ipads for Thinking and Learning

     One of my favorite educational blogs that I follow is called Langwitches, where recently I read an article called "There is More to iPads in the Classroom...than Apps". Langwitches by the way, if you are not familiar with it, is definitely worth a perusal if you too enjoy learning what tools other educators are using to make an impact on how they teach and how their students learn. 

     OK, back to the article. With the implementation of many idevices across our district, I am often asked if I know of a "good app" that will do this or that for a certain lesson. Although I am always up for the challenge of finding the perfect app, I often wonder if we are missing the mark on the full potential of these devices in the classroom. There has to be more to these "cool tools" than just "drill and kill" apps, a video camera, and easy access to the Internet!! That is why I was excited when I read Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano's article, where she discusses how it is important; "to NOT see only apps but to focus on pedagogy and the iPad as a LEARNING and THINKING tool".  She also suggests looking at apps "THROUGH THE LENS of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and 21st Century Skills and Literacies".  Don't get me wrong.  I love many of the amazing apps out there that help kids learn certain skills and get them excited about their learning. However, let's take it a step further and discover the many ways to use these devices to collaborate, evaluate, explore, connect, extend learning...and make life long learners!!

     With that in mind, take a look at the attached list of apps as seen through these different lenses! Each of these images can be printed as PDFs.   Enjoy!

     

Built for Students...Loved by Teachers...StudyBlue

It's that time of year again, when teachers are prepping review materials and students are cramming for that final exam or Regents.  Get your student's excited again about learning by introducing them to StudyBlue! If you like Quizlet, then you are going to love StudyBlue.  This online study tool designed for our digital native students who want the ability of studying in the palm of their hand.  StudyBlue allows students to study using a computer, or on-the-go using either the Apple or Android app.   


StudyBlue provides users with lots of different study tools including flashcards, quizzes, test reviews, and much more.  What I like about StudyBlue is that students can quiz themselves using their flashcards and the program keeps track of which ones they got right and wrong, enabling them to focus on mastery.  It also reminds the students where they left off during their previous session and how long ago they studied.   If their problem is remembering to study... no worries.  Students can set a study reminder for any online flashcards or notes and the program will send them a text message when it's time to study again - with a direct link to the material.  Failure is futile!!  Often referred to as "your digital backpack", StudyBlue allows users to create their own study material or search the flashcard directory for materials submitted by others.  


Check out these StudyBlue videos and please share this link with your students!!  Take away those year-end study blues!!  http://www.studyblue.com/






Here's a great video demonstrating the free Apple app and how  easy it is to create a flashcard that includes an image and how to use your voice to enter the definition.  

Museum Box

The Museum Box is a cool little site that I have had on my list of sites to post about for a while. It allows students to create what I like to call a "virtual or interactive time capsule" filled with information pertaining to a specific event in time, a person, place, etc. This is a great way for kids to debate a topic presenting their argument through visuals that can include documents, images, videos, and sound. Students can also view and comment on museum boxes submitted by others.

The Museum Box interface is pretty slick and your students will quickly learn how to create their boxes using the onscreen "eye catching" buttons and easy to follow directions. The box is divided into multi -layered cubes, with each side of the cube containing the artifact (document, image, etc.). Another feature I like is that it does not require using a specific Internet browser. It will work on Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Chrome, etc.

Set up is easy, but does require an initial school registration that is free. Your account has to be verified that can take up to 5 days. This allows you the ability review and approve your pupils' work. Once you are approved, you can login to the Teacher Administration area and create student accounts (under Manage Users) or ask your pupils to sign up and select your school from the school list. Once this is done, when pupils submit their boxes they will go to you for review and publication.

Here's a video that overviews Musum Box from EduTeacher TV. Check it out!!

Let Class DoJo bring out your Class MoJo!!

Danial San....if you are struggling with keeping your students focused and on task, "ClassDoJo" may be how to "wax on wax off".

ClassDoJo is a free real time classroom behavior management tool that students of all ages respond to in a positive manner. This free web-based tool is an easy way to engage your classroom by recognising positive behaviors as they happen.

"ClassDojo enables you to easily award and record points, achievements and rewards for behavior and performance in class in real-time, with just one click of your computer or portable device such as a itouch or smartphone. ClassDojo provides instant visual notifications for your students (‘Well done Josh! +1 for teamwork!’) with a whole host of game mechanics: think level-ups, badges and achievements to unlock, in-classroom games, avatars and leader boards. Oh - and all fully customisable! ClassDojo provides behavior-tracking analytics, dashboards and reports for parents and administrators, all at one-click. No extra data entry required!" http://www.classdojo.com/tour

Here's how it works. Once you set up your free account, you will simply "create" or "add" a class. This involves typing in your student's names in the text box provided. Each student gets assigned a class dojo monster avatar. Next is to add some behaviors that you would want to reward. The program comes with built in positive and negative behaviors that you can delete, modify, and add your own to. That's it!! Now you are ready to display your little monsters on your whiteboard where you can award or take away points to your students depending on their class behavior and performance. Most kids are competitive in nature and will learn very quickly what behavior it takes to have their classroom avatar earn points and what behavior will cause them to loose points.

