Archive for the ‘Technology in the Classroom’ Category

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Top 10 Apps for Nurturing the Creativity in Kids

August 14, 2012

Below, expert David Andrews has listed a selection of his top 10 apps for creativity:

iMovie: add video, photos, music and sound effects and trim the length of any clip. You can create trailers with immersive graphics and original scores, build polished projects with themes, record and edit soundtracks.

Creative Book Builder: add paragraphs, images, videos, audio recording and links. You can also add page breaks with chapters, change font and preview in iBooks.

GarageBand: turns your iPad into a collection of touch instruments and a full-featured recording studio. Play pianos, organs, guitars, drums and basses, which sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument.

Strip Designer: create comic strips using photos from your photo album. Select one of many page templates and insert photos, add balloons with words and add additional symbols to spice up a story.

Explain Everything: easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate and narrate explanations and presentations. Create interactive lessons, activities, assessments and tutorials.

Skitch: use shapes, arrows, sketches and text annotation on photos, screenshots, maps and web
pages then share them.

Videoscribe: create animated videos that replicate the stop-motion capture style of drawings that’s so popular on commercials.

SonicPics: turns your images into a custom slideshow movie. Add voiceover narrating your image as you swipe through them.

Brushes: features advanced colour pickets, several realistic brushes, multiple layers, extreme zooming and a simple interface. Records all your actions when painting.

I Can Animate: capture frames using the in build camera, displays onion skinning, undo support, preview whole projects and then add to an iMovie project for a really polished movie.

Click on the link to read The Top 50 Best Apps for Children
Click on the link to read The Cell Phone will be the New Pencil Case

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

 

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The Pros and Cons of iPads in the Classroom

August 13, 2012

Teacher and blogger David Andrews charts reasons for and against introducing i-Pads into the classroom.

In my mind these were the pros:

• Ease and speed of use and accessibility: The touch interface and app system on the iPad makes it easy to access learning tools. On a laptop you have to open the lid, turn it on, wait for it to load, log in to your account and then wait for the operating system to load.
• Audio visual (AV) tools: The iPad has extremely easy access to AV tools (camera, video and voice recorder) which can be used creatively across countless number of apps. The laptop does have built-in cameras and microphones but they are so much more difficult to use and could require an additional piece of hardware to be connected and installed.
• Books: iPads are great for reading. iBooks allow the user to annotate, highlight and look up the meaning of words.
• Creativity: The in-built AV tools means that the iPad has endless possibilities to be used creatively in any subject in the school curriculum, it just need imagination. For example there are apps for drawing, editing photos, creating movies, ebooks, animations and photo stories, composing music, writing graphical novels and other useful creative apps. In addition, many of these apps have the option to publish work to larger audiences online, increasing the incentive for the children to produce quality pieces of work. The laptop doesn’t have the same efficiency and ease of use that the iPad has and the touch interface just makes it more fun and interactive.

And here are the cons:

• Adobe’s Flash and Javascript: One of the biggest criticisms of the iPad is its inability to work with Adobe Flash and Javascript. A lot of content in schools is dominated by Flash. Despite this, it could be argued that the iPad easily makes up for this restriction with a huge selection of apps.
• Multitasking: A drawback with the iPads is the fact that multiple ‘windows’ or files cannot be kept open, side-by-side unlike on computers, although there are apps that allow multiple pages to be open side by side.
• Word processing: The iPad is quite limited as a device that you would use regularly to word process on. I much prefer to type lengthy documents on my computer, where I can switch quickly between browser, word processing and email. Despite this I still use the iPad regularly for light writing such as emails and Twitter.

Click on the link to read The Top 50 Best Apps for Children
Click on the link to read How do you Assess a Student Who Knows More Than You Do?

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

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How do you Assess a Student Who Knows More Than You Do?

August 12, 2012

I have a student who is more confident and knowledgeable when it comes to IT. I am more than adept myself, but I am no match for him. The funny part of that is that I have to assess and report on a child who knows more than I do.

