Building A Better Mousetrap

Wow.

A Day In The Life...

Have you ever wondered what it is like to run a computer lab in a school?  And yes, I do love helping people out, just like this genius.

Florida Dept. of Ed

I love great content on iTunes U.  Florida Dept. of Ed is one of those content creators on iTunes U I highly recommend people take a look at on iTunes (or iTunes U on their iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone.

Here is the link:  http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/florida-department-education/id399604477

Be sure to check out the Digital Tools section, there are some great video podcasts demonstrating student use of technology to reinforce a lesson.

And here is a little video of theirs from YouTube.

Two Latest Favorites For iPad

This post is going to be about hardware, rather than the software apps I've mentioned elsewhere. But, if you use an iPad, these two items are must haves.

The first is the Logitech Keyboard Case for the iPad. This works for iPad and the new iPad. This is fantastic if you are typing anything at length (including blog posts). It is a bluetooth device that is easily set up on your iPad, with a battery that is rechargeable. I got mine for $79 at Costco.

The second item is new and really exciting for those of us who love to watch a lot of movies using our iPads. It's from Seagate and is called the GoFlex Satellite. It's a wireless external hard drive to use with the iPad.

It doesn't allow you to save from the iPad (at least mine doesn't), but you can download from it to your iPad AND you can stream movies from it directly to your iPad.

It comes with an adapter to allow you to plug into your Mac to add whatever it is you want to store on it, and with 500GB of space, you can store a lot of stuff.

It operates off of WiFi, creating it's own little "network" from your iPad that allows you to stream to up to 5 devices simultaneously.

The downside to this is you cannot broadcast what you are streaming from it to a tv or projector (at least it's not worked for me), but you can download to your iPad the movie you want and then broadcast from your iPad using your video player.

All Great Ideas Start Somewhere...

Storybook Adventure

This is a web site I wish they would make into an app.  It's from the Library of Congress, and it's designed to get kids excited to read.

The goal?  Answer the questions correctly then click on items in the moving pictures that follow to collect your stickers.  Then use the stickers after you are done with the story to create a card.

Link:  Storybook Adventures

Latest Find From The National Archives

There are two iPad apps from the National Archives, one profiles a document per day, the other teaches you about what some of those documents mean.  Both apps are free of charge.

Today's Document

This app allows you to see which document they have assigned per the date. You could have some fun with this, such as picking dates in U.S. history (July 4th or September 17th), or birthdays and other dates significant in the student's life to see what documents come up. For more, you have to click on the information link and go to their web site.

Link:  Today's Document

The DocsTeach

This app is the interactive, teaching app that goes more in depth of how the documents impact our lives in the U.S.  The challenge on the U.S. Consitution (it's a matching game between the documents and the articles of the constitution governing those documents) will be good for the older grades learning U.S. Civics.

Here is the link:  DocsTeach

The Works

I am so loving their web site! Great science information.

Link: The Works

Basic Keyboarding Skills

Because of the ever changing and upgrading of operating systems, using software for typing/keyboarding only works for a short while.  I no longer use software for this.

For young ones I use:

BBC - Dance Mat Typing

For the older students:

http://www.freetypinggame.net/

Teaching Household Words

Learning vocab words is great, but do kids learning English know what a bathtub is, or a sink?

This isn't all inclusive, but this site from Starfall is great for teaching some basic household words, as well as words about different parts of their bodies (heads, legs, feet, hands, etc.).

It's All About Me

Building Vocabulary

Fuzzy Lion Ears

Alphabet Soup

Rhyming Words

More from PBS:

CH - http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/chickens-game.html

Hard C - http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/spicyhot-game.html

N - http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/country-game.html

ood, ook - http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/gooddog-game.html

or, ore - http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/cheesybread-game.html

From Scholastic:

Reggie the Rhyming Rhino

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bll/reggie/index.htm

From other sources:

Roy The Zebra

BBC

Matching Sounds

PBS Kids is fantastic for basic literacy.  Be sure to explore the site for all kinds of different learning exercises.

Pounce!

Long And Short Vowel Sounds

Starfall is another fantastic site to help with the basic phonetic reading, but they've also added some things for math as well.  be sure to browse around if you've never used this site:

Learn To Read

Putting Words in Alphabetical Order

Earobics is a fantastic company designed with online software to help readers develop their phonetic skills.  Some students may have hearing or speech impairments that make this more difficult, these people are also great at working with these issues.

http://www.earobics.com/

Putting words in alphabetical order:

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark2/pawpark2.html

Alphabet Websites

Learning the Roman Letters of the alphabet used in the U.S. English language can be daunting.  It's even more difficult if the student comes from a country using non-Roman letters.  Here are some sites to help:

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/play.htm?f

http://www.fisher-price.com/us/fun/games/abc/default.asp

ABC Match

http://pbskids.org/lions/games/theospuzzles.html

Matching the Upper case letters with the Lower case letters:

PawPark from GooGames

Mousing Skills Practice

The school I work at serves disadvantaged children.  Many of these students come to the school (particularly in kindergarten) not knowing how to use a mouse.

These are some web sites that can help with improving those "mousing skills".

http://www.mouseprogram.com/mousepractice/


This second site also helps children learn how to listen and follow instructions, as well as practice their mousing skills:

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/tina2/tina2.html