Google Reader Blog Roll

Over the past few weeks I have been following some new blogs.  It has been great to read all the new ideas, education news and tech updates.  I have found it super motivating to get me trying and incorporating new technology to my teaching repertoire. The blog I have found most useful has been  Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne.  His posts have been the ones I have found myself saving most often and I have been trying out the technology he recommends most. He will definitely remain on my "must-read" list.

I have also really enjoyed  LARRY FERLAZZO’S WEBSITES OF THE DAY…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL Quote of the day posts.  These quotes are often thought provoking and encourage looking deeper into the issue. A recent favorite was: 

I love this quote, because in world where standardizing education has become so huge, people forget that standard doesn't have to equal identical. 

The other blogs I followed were:

A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet "Because you never know when you'll need a cybrarian..."  

Cool Cat Teacher Blog "Teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and a belief that teaching is a noble calling"

The Busy Librarian 

TLC = Tech + Library + Classroom "finding ways to bring the three together..."

Willrichardson.com "Read. Write. Connect. Learn."

Apps for Elementary School Teachers and Students

There are so, so, so many apps out there.  Any the app industry is expected to be worth $25 billon this year. (source) Sometimes it can be really overwhelming to find and try new apps.  What's going to be worth my time to learn?  Seriously. Does anyone have an answer? Please tell me. Anyway, I digress, this week I am going to share four apps I think are worth a try.  The first two are for students, the second two are for teachers.

Futaba is super useful if you only have 1 ipad and want a way multiple students (up to four) can use the ipad with out fighting or waiting for a turn.  It is a game where students match a picture to text.  The best part is you can upload your own pictures for students to play with, directly supporting what you have taught.  Because all of my students are ESL learners this is great activity for a center or fast finishers.  The video below explains it better.  The only thing I don't like it that the app can get pricey when you are buying all the expansion packs.  

Motion Math Hungry Fish- I love that is app doesn't just teach math facts, it teaches the multiple combinations you can use to arrive at a number.  So much better for number sense!  It is also free!  The video below shows the game in action.

Educreations is a interactive whiteboard app.  Imagine carrying around your interactive whiteboard...the possibilities are huge! This app allows you (or your students!) to create, record and share interactive lesson from you mobile device or use it online. They also have a huge sharing website where you can upload or download lessons for free!

Here is a great article Smartboard-Make Way for Educreations.

Evernote.  It really is the bee's knees. Yes it takes some geting use to go paperless, but once you do, you will be so organized! No more lost notes!  Here is a great Prezi from Rebbecca Spink on Evernote for educators.

Nothing to do with apps, but came across this blog post from Freetech4teachers.com about Scholatsic's Character Scrapbook and I am thinking I am going to have to give this a try! Check it out!

Kinds of Instructional Software

This week I'll be highlighting different kinds of instructional software for students.

Drill and Practice: Students guess and get instant feedback to support memorization.  Flashcards and matching games are super fun and easy with technology.  No more lost cards or wasting of paper!

Quizlet is a great place to create your own drill and practice exercises.  Check out the video to see why.

Quizlet for Teachers from Quizlet on Vimeo.

Tutorial: Students learn new material from a tutorial just like it was their teacher.  Tutorials are designed  to teach the lesson, offer practice and then assessment.

The Brainpop websites are a great family of tutorials in all subject areas.  They have  BrainPOP Jr.^®(K-3), BrainPOP and BrainPOP ESL^™(English Language Learners).  Each tutorial starts with a video, then the students play a game to reinforce learning.  After they can take a quiz about what they've learned.  While the sites are not free, they do offer some free content so you can try it out. 

Simulations: Students can explore models of real or pretend situations to develop their understanding of complex concepts.

Sometimes you just don't have the materials or the science experiment just isn't practical for the classroom. Enter explorelearning.com's gizmos!  Gizmos are math and science simulations for grades 3-12. Watch the video below for an extended explanation.

Instructional Games: Similar to drill and practice there is an added level of game rules, competition and/or challenge with fun formats to hold attention.  

Game Classroom has collected games from all over the web and grouped them by grade and concept.  A great resource for busy parents and teachers! 

Problem Solving: Student are either learning directly the steps to solve a problem or is discovering problem solving skills themselves in order to solve the problem. 

STEM offers four programs that allow students to problem solve in "real-life" situations.  Designed for the middle school level.  

Integrated Learning Systems: Computer-based instructions are used along with tracking of student progress and testing that the teacher can monitor.  

I have personally used Raz-Kids for the past two years.  It it a great tool to get kids reading with books that are at their reading level.  Watch the video below for another extended teachers guide. 

I also recommend checking out Sheppard Software which has many of the above types of instructional software for free!  I learned about Sheppard Software from this post by Cool Cat Teacher. 

Ipad love in the classroom

While my school is not lucky enough to have ipads for students in the classroom I do have my own and use it constantly.  Having all ESL students means using a lot of pictures.  I can quickly search for an image to show them what I mean, without having it on the SmartBoard where they all can see my google image search (and the inappropriate pictures that sometimes pop up even with safe search).

Lots of teachers (myself included) wonder if just one ipad is beneficial in the classroom which is why I loved this post from Think*Share*Teach about Teaching in the One-Ipad Classroom.  Great ideas for the elementary school level.  I found that article from the blog Literacy Journal, Only 1 Ipad in the Classroom? which is geared toward middle and high school, but I found some good stuff I plan to use in my 1st grade classroom, specifically using your Ipad as a document camera. Which I had really been wishing for lately.

Need some research to back up your Ipad request/grant/plea? The blog Free Technology for Teachers has collected a bunch here.

Class Dojo-the most used website/app in my classroom

What:  Class Dojo is an online behavior management system that tracks student behavior. Each student is assigned an avatar and you can award positive points for good behaviors or negative points for undesired behaviors.

Who: For busy teachers who don't have time to record student behaviors everyday.  For students to understand clearly what is expected. For parents to get daily feedback on their child.

When: 24/7 Teachers can log in and see current and past points.  Parents and students(if you allow this feature) can also log in and see current and past points.

Where: In the classroom, in the hall, in the lunchroom...anywhere you have your smartphone, tablet, computer or interactive whiteboard you can be giving out points.  I even hand the tablet to a student and let them look for students who doing well and give out points.

Why?

You can customize point descriptions.   My school uses specific language for school rules across the grades and I can put that exact language in class dojo so the students know what I am looking for. 

It Motivates the students.  Anytime my students see the ipad in my hand or the website on the interactive whiteboard they know that is an opportunity to get points and rush to do whatever it is they are supposed to be doing.  Transition times are so much shorter and I don't have to repeat myself nearly as much. I have avatars for teams points and the students encourage their teammates to behave to get more points.

Online and as Apps.  I have class dojo on my smartphone, tablet and computer, if there is internet, I can be assigning points. 

How it supports learning: Do you remember Pavlov and his dog from Psych 101?  Well this is just as simple as that!  Class dojo follows Behaviorist B. F. Skinner's theory of contingencies of reinforcement*.  When you give positive points you are reinforcing desired behaviors and increasing their likelihood. When you give negative points, you are decreasing the likelihood of undesirable behaviors.  All this positive behavior leads to less time spent on classroom management and more time doing what you are their to do...teach!

I love class dojo, seriously.  I love it!

Video for introducing Class Dojo to Students:

Check out the new timer feature explained by Richard Byrne from Free Tech 4 Teachers

*Roblyer, M.D. & Doering, A.H. (2012). Integrating educational technology into teaching

6th edition. (pp.37-39). Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.