I am sure I am not alone. Experts are warning that our children are becoming far more tech savvy that we are:

SCHOOLS should be braced for the next generation of tech-savvy children, experts warn.

RMIT lecturer in the school of education, Nicky Carr, said most children aged 1-4 were adept at tablet technology and smart phones.

“They are very quick to pick up how to make it do what they want it to do,” Ms Carr said.

“These devices are actually really fun and a small child enjoys the instant results that come from brushing their finger across a screen. You don’t need to be able to read or understand language to get something to happen on these devices.”

“It’s a challenge for schools to know how to build on that literacy.

“It’s a financial consideration for them how to equip the school with the devices and then how do they use the devices in ways that are educational?”

Click on the link to read The Top 50 Best Apps for Children
Click on the link to read The Cell Phone will be the New Pencil Case

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

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The Cell Phone will be the New Pencil Case

August 7, 2012

With schools now permitting the use of cell phones in the classroom, it’s only a matter of time before cell phones will be seen as a pivotal student learning tool.

Below are some strategies for teaching with cell phones:

  • 1

    Create a cell phone usage contract. Before an educator can begin to use cell phones in her class, she must obtain parental agreements. While potentially educationally beneficial, cell phones in the hands of irresponsible children can lead to a world of trouble. From creating excessively high phone bills to engaging in inappropriate contact with peers or adults, children can do a lot of damage with a simple cellular telephone. In your cell phone usage agreement, explain how you would use the cell phones in school and ensure that parents agree to allow their children to use personal cell phones in the fashion that you describe.

  • 2

    Lay down the law. Cell phones in the classroom are ineffective if they are not used properly. Discuss proper and improper cell phone usage practices with your students. Explain that cell phones in class are an educational tool and should be used as such, not as a toy or for surreptitiously contacting friends during class. Write up the rules of cell phone usage and post them prominently in the class. Remind students that if they are caught breaking the cell phone usage rules, they will lose their classroom cell phone privileges.

  • 3

    Introduce cell phones with a game. To help students become acclimated to the somewhat unorthodox concept of using cell phones in class, ease them into the usage of the phone by having them engage in a practice that they likely partake in regularly: text message voting. After student presentations or the reading of a collection of student stories, ask students to vote for their favorite of the bunch by texting in their vote. A variety text voting services allow you to create and implement your own poll. Many of these services are free if you select to open your poll up to a limited number of respondents. Check the resource section below for a listing of several text voting systems that you can use in your classroom.

  • 4

    Take pictures with cell phones. As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a cell phone is a readily available means with which to take a picture. Create a lesson in which students capture pictures. They could take pictures of plants or animals for science class, people who could become characters in their stories for English or geometric figures. Download the pictures from the students’ phones and print, allowing students to use the images in a classroom assignment.

  • 5

    Communicate with individuals outside the class. Take full advantage of the easy communication that cell phones allow. Create situations in which students can use their cell phones to call people and seek information. If you want students to write about a geographic location, allow them to use their cell phones to call a visitor’s bureau in that area. If students are writing about an event that occurred in their family, encourage them to call a relative to seek information which they can incorporate into their written work.

  • 6

    Utilize the research capabilities of cell phones. Many cell phones allow for Internet access. Use this helpful feature as a research aid. After presenting a question in class, allow the students to use their cell phones and surf the Internet to find the answer to the posed question. This will help students develop the skills necessary to hunt for and find information independently. Before asking students to use their phones’ Internet features, clear the activity with parents as expensive charges can be incurred if the phone is not part of a data plan.

Click on the link to read The Top 50 Best Apps for Children
Click on the link to read The Problem With IT in the Classroom

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The Top 50 Best Apps for Children

August 5, 2012

Courtesy of The Guardian comes 50 of the best smartphone/iPad apps for children. Below is a snippet:

EDUCATION

Farm 123 app logo

FARM 123 – STORYTOYS JR iPhone/iPad – £1.49. Farm 123 aims to be a digital version of pop-up books, based on a character called Farmer Jo and his animals. It’s aimed at pre-school-age children, teaching them to count from one to 10 with cows, pigs and eggs.

