Category: Social Studies

Critical Past

Kelly Tenkely14 Comments on Critical Past5195 views

What it is: Critical Past is a website I learned about today from Tom Boito’s great blog EDge 21 in his Catch of the Day.  The resource is too good not to share again here!  Critical Past is a collection of more than 57,000 historical videos and more than 7 million historical photos.  All of the photos and videos are royalty free, archival stock footage.  Most of the footage comes from U.S. Government Agency sources.  All of the videos and photos can be viewed for free online and shared with others via url, Twitter, or Facebook.  The videos and photos are also available to purchase for download.

How to integrate Critical Past into your curriculum: Critical Past is an incredible collection of historical videos and pictures.  The site is easy to search either by decade and topic or keyword.  The clips and photos on Critical Past will bring historical events alive for your students.  Use photos or videos on Critical Past to help illustrate what students are learning in history.  Ask students to be “eyewitnesses” of history and watch a video before they have context for it.  Students can write or blog about what they think they are witnessing, afterward they can research the event more in-depth and write a follow-up reflection on what was actually happening in the clip.

** Check out this awesome lesson that @pharesr created based on this post. So cool!

Tips: Along the right side bar of Critical Past, you will find “related videos.”  Students can watch a clip and the related videos and reflect on how the clips are related.  Sometimes it is a similar time period, sometimes a related event, other times it is a related location.

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

Sharendipity

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Sharendipity3117 views

What it is: Sharendipity is an excellent online tool that lets you easily create your own learning and educational game.  You can do this by using one of the Sharendipity ready-made templates, or you can create a game from scratch.  There just isn’t always a quality game for students to practice with when you need one.  I know I have found myself wishing that I could find a game focusing on the exact phonic skill or a game that used the vocabulary that we were working on in class.  Often those tailor-made games just don’t exist.  Sharendipity is the answer, making it simple to create your own custom games.  Games are a fun way for students to practice a new skill and they make a great quick center activity on classroom computers.

How to integrate Sharendipity into your curriculum: Create games that are tailored to your students learning needs.  Sharendipity makes it easy enough to create fun games, you can create one in the time it would take you to make copies of worksheets.   Use one of the ready-made templates for the easiest game creation, or if you are feeling brave, start from scratch and make your own.  You can upload all of your own images to Sharendipity making customization really easy.  Consider using pictures of your class, school, or students as the background of a game.  Your students are sure to love seeing familiar faces or landmarks as part of the game.  These games are great for fact practice and recall in math, vocabulary, spelling, phonics, or geography where quick recall of the basics is key.  Sharendipity will walk you through each step of the game making process and when you are finished, you can share the url or embed the game in a class website.  If your students are a little older, they can make their own Sharendipity games to practice with.  Students can create games for their classmates to play as a way to study.  I have students who were constantly creating games and practice activities for my classroom; they got really good at it!  If you are teaching in a computer lab, Sharendipity is a fun way for students to create “original” content for their wiki, blog, or website.  At my school, we buddy up older grade level students with younger grade level students.  It was fun for the older kids to create special games for their buddies after learning about their buddies favorite things.  For example, one student found out that their buddy loved basketball and created a basketball themed spelling activity for them.

If you collaborate with another class or another school, it would be neat to swap customized games with them.

Tips: If you are braving creating your own game, be sure to check out Sherendipity’s learning center for a great guide on how to use the tools.

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

Answer Garden

Kelly Tenkely9 Comments on Answer Garden5245 views

What it is: I learned about Answer Garden from an interactive post on Suzanne Whitlow’s excellent blog, Suzanne’s Blog.  Answer Garden is a “new minimalistic feedback tool.”  It can be used as an online answer collection tool or embedded on a website or blog.  An Answer Garden is created as easily as entering a question and clicking create, no registration needed.  Embed the Answer Garden on any blog, website, or social network page using the embed code provided.  You can also give students a direct link to the Answer Garden. Students can post answers to your questions by entering their own answers or by clicking on and submitting existing answers.  All of the answers are represented in the form of a word cloud.   25 answers are visible per garden but as students submit the same answer, that word will grow bigger.  Creating an Answer Garden is SO simple.  Just type in your question or brainstorm statement and click create.

How to integrate Answer Garden into the classroom: Answer Garden is a fun way for students to brainstorm, plan, and work together.  Pose open-ended thinking questions on your classroom blog or website for students to answers.  Use Answer Garden to host a classroom poll.  Create a geography Answer Garden that gives students a place that they can describe a state or country they are learning about.  Use Answer Garden during reading as a place for students to reflect on different characters, plots, settings, and themes.  In history, give students a date range, event, or historical figure and let them add words to the Answer Garden that describe.  In the primary classroom, type in a phoneme combination and have students submit words that fit the phoneme rule.   Create an answer garden to recognize VIP students in your classroom where each child can answer with a character quality that they appreciate about that student.  The possibilities are endless!  This tool is SO easy to use, try it out in the Answer Garden below.