Check out these two videos that show how teachers are using ClassDojo in there classroom and how it is making a difference in their classroom Mojo!!

Voice it with Voki

Avatars are a "computer user's representation of themself or alter ego" that kids love to design. Blame it on the Wii or the movie by James Cameron, but lets face it, avatars are a big part of our student's world. Provide kids with the ability to make their avatar talk, makes this learning tool just that much "cooler" to use. What a great way to get kids motivated and to participate!!

Voki.com has it all! It's ideal for various school projects at any grade level. It has powerful and easy-to-use features to make personalized avatars with 150+ customizable characters and 500+ costumes. Students can record their own voice using a mic or phone, or type-to-speech and choose from various voices and languages. Have your students create avatars that talk about events in history, book reviews, vocabulary words and definitions, original writing pieces, outcomes of lab experiments, poetry, ...basically, whatever you want. The process of writing a script, knowing the content of what they are going to discuss or analyze, designing a customized avatar to match certain criteria, are all great ways for kids to use those critical thinking, evaluating, and analyzing skills while having fun at the same time.

Here's a voki that some crazy lady made where she recorded her own voice, but also inserted audio files downloaded off the net.



Enjoy!!

Teaching with Digital Images....the COOL Way!

If you use digital images in your teaching, you will love this free web-based photo editing and design software. BigHugeLabs.com goes above and beyond basic photo editing. It provides a ton of fun photo gadgets allowing you to create customizable photos in an array of different layouts. Examples include magazine covers, jigsaw puzzles, inspirational posters, trading cards, pop-art posters (Warhol), badge makers, and much more. OK, so you are probably thinking...big deal...another free photo editing site...right? This one is a little different as they keep adding more and more "cool tools" to use, it's free, and you can create an educators account allowing you to sign-up your students ahead of time so they do not need to log-in with an email address.

I could see this site being used for a variety of creative learning activities for your students. Keep in mind that any of the "enhanced images" can either be printed or saved. Take it a step further and incorporate these image masterpieces into programs such as Prezi, Movie Maker, PhotoStory, or PowerPoint.

Here are a few ideas of projects you could use with your students. Enjoy!

1. JIGSAW PUZZLES: Teachers could create "Famous People in Time" jigsaw puzzles printed on card stock. After putting the puzzles together, students would have to name the people, and provide at least one thing each person did in history that made them memorable (make it more challenging by allowing them to only use their notes and text book....no Internet!!).

2. MAGAZINE COVERS: Have students create a magazine cover that reflects a certain period in time, science topic, important people in history, current events, famous artists, or characters from a recent book they have read.

3. TRADING CARDS: Assign students a topic (Example: diseases, famous artists, etc.). Set a limit for the content of the cards for students to summarize the most important facts.

4. INSPIRATIONAL POSTERS: Add some motivational artwork in your classroom.

Here is an example magazine cover I created within minutes.

Using PowerPoint to Create Images

Lately, I have been doing a lot of digital storybook and video projects using PhotoStory and Windows Movie Maker. Kids often have a story or movie idea in mind that involves two characters to appear in the same scene. If you are having your students use images from the web, chances of finding "the perfect picture" with both characters doing or saying exactly what the student wants, is slim to none. Or, teachers and students want to create a title slide with a little more pizazz than the features in Movie Maker will give you.

Here's a little trick you can use with your students that allows them to use their PowerPoint skills to create and design their own images and title slides. PowerPoint allows you to save a slide as an image file (jpeg, png, etc.) that can later be imported into PhotoStory or Movie Maker.

Here are a couple example slides that I designed in PowerPoint but saved as .jpegs that could now be imported into PhotoStory, MovieMaker, or any application that works with images.










Have your students design a PowerPoint slide using multiple images, snazzy backgrounds, fill effects, clipart, WordArt, etc. Then, when they go to save the file, in the "Save as" window, have them change the "Save as type" option from the default "Presentation (.*ppt) to one of the available image file options (.jpeg, giff, png, tiff) using the drop-down menu. You normally can't go wrong with .jpegs. The program will ask you if you want to save just the current slide as an image or every slide. After choosing the appropriate option, a message appears telling you that the file was successfully exported into a separate folder and the location on the network.