Funimal Phonics app logo

FUNIMAL PHONICS iPhone/iPad – £0.69. Children and parents are well-used to phonics alphabet-learning now, and this stylish flash-cards app gives the discipline a friendly animal face. It’s also notable for its inclusion of both US and UK English accents when speaking sounds.

Little Digits app logo

LITTLE DIGITS iPad – £1.49. This marvellous numbers app gets your child to count by placing fingers on the iPad’s touchscreen, with cute cartoon numbers appearing, depending on how many fingers are pressed. Simple maths tasks give it an educational angle too.

My A-Z app logo

MY A-Z iPhone/iPad – £1.49. There are lots of alphabetical flash-card apps for iPhone, but this one stands out for its personalisation. Children can add their own photos and sounds for letters – a picture of their dog and its bark for “D”, and so on.

Numberlys app logo

NUMBERLYS iPhone/iPad – £3.99. Despite the name, this beautiful app is more about letters than numbers. It’s a mixture of games and storytelling to explain the origins of the alphabet, with a visual style influenced by films like Metropolis and the original King Kong.

Times Tables: Squeebles Multiplication

TIMES TABLES: SQUEEBLES MULTIPLICATION iPhone/iPad/Android – £0.69. This UK-developed app is aimed at 5- to 11-year-olds, providing a series of multiplication questions to earn stars and rescue cutesy characters from a nefarious Maths Monster. Up to four children can save their progress on one device.

The Singing Alphabet app logo

THE SINGING ALPHABET iPhone/iPad – £0.69. A stylish app that does what it says on the tin: letters that sing. Specifically, they sing their own phonetic sounds, and can be combined to make harmonies and tunes. Given five minutes, your child will be singing along too.

Counting with the Very Hungry Caterpillar app logo

COUNTING WITH THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR iPhone/iPad – £1.99. Eric Carle’s famous book about a fruit-munching caterpillar has been turned into a fun educational game with a mathematical skew. Your child identifies, counts and adds the foods over five levels, ensuring it appeals to a range of ages.

Around the Clock app logo

AROUND THE CLOCK iPhone/iPad – £1.49. This time-focused app wears its educational spurs lightly. It’s a collection of 24 mini-games, one for each hour of the day, from toothbrushing to pancake making. The idea is to familiarise children with the clock.

Barefoot World Atlas app logo

BAREFOOT WORLD ATLAS iPad – £2.99. If you have a child who is just becoming interested in geography, this is an essential buy. It’s a digital globe with music and animation, drawing kids in to the meat of its text and photographic entries on countries, people and nature.

Change4Life Fun Generator app logo

CHANGE4LIFE FUN GENERATOR iPhone/iPad/Android – Free. Part of a wider Department of Health initiative to get families out and about, this app suggests more than 100 activities for children, filtering them by indoors/outdoors and the number of participants. A summer-holiday lifesaver for parents.

Cooper's Pack: London Children's Travel Guide app logo

COOPER’S PACK: LONDON CHILDREN’S TRAVEL GUIDE iPhone/iPad – £1.49. For parents taking their children to London as a tourist, what better guide than a stuffed dog named Cooper? This travel app is a story-based guide to London’s history and attractions, with plenty of interactivity to keep children reading.

Famigo Sandbox app logo

FAMIGO SANDBOX Android – Free. If you’re handing over an Android device to a child, Famigo Sandbox is invaluable. It filters the apps on your phone to only show those suitable for children, locks off other features, and recommends new apps they might like.

Move the Turtle app logo

MOVE THE TURTLE iPhone/iPad – £1.99. Can five-year-olds start learning to program? They can with this app, which aims to teach the basics of computer programming by planning tasks – all presented by a friendly turtle character to spark their imagination.

