What an amazing experience! I definitely feel blessed that I was able to attend the two day event. I thought I should "share some of the goods" that I received at the conference. Here goes:
PeekYou.com-this website is AWESOME to show students to teach them about digital citizenship. You simply type in a name and you can see all of the public things found online. It will show all the information accessible by others. Kids can try typing in themselves and see all that is available to the public eye. You can also search usernames....so those kids that play games "live and online" with people via PS3 or XBox etc. can type the username of the person they are playing against and find out things about them as well. I thought this lesson will IMPACT students a lot-great for beginning of the year/digital citizenship.
Monster Skype Activity...have the students draw a monster...write a very detailed descriptive writing about their monster...send the description to a "penpal" in another classroom....ask that student to recreate their partner's monster based solely on the description...Skype/GHO to show them and see how they did (helps focus on descriptive writing...) create a competition to see whose is closest to original!!!
App-Random Name Selector Pro--similar to having sticks in the classroom, but will allow you to tell it how many times a name is "allowed" to be drawn...pulls name out of a hat
Blendspace.com.....independently study....intro to new material...similar to educational Pinterest....search within website....pre-created ones available....insert videos text quizzes documents....helps with times where students take longer on things than other kids do...collage/menu board of assignments or things to read or watch etc. Students don't have to create an account. If they don't, some features will be unavailable, however.
Touchcast App.....video app where you can pick themes....free for a limited time!!! Download it soon! Record a video and live action things....add apps within the video so it is on the screen over the live video....can fade out the apps so they are faint....can put a map in background for instance....as you give report things can be popping up...you can have a TelePrompTer...green screen.....white board....becomes interactive if you click on it and have it take you to the map or website. Can export file out to parents or to a blog via YouTube.
Virtual Field Trips-
This website allows you to search for specific topics to find interactive, virtual field trips. Some are free, some cost...but you CAN search for JUST the free ones!
This other website will take you to NASA's distance learning website!
Some Apps to Check Out:
This app is similar to the fav "Write About This" but offers diff options! Can use avatars and voice recording/typing to talk about different topics.....can be randomized...
This is similar to WORDLE [it does cost 1.99 but seems pretty awesome!] but when you type in the words, the words form the picture-a picture you choose from camera roll to use....the entire picture becomes a compilation of the words you typed in
This website allows students [and teachers] to type in a book that they have read and enjoyed...and it will give recommendations of similarly themed books/authors.
www.rewordify.com allows students/teachers to copy and paste text into it...and the website will take some of the "tougher" words out and replace them with an easier synonym. Great way to differentiate for those struggling readers, especially with those difficult texts.
www.theproblemsite.com is a website that provides challenge problems for those kids that need some extra "push".
www.jeopardylabs.com Great website that allows you to create your own Jeopardy games. A great way to spice up those review days!
safeshare.tv is a website that allows you to put links from YouTube into and then you and your students can watch your video with NO advertisements or those side movies...it just puts a black screen around the actual video you are watching. No more worrying about what "pops up" while showing that video/clip!
Remind101.com is a site that allows you to send out text messages to mass amounts of people without them knowing your number OR you knowing their number. I think this will be a great tool for my basketball parents [I coach high school girls] and even possibly for parents of my 6th graders in the future to let them know about projects/tests/reminders/etc.
thedigitialscoop.com is her website of all of these amazing apps/websites/ideas plus WAY more....just in case you are curious!ANOTHER amazing website I am SUPER excited about is www.zondle.com. HERE is a video tutorial on how to set it up and use it step by step. To try to summarize in little words, it's very much like Stick Around in that you can create reviews....OR the students can create review questions. This is web based, though, and has a few different features. Students can search topics to find other students'/teachers' reviews they have made. The BIG difference is this...after a student gets a question right, they get to play a very small clip of a game....then answer again correctly...play a short snippet of the game again....if they get the answer WRONG, it sends the question on to the end [tacked on]. Teachers can get reports showing the scores students are getting on the questions, how many times they attempted it, the hardest question for that student, AND what day and time they kid played the game. I went to a presentation on this that featured TWO 5th grade boys that couldn't stop talking about how fun this site is! They said they play it at home A LOT, and parents are happy with it because the kids are LEARNING throughout the entire process. I love that kids are able to create their own review questions AND they are able to create their own GAMES!!! So, if you have students that like to work with graphics and creating on computers...THIS is the site for you. If you have students that need some motivation to go through studying...THIS is the site for you. Kids earn Zollars and there is a leader board, etc. Teachers can assign students specific games [even embed them on iTunesU course or in an email, etc...] OR allow students to search and select random topics OR search their friends' games.....I'm SO pumped to see how this will run with my students!
I also won 25 licenses for MAD LEARN!!!! It's a one year subscription that I will start in the Fall with my students. MAD LEARN is an app that allows students to BUILD and CREATE apps of their own! I can't wait to research and PLAY with this app. I'm even MORE excited to see what they end up creating!
Whew. I think I'll stop there. I just wanted to jot down some of my favorites from the conference. I can't wait to collaborate with the other #ipadacademy peeps and see what they learned. I'm still trying to soak everything in. Let me know if you have any amazing ideas to use with any of the above apps or ones you have found to work in your room. My brain is still on overload!
Excellent post, Emily! Thanks for sharing all the wonderful resources and ideas you learned about at #neta14. Now you need a little time to process everything! It will be fantastic for us all to collaborate and learn from one another again soon! It seems like we need a few more months of school so we can put all this learning in action. I am very intrigued with zondle and created an account. I will give it a try next week with a Nebraska History Project I am working on with Courtney (@coachsmeby). Congrats on winning a year long subscription to Mad Learn! Building and creating app will be so much fun! I have been working with teams of students at on Project Matters - a joint app design project sponsored by Peter Kiewit and the Henry Doorly Zoo this year. Students have been designing an app for zoo visitors. They have such a passion for the project. It is really a thrill to watch their ideas become reality. I know your students will love it!
ReplyDeleteThanks Emily for sharing! As I was reflecting on the ideas I got from NETA I found myself wishing it was in the fall so I would have more time to start implementing these ideas in my classroom. I agree with Ann, it would be nice to have a day with everyone so we could process and share our ideas. Did you get most of these ideas from the "playground?" I loved this part of NETA because I was really able to connect with a lot of teachers in a short amount of time.
ReplyDelete