Where will use Answer Garden?… at AnswerGarden.ch.

Tips: The default settings on Answer Garden only allows students to submit one answer.  You can check the optional “Unlimited Answering” to give students multiple opportunities to submit answers.

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

Energyville

Kelly Tenkely11 Comments on Energyville3967 views


What it is: Energyville is a game sponsored by Chevron.  In the game, students have to provide enough power to meet the energy demands of a city with a 5.9 million person population.  As they play, they must keep the city prosperous, secure, and clean.  The energy decisions that students make for the city in 2015 are based on current lifestyles and the projected energy demands and costs for developed countries in North America, Europe, and Asia.  The Energyville game environment is a lot like SimCity in the way that students build and maintain the city.  Students begin by dragging energy sources to the city to bring it to life.  Students can choose from biomass, coal, hydro, natural gas, nuclear, petroleum, solar, and wind.  As they add energy sources to the city, they can observe the impacts on the economy, environment, and security of the city.  The goal is to keep the impact low.  There is a comparison chart where students can view the impact of the different energy sources on the environment, economy, and security to aid them in their decision-making.  As students move their mouse over the different energy sources, they can read about that energy source in the Energy Advisor panel.

How to integrate Energyville into the classroom: Energyville is an excellent simulation game that helps students to experiment with energy sources.  They are able to see the way that their decisions directly affect people and the environment.  Students can see how some energy sources may have a low impact on the environment but are high in cost or impact security.  This is a great way for students to weigh decisions and defend their choices.  Set students up in a computer lab setting where each student has their own computer.  Give students a set amount of time and see which students can get the highest score (lowest impact) on their city in that time.  Afterward, discuss the best and worst energy sources, and have the highest score walk the class through their strategy.  If you don’t have access to a lab, you can send students to Energyville in small groups as a center activity on the classroom computers.  You could also play as a whole class with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.

Tips: There are two levels of game play.  In the first level, students make decisions to meet the city’s energy demands in 2015.  In the second level, they must make additional decisions to prepare for the energy demands of 2030.

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

Branches of Power

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Branches of Power2673 views


What it is: Looking for another super awesome learning game for your classroom?  Filament Games does it again with Branches of Power.  In it, students can play all three branches of government, all working cooperatively toward the goal of building new laws.  As President, students will choose issues they think are important and rally people around them.  As Legislator, they will create bills around the values of the constituents.  As Justice, they will uphold the law or take out legislation that is unconstitutional.  The only way to navigate the game successfully is to cooperatively construct laws around the issues of the country.  (Our government probably has something to learn about the cooperatively part.) Students will find issues that the citizens care about.  By using the three branches of government, they can grow the issues into laws which appear as towers.  They win if they build all ten issues into towers before time runs out.  Students get the opportunity to play as all three branches, they have to stay on top of it, if they don’t, the branch may start making decisions on its own!

How to integrate Branches of Power into the classroom: Branches of Power is a fantastic interactive game that puts students right in the thick of the government.  I love that the game doesn’t ask students to choose a branch of government to play, but expects them to learn, and play, all three roles.   There is nothing like experience to teach students about the different roles, struggles, and methodologies of each branch of government.  Branches of Power is an excellent game for the computer lab environment where each student has access to a computer and can play individually.  After play, discuss what worked well and what didn’t.  Were students able to complete all 10 towers?  Who got the furthest and what was the strategy that took them to that point?  If you don’t have access to a computer lab, the game can be navigated as a class using a projector-connected computer or an interactive whiteboard.  Discuss strategy during game play and give each student a chance to take part in the game.  This is an outstanding way to learn about the branches of government, what better way to learn than by doing?

Tips: Below the game play screen, check out the Teacher Tools tab.  There are some great teacher files including a Powerpoint presentation that reinforces game concepts and a teacher’s guide to using the game in class.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Branches of Power in your classroom.

Landform Detectives

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Landform Detectives4497 views

What it is: Today I was searching for websites and games that would enhance and enrich the Treasures curriculum.  MacMillan Mcgraw Hill’s reading curriculum is lacking (in my opinion) in the activities that it uses to help students learn grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc.  Most of the suggested activities are not those that require any deep thinking (or in some cases any thinking at all) and usually involve some sort of copying out of the dictionary or filling out a worksheet type undertaking.  These don’t impress me at all.  So, last year I went through all of the Treasures curriculum, pulled out all of the essential learning and skills that needed to be gained.  I have since been on the hunt for engaging activities and games that will help students learn, practice, and create with the essential learning at the core.  Therein lies the rub.  As I scour the Internet for games and activities what I usually come up with is more worksheets.  The problem is, they aren’t labeled worksheet.  They are labeled “game” or “interactive”.  They aren’t really games or interactive (any child would tell you that!), they are multiple choice online worksheets.  I refuse to subject students to them.  Today I made the following comment on Twitter: “Dear educational game makers, an online multiple choice quiz is not a game, it is a worksheet. Please stop pretending it’s a game. Thank you.” I was delighted to get the following message back from Filament Games: “Dear @ktenkely. We know, and in fact couldn’t agree more. And thank YOU.”