The Happy Face app logo

THE HAPPY FACE iPhone/iPad – £0.69. Most parents have used a reward chart for their children at some point. This turns the idea into an app for use while out and about, moving children’s photos onto a happy or sad face according to their behaviour.

Your Fantastic Elastic Brain app logo

YOUR FANTASTIC ELASTIC BRAIN iPad – £1.99. Aimed at five-year-olds and up, this is a book app all about brains, using illustration and animation to explain some complex science, while throwing in “brain workout” games to help children stretch their grey cells.

Click on the link to read all 50.

 

Click on the link to read Top 10 Educational i-Pad Apps

Click on the link to read Smartboards Must Become More than Just Classroom Decoration

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

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Tips for Teaching Kids to use Technology Safely

July 31, 2012

Courtesy of The Washington Post are useful tips for helping to educate kids about safe use of technology:

1. Encourage parent leadership, within the PTA, PTO or other parent communities at your school to begin the discussion about safe and responsible online use by students at school and at home.  Gather an advisory group to determine how to get started.  Invite an expert guest speaker to kick things off.  Thankfully, there are many free, reputable resources available to parent communities through organizations such as Common Sense Media and through PTO Today’s Internet Safety Night program (sponsored by my organization, Trend Micro). Make it clear that it is an on-going dialogue versus a one-time event, as technology is constantly changing.

2. Communicate regularly to parent communities about how you are using technology in the classrooms, at each grade level, and how you ensure kids are learning to be savvy online citizens at the same time.  Make it part of open-house and parent-teacher nights.

3. Be clear with parents on how appropriate technology use is enforced through the school’s Code of Conduct and Acceptable Use Policies (AUP), which students (or parents) typically have to review and sign at the beginning of each school year.  Parents should understand what constitutes a transgression of the policy, how it will be handled, and how/if it will be reflected on your child’s school record.  It should also be clear how personal technology can or cannot be used on school grounds.

4. Be creative with ways to help parents and their kids use technology together.  Ultimately, schools and parents should not limit the discussion to being safe and responsible with technology. We want kids to also be successful users of it.  Find ways to use technology with families or encourage them to use it together through school-driven activities, events, fund-raisers, or other projects.  Have families research their genealogy together. Establish a blog contest or raise awareness or funds for a school activity using social media.  Or encourage family engagement in programs like the ‘What’s Your Story?’ campaign (sponsored by companies like Facebook, Trend Micro, Twitter, and Yahoo!) a program specifically designed to get youth, schools, and families talking about matters concerning the safe and responsible use of technology.

5. Recognize the positive use of technology in your schools through a formal or informal but public way.  Parents can be invited to be part of such a program, or at least encourage the right behavior with their kids at home.  Awards or acknowledgement can be given to individual students or groups of students, classrooms, or even families.  You can do this through a yearly or monthly “call out” in the school newsletter, website, or at a live school event.  If possible, showcase the activity that is being acknowledged (If it’s a blog, link to it in your online communications).

Technology can be intimidating to those of us who were introduced to it later in life.  The job of teaching kids how to use it appropriately can feel daunting when often times they seem better at it than we do.  But we cannot sidestep our obligation to make technology a tool our kids use safely and responsibly.

And while we do not have years of documented best practices to help schools and parents through this yet, anything you do today can help.  Thankfully, there are simple, low investment ways to start today.  It just takes a willingness to embrace what is already here, and a little courage to take the first step.

Click on the link to read 10 Best Websites for Teaching ICT

Click on the link to read New Tablet Being Designed Specifically for the Classroom

Click on the link to read Top 10 Educational i-Pad Apps

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10 Best Websites for Teaching ICT

July 24, 2012

Author Ian Addison recommends his favourite online tools for getting creative in class:

Photo editing – Tuxpi Photo Editor or BeFunky
These sites allow you to take a simple photograph and then convert it into an artistic masterpiece. They provide tools to edit the photo and reduce blurring or red-eye but can also turn your photograph into a collage or provide additional effects such as speech bubbles or clipart images. The final images can then be downloaded to the computer and printed out or used elsewhere. These sites do provide additional tools for a fee, but the free elements are more than enough for most users.

