Archive | May, 2012

Vimeo for Videos

31 May

A fantastic alternative to YouTube is Vimeo.  Unlike YouTube, Vimeo’s website isn’t block by Websense on most networks and its HD quality videos look beautiful on all screens, including the iPad.  In addition to its search function, the Vimeo iPad app allows users to shoot, edit and upload their own videos.

I’ve used HD videos from Vimeo when creating interactive textbooks for the iPad.  This time lapse video of the Canadian Rockies is a great example of the quality of clips available on the site.

Here’s a Common Core aligned lesson plan using this app!

Check out this Common Core lesson plan on using interactive textbooks in your classroom!

*This website isn’t censored so make sure you search and preview before sharing with students

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ESPN Map Madness

29 May

After pinpointing a location on the map…

UPDATE: This app is no longer available in the app store.  In the meantime check out this great map app!

A great game for getting students excited about United States geography is the ESPN Map Madness app. Using clues like team logos and home courts, this app asks you to pinpoint on a map the location of professional and college, football and basketball teams. Players are awarded points for their speed and accuracy. It’s a great alternative to straightforward geography practice. A little prior knowledge about popular sports teams can go a long way!

Check out my common core aligned lesson plan using maps on iPads in the classroom!

… you’re awarded points for your answer.

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Test Prep Aids for the Teacher – Pacing

27 May

Although the New York State tests for elementary students are finished for this year, I know that I’m not the only person with test prep still on their mind.

My students always need help with pacing and it’s tough keeping kids excited about something that is stressful for everyone. I love the free iPad timer apps that help us stay aware of the time we spend reading passages and answering questions.

There are free timer apps to help students practice pacing. I often project the timer on the board like a countdown clock, working my students towards a goal. When students are practicing independently or working with partners they can set their own iPad timers to keep track of their progress.

One free timer app I like is Timer+.

Other uses for the timer:

  • Setting time limits for classroom activities
  • Monitoring everyday reading stamina
  • Share your ideas in the comment section!

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WordPress

25 May

If you’re interested in starting a class website WordPress is a free site that offers you a blog format to update homework assignments, upload pictures and share links with students and their families.

The WordPress app makes it quick and easy to update your blog on the go. This app works just as well on the iPhone as the iPad. I’ve taken a quick photo at an school assembly and uploaded it with one or two sentences to the school website in a minute or two – just like sending a text with a photo.

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Stack the States

23 May

Stack the States in a must have app that’s fantastic for geography practice at any age. Students answer multiple choice questions and have visuals of each state as they choose their answer.

There is a free version of this app that my students use on their iPad, the paid app seems unnecessary because the lite version is solid. Check out Stack the Countries for world geography questions.

Check out my Common Core aligned lesson plan using this app in the classroom!

Here’s another Common Core aligned lesson plan using this app in the classroom!

Check out my lesson using iPads to teach geography in the classroom!

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Curriculum Planning – Common Core Learning Standards

21 May

Most schools are beginning to embrace the national Common Core Learning Standards. If you haven’t heard of them or are not sure if your district is moving in this direction, learn more here.

The Common Core Learning Standards are straightforward and user friendly – but you need to know them in order to plan instruction aligned with these new standards.

I like to avoid carrying folders and creating piles of paper as much as possible. There are free Common Core Learning Standards apps that allow you to keep these standards – for allgrades and subject areas – at your finger tips. Instead of sifting through google search results or piles of paper, a copy of the Common Core Learning Standards will always be close at hand.

This is one free Common Core Learning Standard app that I like.

This is a great resource to share with parents and students too!

Check out my Teachers Pay Teacher Store for common core aligned lesson plans that correspond to different iPad apps!

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Reader View – Internet Browsing

19 May

My students conduct Internet research on a variety of topics throughout the year.  Many sites give the option of a “Reader View” that eliminates sidebars, advertisements and focuses only on the text of the website.  This is a feature that works on iPads and Laptops – try it out!

Wikipedia isn’t always my favorite but reader view works great on this site

Students can navigate the text in a more user friendly view

Interactive Maps

18 May
Interactive maps can bring geography and community studies to life!

Whether you are working on a screen projection to zoom in, or searching for monuments or specific regions, instructional possibilities are endless. Students can use Google street view to zoom in on the street outside their school, or look at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to see deforestation right from their desks.

 

Using Apple’s map app – standard with the iPad operating system – you can plug different locations to find distances between two places in math class or check out a satellite or hybrid view during social studies. The free Google Earth app takes this perspective from space. Great for whole class, small group or independent work!

Check out my common core aligned lesson plan using maps on iPads in the classroom!

Plug in two locations to find the distance between them

Standard – tap on the raised corner on the bottom right hand corner to change the view

Hybrid – tap on the raised corner on the bottom right hand corner to change the view

Satellite – tap on the raised corner on the bottom right hand corner to change the view

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TED Talks

17 May

TED Talks are wonderful for adults and high school students, but I use them with my fifth graders – most often in small groups to extend guided reading or book club discussions.

If you’re not familiar with TED Talks they are worth checking out! Speakers are given 5 to 20 minutes to wow an audience with their knowledge, perspective and discoveries on their area of expertise. Topics range greatly and can be applied as extension lessons for all sorts of activities. There are even TED talks where the speakers are children.

Just like the website, the TED Talks app let’s you search by speaker and category.