I had to explore just who this Filament Games was.  From their Twitter bio: “Filament Games is a game production studio dedicated to creating next generation learning games that combine best practices in commercial game development.”  I am delighted to say, they make incredible educational games that in no way resemble a worksheet!  Bravo!
Landform Detectives is just one of the offerings from Filament Games (I’ll explore the others in separate posts).  In Landform Detectives, “a violent volcanic explosion immediately and forever alters the landscape.  Elsewhere, raindrops gradually pick patterns out of the rock over the course of thousands of years.  Can you recreate some of Earth’s most amazing geological features by uncovering the natural processes that shaped them?”  Now that is what I am talking about!  An engaging game that asks students to use what they know about natural disasters, weather, and the creation of landforms to discover and recreate how they were formed.

How to integrate Landform Detectives into the classroom: Your students will travel the world to unlock the secrets of the Earth’s strangest and most awe-inspiring landforms as they play Landform Detectives.  Students will gain a new appreciation for mountains, valleys, and rivers as they solve the mystery of how they got to be that way and think about how long it takes for those processes to happen.  Your students will transform into geologists as they discover the suspects like ice, water, wind, and sand in the story of our Earth.  As your students travel the globe, they will encounter animated simulations, virtual scientist (Dr. Bob) who can give them more information, and an opportunity to recreate the formation of the landform.  This is an incredible way for students to “see” first hand just how landforms are created.  The site would be best in a computer lab 1 to 1 setting where each student can explore and discover at their own pace.  If you don’t have access to a computer lab, you could also use a projector connected computer or interactive whiteboard to travel the globe together.  If this is the case, allow students to take turns leading and guiding the exploration.  Hypothesize together about how the landforms came to be and how you might recreate them.  Then put those hypotheses to the test and try them out.  Discuss the outcome, did it look like the students expected? Why or why not?

This really is an incredible way to learn about the Earth sciences.  There is just no way that a static text-book can compare to the rich game and media experience that Landform Detectives offers.

Tips: Students can watch a briefing from scientists who share their understanding of weathering and erosion to monitor changes in soils that are used to grow plants for food and fuel.

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

National Geographic Kids Animal Jam Virtual World

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on National Geographic Kids Animal Jam Virtual World3569 views

What it is: National Geographic Kids is a constant source of excellent activities but their new Animal Jam virtual world is above and beyond my favorite.  My students love virtual worlds, they enjoy being immersed in a story, sent on a mission, and interacting with each other to complete adventures and learn.  Animal Jam lets them do all of these things while providing a virtual world where they can discover real-world plant and animal information and follow a rich storyline that has National Geographic’s multi-media content built in.  Cool huh?!  Animal Jam does something else, it excites students to learn more about the real world around them, so when they aren’t playing in the virtual world, they will be excited to learn more about the world they live in.  The virtual world is an easy one for students to pick up on and learn, it is perfect for young students and caters to their specific levels of play and developmental stages.  Animal Jams will be one of those environments that is as appealing to fourth grade students as it is to first grade students.  The online environment is safe and monitored so you can feel comfortable introducing it in your classroom.  Each portion of the sign up process is narrated so it is easy for even young students to sign up.  The site requires a parent’s email address to sign up, the email is required but does not have to be verified before play can begin.  In a classroom setting, a teacher or classroom email address could be used for sign-up. The email address allows an adult to monitor and adjust settings in a child’s game.

How to integrate National Geographic Kids Animal Jam into the classroom: After students sign up, they are entered into the magical world of Jamma where they are introduced to the world.  Each portion of the game is narrated making it accessible to early readers, struggling readers, and English language learners.  As students explore the world of Jamma, they will find embedded learning about different kinds of plants and animals along with incredible National Geographic images.  Animal Jam is a nice environment to let your young students practice what they are learning about online safety and netiquette.  As students explore Jamma, they will learn about links, navigation with mouse and arrow keys, and learn fun facts in the process.