Making music – Isle of Tune or Sound Nation
Isle of Tune is a site that provides a blank canvas in the form of fields and grass. A road is added to represent the path of the music and beats are added in the form of trees, bushes and houses. Once the car is driven along the road, the music is played. This all sounds much more complicated than it actually is and it is very simple to get a basic tune but using the gallery provides a selection of well-known tunes including the Harry Potter theme tune, YMCA and songs from Bruno Mars. These have been created and saved by other users of the site.

Sound Nation provides hundreds of audio clips that can be combined together to create a larger piece of music. The clips can be trimmed or repeated as necessary. Anyone can be a DJ within a few minutes.

Create a game – Sploder!
This website provides a range of characters, objects and walls that can be dragged on to the playing surface and manipulated to provide an area for the main character to explore. This is a great way to introduce game design with younger children as there isn’t any coding involved but they will need to think about the different elements that will make a good game. This includes creating a high-enough level of challenge to interest the player, but not too high to make the game impossible. This can then be used as a precursor to paid-for software such as 2Do It Yourself or free tools such as Scratch or Kodu.

Design an avatar – Unique by Rasterboy or Clay Yourself
There are lots of sites that give tools for creating a new online character. This could be saved and used as part of a display or it could be used instead of a real photograph when using tools such as email but it is their use in literacy that makes them a bit more creative. Use these sites to create characters for a story. This could be the main character or it could be the enemy, the person who has stolen the diamond. What will they look like? What features will they have? Print out the avatar and then give the children time to use descriptive vocabulary to describe their characters.

For the younger audience The Fungooms or Poisson Rouge
These sites are amazing for one brilliant reason, they give children the chance to explore, investigate and experiment with very little (if any) instruction. Often the activities on these sites require clicking, dragging or a bit of thought and young children love exploring the different games and puzzles available. These include making pop-art, learning French, counting games or playing snakes and ladders. These sites are a little bit mad, but truly beautiful. Oh, and can you go through the window on Poisson Rouge and find all eight of the hidden fruit?

A bit of help – Under Ten Minutes
And lastly, some help guides. This site has been created to aid teachers (and children) when they use different tools. Many of these are free but it also contains videos for tools such as Google Apps, ActivInspire and Movie Maker. The idea being that any tool can be shown in around 10 minutes and this is the perfect length of time to show the videos as part of a staff training session or even in a lesson. Why not point children towards the video before a lesson on Scratch or Sketch-up?

Click on the link to read Are High-Tech Classrooms Just a Lot of Hype?

Click on the link to read The Problem With IT in the Classroom

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

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New Tablet Being Designed Specifically for the Classroom

July 24, 2012

I hope this new innovation proves inexpensive enough for public school students to enjoy as well:

NEWS Corp says it will launch a new tablet computer with AT&T aimed at the education market to bring “digital innovation” to US classrooms.

The media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch says the effort will come from its education division, which is being renamed Amplify.

“Amplify is dedicated to reimagining K-12 (elementary and secondary) education by creating digital products and services that empower students, teachers and parents in new ways,” the company said in a statement.

“It is our aim to amplify the power of digital innovation to transform teaching and learning and to help schools deliver fundamentally better experiences and results,” said Joel Klein, chief executive of Amplify.

“Amplify will introduce new products in a thoughtful way, so that technology can finally live up to its promise to advance learning and augment teaching for students, teachers and parents everywhere.”

Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility, said the effort would include “a 4G mobile tablet-based experience that we believe will significantly enhance teaching and learning for grades K-12”.

Click on the link to read Top 10 Educational i-Pad Apps

Click on the link to read Smartboards Must Become More than Just Classroom Decoration

Click on the link to read There is Still Some Love for the Forgotten Class Whiteboard

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Top 10 Educational iPad Apps

July 17, 2012

An impressive lineup of education apps as selected by gameclassroom.com:

1. BrainPOP Featured Movie, FREE
Made with the iPad in mind, this app delivers fresh, animated movies every day on topics including earth awareness, financial literacy and more. Kids take interactive quizzes to show what they know.

