APP Time: Oregon Trail

Want to go to Oregon? There's an app for that... and it's way better than the old school version we had as kids (isn't just about everything?)!

Whether you teach the Westward Movement or just need something to turn off your busy teacher brain once and a while, the $0.99 Oregon Trail app for iPad/iPhone/iPod is entertaining and educational. It's the same concept from "way back when:" get to the Willamette Valley with your wagon party, while surviving disease, low food supply, and wayward oxen - to name a few. You know the drill: choose your "career," the month you depart, then purchase your supplies so you can begin the trek to Oregon Country! Of course, along the way you learn about the famous people, diseases, landforms, and landmarks that made up this historic event in American history. If you have a VGA adapter to hook to a LCD projector in your classroom, you can play this together as a class (a little bit each day or just enough to get your class "hooked" because the road to Oregon is incredibly LONG) to enhance your study of Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny.

When I downloaded it, I was expecting much less from an app less than a dollar. The graphics and activities in the app are outstanding! They are a little "cartoonish" in their depictions of landmarks and famous people, but for the sake of hooking kids on history, that gets a pass. Remember when you played Oregon Trail as a kid and it was a "big deal" to go hunting and decide how to cross the river? Yeah, that's been stepped up a notch. Your adventures on the Oregon Trail not only include hunting and river fording, but berry picking, FISHING (too much fun, I tell you), telegraphing, nailing together your wagon, and panning for gold! Oh, oh...and rafting a river is so much more fun when you get to tilt and twist an iPad instead of punching arrow keys! Hand and eye coordination at its finest, I tell you!

One thing that is kind of "eh" is that it does try to push you to buy "game cash," which is completely unnecessary to play and enjoy the game. It's just a way for the app creators to make money. However, if you just ignore that one little annoyance, the app works beautifully and allows you to complete your journey to Oregon.

There are different levels of the game, and if you have it set on easy, your students are guaranteed to make it to Oregon regardless of the missteps they take. It's fun! You learn something! And no matter how old you are...it's still fun and you learn something! Yes, I am a proud, card carrying member of Oregon Trail Addicts for Life. However, if you are looking for a rainy day recess app for your class, or another means of kicking your Social Studies instruction up a notch, it's time for you to head West!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-oregon-trail/id461393130?mt=8

Grant Wrangler

So this isn't exactly a "tool" to be used in the classroom, but it may lead you to things that will improve your classroom and teaching in ways you never imagined. When I was going to school to be a teacher, someone (a professor most likely) said loftily one day in class, "If you can write a grant, you can do just about anything." Hmm. Deep. I put that sage advice in the back of my mind for a few years, until I had been in the classroom for a while. It doesn't take an economist to figure out that the money teachers put into their own classrooms doesn't make a lot of "cents" (yeah...that was corny). I was feeling limited, for lack of a better word, by what I could do in my classroom and where I was going as a teacher. So I started Googling - and I do believe that is a word now - Grants. Grants for teachers. How to write a grant. Grant writing. And somewhere, among the many pages of the Internet, I found Grant Wrangler.

Grant Wranger is a treasure trove of funding opportunities for classrooms and professional development opportunities for teachers. You can search for grants by subject, or just start at the first page and click on through. Everything is listed on this website by "first due," meaning the most upcoming events and grant deadlines (or things that are ongoing) are listed first. Grant Wrangler really shows you that there are countless ways to change your classroom and your teaching practice, if you are willing to do a little writing. I could write an entire post just on how to write grants (which I probably will in the very near future).

Before you ask, yes, Grant Wrangler has led me to some wonderful funding opportunities and professional development. The first thing I found on Grant Wrangler that really "popped" out at me was the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy. Talk about hitting a home run right from the get-go. That experience is a entire post in itself (which I will tell you all about when the application opens again). There have been many other things that I have come across on Grant Wrangler that have lead to funding and experiences that otherwise I never would have known about. I highly recommend subscribing to the e-mail bulletin to receive regular updates on new things that are added to the site. If you are interested in finding grants and professional development outside your local area, this is - in my opinion - one of, if not THE, best places on the web. Check it out, and you will probably be back regularly.

http://grantwrangler.com/

Gov. Bob Wise Announces Digital Learning Day, February 1, 2012

APP Time: Brain Pop

I wasn't planning on doing a post in the middle of the week, but right now I'm too tired to do anything else so I might as well. For those of you that don't know, Brain Pop is an animated approach to online learning. The website chronicles the educational adventures of Tim and Moby (a robot with a kickin' personality) as they answer letters about a wide range of topics - from photosynthesis to the Civil War, and everything in between and beyond. At the end of each short, punchy movie, there is a quiz to test student comprehension of the topic, along with printable organizers and vocabulary. Although using all the full features of Brain Pop requires a subscription, there are several free movies for viewing as well...

...Which brings me to today's app! In addition to the website, there is a FREE Brain Pop app! If you have a subscription to Brain Pop, then you are able to log in and watch any and all movies from your iPad/iPod/iPhone. Even if you don't have a subscription, you can watch the movie of the day and numerous free movies as you can online.

