can work with other classes around the world to create a collaborative glossary. This would also be a great tool to aid students in creating their own “e-textbooks” about any subject. Students can create animations to embed in their other research, reflections and links.

Way cool.

Tips: Be sure to watch the intro video (above) to get a 5 minute low down on how to use Automatoon…very useful!

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

Boy’s Life Comic Creator

July 12, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2553 views

What it is: Boy’s Life Magazine is a great place to reach those boys in your class that are reluctant readers or writers. On the Boy’s Life site, you will find a Comic Creator where students can create a comic strip. The Comic Creator is easy to use, offering enough tools for boys to really customize their comics but not SO many that they get lost in the forever search of pictures. A great balance!

How to integrate Comic Creator into the classroom: The Boy’s Life Comic Creator is a great little tool to help your boys connect with writing and story telling in a way that they enjoy and understand. The tool is simple enough to use as a writing station/center on classroom computers. The comic does need to be created in one sitting, there is no way to save and come back to a comic later. Completed comics can be printed off and shared.

The Comic Creator is a great entry point into writing but could also be useful in math for creating and solving story problems. Students can create a short math comic strip that can be traded with other students to solve.

Students taking a foreign language class could practice new words by creating a comic strip story in Comic Creator.

Use Comic Creator the first week of school as a way for boys to tell all about themselves. Each student can create a comic strip that stars them as the main character. Invite other students to try to match the comic strip with the student as a fun interactive bulletin board activity (Think comics on one side, student pictures on the other and string to draw the “line” between matches).

Tips: I learned about the Boy’s Life Comic creator from The Book Chook, be sure to follow this GREAT kids lit blog! The Boy’s Life website is packed full of goodies that your boys are sure to enjoy (there is even some reading that gets sneaked in there 🙂 ).

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

Swiffly: Convert SWF (Flash) files to HTML5

June 28, 2011June 28, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2625 views

What it is: Google rocks my socks. The good people at Google that are dreaming up ways to change the world never cease to amaze me. Today, new to Google Labs is a little tool called Swiffy. Swiffy let’s you upload a SWF file (otherwise known as Flash) and convert it to HTML5. Sweet. This means that you can use flash content on devices without a Flash player (i.e. iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch). You know what that means? The iDevices are officially the PERFECT device thanks to Google. (No need for the list of reasons you don’t like iDevices, I’m a hardcore fan and you are not likely to change my mind with a rant. Deal? Deal.) Swiffy works directly from your web browser, I have tried it out in Firefox, Safari and Chrome. It worked in all three well! It will also work from Mobile Safari which means it will work from your iDevice. Very handy. Using Swiffy is as easy as uploading a file and clicking “upload and convert”. It couldn’t be easier.

How to integrate Swiffy into the classroom: When I was in college I had a professor that often said “The wheels of academia are SLOW to turn.” She couldn’t have been more correct. I have seen this in nearly every arena of education. Technology is no exception. Many wonderful resources are available as flash files. The problem? iDevices (the iPad, iPod Touch) are becoming more frequently used in the classroom and they are not flash friendly. Google labs comes to the rescue with Swiffy. Simply upload the flash file and convert it to HTML 5 using Swiffy. The new HTML5 files can be distributed to student devices so that learning can continue uninterrupted by something silly like file type. Very cool.

Tips: SWF 5 currently gives the best results. If possible save the SWF file this way!

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

Literature Map- The Tourist Map of Literature

June 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3631 views

What it is: Literature Map is a neat little web tool that I learned about from Samantha, an iLearn Technology reader. Thanks Samantha! Literature Map makes it simple to discover new authors. Student’s can type in the name of a favorite author and instantly get a cloud of related authors. The closer two writers are together on the map, the more likely someone will like both of them. Any of the authors in the cloud can be selected to see the authors related to them.

How to integrate Literature Map into the classroom: Isn’t it wonderful to find an author that you can’t get enough of? Literature Map helps students in the discovery of new authors based on authors they know they like. Tools like Literature Map can act as a catalyst in uncovering the love for reading. Literature Map would be a great site to bookmark on classroom computers or in the library. Students won’t be stuck in the “I don’t know what to read” or the “I can’t find anything to read” rut.

In the intermediate classroom or middle/high school classroom, ask students to choose two authors from the Literature Map to compare and contrast. Students can dig into writing style, genre and author study as they compare/contrast.

Tips: If you don’t find an author listed, you can contribute to Literature Map so that others can benefit from your recommendations.

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