Every primary curriculum that I have seen carves out time for students to learn about plants and animals.  Animal Jam is a fun place for them to discover this learning within the virtual world.  Send your students on expeditions and adventures to find these learning opportunities.  As they play in Animal Jam, students can keep an observation journal where they record the plants and animals they are discovering like a scientist would.  Ask your students how many of the plants and animals they can find in real life around their homes.    If you are learning about ecosystems and environments, ask students to count and name the different ecosystems they can spot in Animal Jam.  This site is ideal for the computer lab setting, make sure to at least begin the game in the computer lab where each student has a computer.  After the kids are signed up and familiar with the world, it could become a center activity for your classroom computers throughout the year.

Tips: Right now Animal Jam is in Beta.  The world is free to join and play in but premium accounts are also available to students.

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

Stories of Learning: Antarctica Inquiry Unit and the Power of Twitter

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Stories of Learning: Antarctica Inquiry Unit and the Power of Twitter1084 views

In addition to iLearn Technology, I keep two other blogs (about to add another): Dreams of Education and Stories of Learning.  Stories of Learning isn’t really my blog, it’s your blog.  It is a place to share what is working in education.  I don’t plan to post my original work often. It is a place to collect and gather guest posts and re-posts of what you are doing every day in the classroom that transforms learning.  The most recent post is a must see, it is from edublogger alliance member Henrietta Miller and is a re-post of a post that she wrote for her excellent blog, Classroom Chronicles.  This story of learning is about an inquiry unit that Henrietta did with her students about Antarctica, as you will read, the learning stretches far beyond your typical unit on Antarctica thanks to the Power of Twitter.

If you have a story of learning you would like to share as a guest post or as a re-post, let me know about it via my contact form here.

Whiz Kids

Kelly Tenkely5 Comments on Whiz Kids3724 views

What it is: Whiz Kids is a new site developed for autistic children.  It was designed to give these kids a fun place to develop life skills.  All of the games and videos have high production values, making them engaging and impressive, they feel as though you have stepped into a Pixar movie.  Through this one portal, you get 16 interactive and therapeutic games.  The games help kids develop essential life skills like empathy, recognizing emotion, making decisions, coping with change, transactions,  non-verbal gestures, grouping, schedules, finding a route, and making eye contact.  Although these games were specifically developed for children with autism, they are wonderful for primary elementary students and ELL students as well.

How to integrate Whiz Kids into the classroom: Whiz Kids has an incredible back story, the site was created by more 80 students 8 lecturers and 10 autism specialists, the project represents more than 16,000 hours of research and development.  The games are tailored to fit the needs of autistic children.  If you teach autistic children, these games will help them develop important life skills that will aid them when interacting with classmates.  The games would be great for classroom computers as a center activity.  Help other students in your classroom understand how they can help the autistic children in the classroom by having them play the Whiz Kids games as well.  This will give your students a shared vocabulary and experience to draw on when they are working and playing together in the classroom.  Because the games focus so much on character development, they are appropriate for any primary classroom.  Help your students learn about complex human interactions like empathy, non-verbal communication, and coping with change through game play.  The games can be played and discussed as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer, or they can be played independently at a computer center, or a computer lab.  After playing the game, practice the skill taught as a class.  For example, if students play Robbie the Robot and are practicing recognizing emotion and facial expressions, follow up by asking students to work with a partner making faces and naming the emotion.  ELL students can use Whiz Kids to develop character related vocabulary and understanding.

Tips: On the Whiz Kids sister site, Autism Games, teachers can get more information about individual games and how to use them with students.  Each game is categorized based on the life skill that it teaches.  The game descriptions and suggestions are fantastic.

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

Rags to Riches

Kelly Tenkely8 Comments on Rags to Riches3341 views

What it is: Rags to Riches takes Lemonade Tycoon to a whole new level with simulated business.  In Rags to Riches, students are working to make their band a success.  Students play the part of a new band going on tour with a few new songs.  As they play the Rags to Riches game simulation, students must make decisions about what the band should do.  They have to decide which cities are best for them to play in, what venues to play, how much money to spend on publicity and how much to charge for tickets.  Students start out with $100 and must make wise decisions to continue in the simulation.  When they run out of money, the game ends and they must start again.

How to integrate Rags to Riches into the classroom: If you teach students like mine, breaking out Lemonade Tycoon in the classroom is met by cheers from some and with eye rolls by others who are “way too cool” for a lemonade stand.  For those students, Rags to Riches is in order.  The premise of the game is the same, but instead of selling lemonade, students are working to take their band to super star status.  This is a great game for teaching students about business, economics, and money.  This game is really best played in a computer lab setting where each student has access to their own computer, but if you don’t have that luxury, it could also be played as a class with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.  If you are playing as a class, give each student a roll in the band and set up rules together about how business decisions will be made.  After the simulation, come together as a class and talk about what decisions had the best outcomes and which led to downfalls.

Tips: Don’t hit your back button while you are in the simulation or your game will start over.  This is an important tip to pass on to students!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Rags to Riches in your classroom.