What I like most about the Brain Pop app is that all of the movies are captioned (on the online version they are not)!!! At the bottom of the screen, students can read what Tim and Moby are explaining (or in Moby's case beeping) as they watch and listen. I think this is great for students who may have trouble staying focused on the dialogue of the movie or that aren't auditory learners. There is a quiz at the end of each movie, and scores are added to the "Hall of Fame" list so you could go back and see how well the student answered the questions.

What do you have to lose? At the very least, your students will enjoy "watching cartoons" while learning something along the way. Best of all, it's free!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brainpop-featured-movie/id364894352?mt=8

APP Time: Math Motion HD

When I first received an iPad, one of the things I was most struck by was that it wasn't just touch sensitive but responded to motion as well. The app Math Motion HD ($1.99) is fun and fractions at its finest. Actually, its fun, fractions, decimals, percentages, and visual representations. Out of all of my math apps, this one is my favorite to introduce along with the fraction unit in Everyday Mathematics. Yes, there are Everyday Math apps, but every so often they are available for FREE so I would wait if you don't have them yet. Math Motion HD is worth having to reinforce fraction concepts and parts of a whole.

The focal point of Math Motion HD is a solid fraction stick (on the game it is referred to as a number line, but it greatly resembles the fraction stick concept in Everyday Math). The object is to direct a "falling star" onto the number line in the correct place for the given fraction. Instead of touching the screen to manipulate the app, you must tilt the entire iPad (or iPod touch) in the correct direction. You have to estimate where the star should drop to represent the presented fraction. If you are incorrect, different levels of hints are given to show were the fraction is on the number line. On the first incorrect response, an arrow will point in the direction you should tilt the iPad. The second time, the number line breaks into units (such as fourths or eights). The third time, three random fractions appear on the number line along with the units. I like this because it allows the students to correct themselves instead of just being wrong and moving on. The visual respresentation is great!

As you move through the 24 levels (it is a fast moving game, thank goodness!), the numbers you are trying to represent on the fraction line evolve to decimals, percentages, improper fractions, and a combination of both. The number line eventually respresents more than just "one" to make it more challenging. At one level, the number line represents negative integers, but does so in a way that students could figure it out without being confused (it's actually a great way to introduce the concept!). There is a beginner, medium, and hard version of the game so you can adjust it to meet your students' needs. Even the score is shown as a fraction :)

This app will make your students think and keep them focused on fractions while having a blast! To find out more, visit the link below to get in motion for math!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/motion-math/id392489333?mt=8

Shutterfly Share Sites

I hope you are enjoying your Monday off from school, teachers! I decided that for today's post, I would share a "share" site. The popular photo web service, Shutterfly, isn't just for uploading and ordering prints. As an educational tool, Shutterfly's share site feature is an easy-to-use, FREE way to create a classroom website that parents and students can access to review their school year.

Let me stress that it is incredibly easy to create a Shutterfly share site for your classroom. Absolutely no knowledge in "html" mumbo jumbo is necessary. You can upload an unlimited amount of pictures to your share site to feature your students engaging in classroom activities or field trips. Up to 10 videos can be uploaded to your site, however...remember my previous post on Animoto? On your Shutterfly share site, you are able to add different features to personalize your site (more on that in a minute). One of the things you can add is a "widget," which means you can embed code from other websites...such as the Animoto videos you create for your class! So, if you are using Animoto, you can technically add as many videos as you want as well!

Back to the other features Shutterfly lets you add on your share site. You can add a calendar to post classroom events and messages for upcoming events. In addition to Animoto videos, there are countless other widgets you can include to give your students access to things you may have viewed online in class - just copy and paste the code from another website. You can add the weather and a Google Map to post locations to places you have "visited" in your classroom. In addition to pictures and video, you can also upload files. I have found this to be very helpful in giving my students access to organizers and documents we use routinely in class. I've also been able to upload games created in PowerPoint so that students can review with them at home.

Last but not least...you have to create a Shuterfly account in order to upload pictures and create a site (which is free). You have the capability to password protect your site, so only students, parents, and their families are able to view the content you post. If you have your parent's e-mail addresses, you can add them as members of the site and directly send them the link and password. They can receive weekly (or monthly) updates that you make to your site to keep updated.

It takes a little time to play around with the features and layouts, but I have found my Shutterfly share site to be a fun and functional way to keep my students and their families connected to the classroom. Take a little time on this holiday weekend to check it out!

http://www.shutterfly.com/sites/create/welcome.sfly;jsessionid=14FC5F4A566C719493ECA31A61AF4B5B?fid=4d40f90688ac21fa

Turning Technologies Grant Opportunity

Here is a great opportunity to earn technology equipment for your classroom! Turning Technologies is accepting applications for their Classroom Improvement Technology Grant now until February 15. Each of the 10 recipients will receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab (a mobile tablet similar to an iPad), a classroom subscripton to Brain Pop, and a student response system and software from Turning Technologies. A student response system is where each student has a remote to digitally send their answers to questions to a receiver linked to a classroom computer. Instead of assessing via pencil and paper, the teacher and students can automatically get feedback on their performance. You can find out more about the capabilities of the responders (called keypads in this case) available through this grant here.

The grant application is available through the online link. Who knows - you might "Spring" into a new season with some cool technology!

http://www.turningtechnologies.com/studentresponsesystem/turningfoundation/k12grants/