Birke Baehr discusses “What’s wrong with our food system”

These talks can be shown to the whole class or played for small groups who are studying aparticular topic. After spending a week practicing nonfiction strategies using a text on the oceans, I loved ending my small group session by playing a TED talk on bioluminescence!

Here is a link to the TED talks iPad app, and some of my favorite talks. (Make sure to preview each talk before showing the class – I haven’t found anything inappropriate, but a few included some jokes that wouldn’t suit my class of fifth graders.)

The iPad app allows you to save these talks for offline viewing. If you’ve found TED talks that you love leave suggestions in the comments below.

Check out my common core aligned lesson plan using TED Talks in the classroom!

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Read Alouds and Short Text Recorder

16 May

There are some teacher tools that have changed my instruction immensely and this is one of them!

QuickVoice allows you to record your voice and I use it for read alouds and test prep throughout the school year.  You can record your own voice reading a short text or picture book and play it back to your students.  I usually use this with my iPhone and then plug it in to speakers to play back for students.

I work with a CTT group of students whose IEPs mandate that test passages are read and reread and quick voice is a great way to record and replay short texts.

From a management perspective it’s been extremely helpful to monitor students who might get distracted, especially when practicing note taking.  As your voice reads the story over speakers in the front of the room you can be at the back making sure that everyone is on task.

This app (there are many that perform the same function) allows you to label and save each recording for later use.  You can pause as you’re  recording if there is an interruption and pause as you play it back if you want to ask questions to the class about the story.

QuickVoice not only keeps my students engaged at the use of technology (if they know I’m recording for the first read through they are silent and still at the seats) it makes the often boring task of reading test passages aloud easier on everyone.

*this app is also available for the iPad but may be a bit more cumbersome for recording than the more portable iPhone or iPod touch

SMARTBoard Simulator for the iPad

15 May

Educreations is a fantastic iPad app that simulates the SMARTBoard touch screen experience. You will use a regular projector and projector screen – I’m often projecting onto my SMARTBoard even though my iPad isn’t connected to it.

This app allows you to use your iPad screen as a blank canvas to write on while recording your entire session. For example I might import a picture of a Scholastic News article and identify text features for my students. As I write on the screen I can record what is happening and these short videos can be played back for the whole class. It’s wonderful to be able to play these “mini-lessons” a second time for students who need repetition, or for students who might enter the class late or have been pulled out to work with a service provider. Sometimes I’ll stop the children when they are working independently and replay the short clip from the introduction of the lesson to review our skill.

After adding a picture from your camera roll (here is a screen shot off of the Scholastic News website) you can write all over the text in a variety of colors.

It’s easy to save and play back any lessons that you’ve recorded.

Educreations also allows you to take pictures while using the app and then write all over it – eliminating extra steps. This feature is fantastic for test prep. Additionally, you can share these lessons through a unique link that can be emailed to anyone right off of your iPad.

Although I’ve gotten pretty good at writing with my finger on the screen a stylus (Amazon has them for around $10) definitely comes in handy for using this app.

Check out my guide -> Screencasting Teacher Tools: Tasks, Procedures, Checklists and Rubric

Links to your lessons can be emailed for view on other devices.

Siri Speaks to Me

14 May

For Apple lovers like me the iPhone 4S was at first a mixed blessing.  I was desperately in need of a new upgrade, but initially underwhelmed with the features of the 4S. (Where was the iPhone 5 I had been dreaming of?)

Siri (voice recognition software on the new iPhone operating system) has made my life easier and most importantly it has increased my productivity.
How?
In the data driven world of education that demands consistent documentation–evidence that I’m doing my job– Siri has enabled me to document student conferences and create comments to post on student work.
I use one of the apps on my iPhone 4S to dictate my comments about a student’s work. Then I print them out and attach them to work I’m stapling to a buliten board and place another copy straight in my assessment binder.  I prefer doing this in Pages because it syncs up with my iPad and I can print it out straight from there.  Any notes app or even an email that you can send to a printer works too.

Let’s get started!

Using the voice recognition tool on my keyboard I record comments for student work in the Pages app. I make any edits and print it straight from my iPhone or iPad using wireless printing, or email the document to my desktop for printing.

I print a copy of student work comments (in a smaller font) for my assessment binder to track student progress.

After recording my caption, I print it out in a large size and staple it to student work before it goes up on our bulletin board.  When it comes down, I place it in my student’s portfolios.

Is Siri’s voice recognition perfect? Of course not, but I’ve tried other dictation applications (ex. Dragon Dictation) and this one comes on top by a mile.  At first it can be frustrating to tone down your regional dictation (there are some Long Island words I still struggle with) but once you learn the “Siri lingo” you’ll be set.  Here’s a link that lays out everything for you.
Good luck with your dictation practice. I hope Siri speaks to you too!

Current Events in the Classroom

13 May

Content can come alive in the classroom when you connect instruction to current events. Students of all ages like to feel like they have a grasp on what’s happening in the world around them and there is always a way to make curriculum-to-world connections.

NBC Nightly News has an app that features up to the minute video clips on events of the day. If I saw a segment on polar bears on a Wednesday night, you can bet that by Friday my students have seen that clip too and are recording their connections to our ecosystem unit on arctic climate change. Segments from the show can be projected onto your classroom’s “big screen” or explored individually by students on their own iPads.


(Make sure to preview each segment before showing the class. Even though they might hear about a news story at home, all clips are not appropriate for the classroom).

Check out my common core aligned lesson using current events apps!

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