2. SUPER WHY!, $2.99
Rhyme, spell, write and read with PBS characters Alpha Pig, Princess Presto, Wonder Red, and yes, Super Why for an entirely entertaining educational experience. Kids won’t even realize they’re learning.

3. Dr. Seuss’s ABC and The Cat in the Hat, $2.99 each
What happens when you combine classic children’s books with cutting-edge technology? Storytelling magic! USA Today, Huffington Post and mommy bloggers count themselves among iPad/Seuss fans.

4. ABC Phonics Animals Free Lite, FREE
A group of parents created these talking and spelling flashcards. On the iPad, ye olde arte of learning becomes animated, interactive, lively and fun.

5. Star Walk, $2.99
This guide to the night sky shines brightly among iPad’s constellation of educational apps. It’s a window into more than 9,000 stars, planets, constellations and other celestial bodies.

6. RedFish, FREE ($9.99 upgrade for all 50 activities)
Teaching kids ages 3-7 to count, read, spell and even compose music has never been quite as much fun as it is on the iPad. What would Beethoven have done with an app such as this?

7. 123 Color HD Talking Coloring Book, $0.99
Fans of this iPhone app will want to check out the iPad version, with all-new high-resolution drawings that are five times larger than the originals.

8. World Book – This Day in History, $0.99
Thanks to the encyclopedia giant’s interactive calendar that includes pictures, sounds, music and features, history may not seem so ancient to kids.

9. iLiveMath Animals of Africa, $1.99
Stampeding toward an iPad near you, this app combines math with zoology for a hair-raising learning experience (which is currently being enhanced for Apple’s latest and greatest).

10. History: Maps of the World, FREE
Travel back in time with historical maps of all kinds. High-resolution maps on the iPad just might be the next best thing to being there.

Click here to read about The Meteoric Rise of the Educational App.

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Why Our Schools are in Crisis

July 16, 2012

Xavier Symons wrote a compelling examination of our failing education system. He pinpoints three areas where things are going awry:

The first is student-oriented learning. Traditional teaching in which teachers provide a succinct overview of topics is an endangered species. Student orientated, interactive learning has almost completely displaced it.

Certainly, there are benefits: creativity, enthusiasm, research skills. But why not pour a bit of expert knowledge from the well into the bucket? My friends and I loved having a teacher who had just graduated from education school. Student-centred learning for us meant student rule. It was great fun. We just didn’t learn much.

The second problem is the obsession with IT literacy. Students know heaps more than most teachers about IT. X-Box and circumventing internet filters and downloading movies is child’s play for this generation.

IT literacy is like learning to ride a bike: you don’t need school. But essay writing skills? We did need a teacher for that. In the worst cases, students end up pooling ignorance in meandering discussions, and scratching their heads in bewilderment.

As a high school student, I built and produced pictorial essays using film software. Some of my friends made mind maps on smart boards and podcast radio plays. The latest fad is educational games on iPads.

I certainly became IT literate. But it was at the expense of English proficiency and knowledge of history. I had a lot of fun doing a pictorial essay about the Vietnam War – but I I never learned why the French were there in the first place.

While IT literacy is very important in the digital age, the bread and butter of the humanities remains grasping and describing human experience and human history.

The third problem is uniformed teachers. Too many leave uni knowing the bare minimum, and never try to delve deeper. Many of my peers have found that their history teacher knows no more than the textbook. Alarmingly many teachers of English literature don’t actually read. And science teachers may be able to entertain a classroom by emphasising the practical aspects of biology, but students will be seriously underprepared come exams.

I have given my opinion on each of his three points:

Click here to read my opinion of ‘child centered learning’ vs ‘teacher centered learning’.

Click here to read my opinion on the problem with IT in the classroom.

Click here to read my opinion on the standard of teacher training.

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