Category: Apps

Apps, Creative Thinking, Education, K-5, Student Products, Teaching Tools

Superhero S.C.A.M.P.E.R.

Terri Eichholz

I think my compadre over at “Not Just Child’s Play” and I are having some kind of mind meld because she posted about S.C.A.M.P.E.R. as I was already in the throes of preparing this post!  I love her ideas for Back to School scampering, and actually had a similar idea that I included in my own Back to School Packet.

A quick recap of S.C.A.M.P.E.R.:  S.C.A.M.P.E.R. is an acronym used to help one remember some great tools for creative thinking. “Substitute” is the first tool, followed by “Combine”, “Adapt”, “Modify”, “Put to Another Use”, “Eliminate”, and “Rearrange.”

I have developed a few S.C.A.M.P.E.R. products over the years, and my students love it when I pass out the activity pages.  There are always several students that wow me with their unique responses.  You can see some of my previous S.C.A.M.P.E.R. posts with student examples here.

I recently added a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. Through the Seasons packet to my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.  The cost is $8, and includes 7 pages for each of the 4 seasons, plus Back to School – so 35 pages total.  (If you have previously purchased the Summer, Spring, or Winter Holidays packet, then I would recommend buying the Back to School and Autumn packets separately.)

I went a little wild this weekend, and decided it would be fun to create a Superhero packet as well.  The Superhero packet is going to be free until this Thursday, August 15th.  You can download it here.  I have included a sample below.  I used the Superhero Comic Book Maker app ($2.99) by Duck Duck Moose to create the graphics.

These activities are great at a center, as rewards, as challenges for students who have completed other work, and as warm-up activities.  It’s always fun to see the final results!

substitutesuperhero

Apps, Education, Fun Friday, Games, K-12, Parenting, Student Products, Websites

Game Day!

Terri Eichholz
Screen shot from GamePress
Screen shot from GamePress app for iPad

Depending on your perspective, today’s post title may elicit different pictures.  For those of you interested in sports, I am sorry to say that this has very little to do with football – at least not directly.  However, the beauty of these resources is that you can make the theme of your game whatever you like!

It’s Fun Friday, and what is more fun than games? The problem with store-bought games is that they often don’t live up to your expectations, or don’t appeal to everyone interested in playing them.  So, why not make your own?

A little while ago, I mentioned GameKit, a site that focuses on giving you “game development challenges.”

Yesterday, I discovered a (currently) free app called GamePress, which allows you to design your own games on the iPad.  You can customize them in many different ways.  It reminds me a bit of Gamestar Mechanic.

And, if you like the traditional board games, but have an idea for your own, here is a contest for Young Game Inventors to design their own board game!  The contest is open to children from ages 5-12, and ends on October 1st.  To get more information, click on this link.

Also, if you like the idea of making your own game, be sure to visit my Pinterest board that has tons of resources for Programming for Kids.  Or, if you prefer to just play challenging games, you might be interested in my board of Games and Toys for Gifted Kids.

Apps, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Education, Games, K-12, Problem Solving, Teaching Tools, Websites

BotLogic

Terri Eichholz
from: http://botlogic.us/#sthash.yhW6MqdL.nFiBtpwg.dpbs
from: http://botlogic.us

BotLogic is a new web-based game that teaches programming to kids.  It reminds me a bit of the iPad apps , “Daisy the Dinosaur,” “Kodable,” and “Cargo-Bot.”   The main difference is, of course, that you can play BotLogic on any device with an internet browser, and are not restricted to a certain operating system.  What also makes it more available to students is that you do not have to register to play BotLogic, and you can skip to different levels of difficulty – so you do not always have to begin on the first level if you switch your playing device.

Programming for Kids is a trending topic in Education, and BotLogic is one of many resources for teaching this.  (You can view my Pinterest board to see even more.)  Some of the features that set BotLogic apart is that it actually shows the window of code as you create your line of icon instructions and it gives the extra challenge of trying to maintain “battery life” by using as short a set of instructions as possible.  You can compete with your friends to get the highest score, and you can share your scores on pretty much any social network.

BotLogic offers a short tutorial, and I think any child who can read could probably use the site independently.  It’s a good introduction to programming for any age level, as it slowly scaffolds from the very simple to the more complex.  This also allows for differentiation, as students can work at their own pace, and even skip levels.

Why should your child and/or students play BotLogic, or any other programming game?  Because it teaches logic, problem-solving, systems thinking, and, in some cases, collaboration.  Once a child learns the foundations of programming, the potential for creativity and design thinking becomes even greater.  Aren’t these skills we would like to develop in every child?

Apps, Education, Fun Friday, Games, Teaching Tools

AR Basketball

Terri Eichholz

AR Basketball

For this week’s Fun Friday post, I would like to point you to an augmented reality app that doesn’t fit into the Education category, technically.  But, I’m sure you can find a way to use it in your classroom – whether it’s as a motivation tool or a math or physics one.

Once you download the free AR Basketball app from iTunes, you also need to print out a “marker” from here.  Then, open the app, scan the marker, and start shooting your ball into the basket by pulling down on, then releasing, the bar on the right-hand side.

If sports isn’t your thing, Augmented Pixels also offers a very cute AR Dragon here  or, alternately you can shoot down ugly bugs flying around your living room with Bugs Mayhem.

Apps, Art, Creative Thinking, Education, K-12, Student Products

Visualizing Making a Difference

Terri Eichholz
from: http://drydenart.weebly.com/1/post/2013/07/turn-the-table-on-tabloids.html
Created by Isabella at Dryden Elementary
from: http://drydenart.weebly.com/1/post/2013/07/turn-the-table-on-tabloids.html

I recently posted about Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show, and how I find it inspiring that Sylvia is not waiting around to pursue her dreams.  She is doing it now with her videos and, most recently, her WaterColorBot invention.

I like to have my students think about what difference they intend to make in the future.  We have used Time Magazine templates to create cover stories about their predicted accomplishments.  Because I am more of a technology person than an art person, these have not been anything that one might call a visual masterpiece.  However, after I ran across Tricia Fugelstad’s article, “Turn the Table on Tabloids” on her fantastic art blog, I think I am now armed with a better plan.

Tricia gives specific instructions for creating this fabulous magazine cover using free apps on the iPad.  It’s a great idea, and I appreciate that she shares the how-to because I am pretty sure I would not have discovered the process on my own.

With this new plan, and Sylvia’s example as an accomplished young person, I think I might change my lesson a bit.  Instead of envisioning a future 25 years ahead, I am going to ask the students to picture what they could do in the next year or so.  I might also use the Mark Bezos video to remind them that even the little things we do can make a huge difference.

If you have never visited Dryden Art’s “Fugleblog”, give yourself some time to browse through the projects.  I guarantee you will be inspired!

Apps, Art, Creative Thinking, Education, Fun Friday, K-12, Motivation, Student Products, Teaching Tools, Websites

Fun Friday Art

Terri Eichholz
from ColAR Pinterest Board
from:  ColAR Pinterest Board

Yesterday, before we went to the hair salon, I told my daughter to “bring your crayons.”  She looked at me with one raised eyebrow.  She is ten, and doesn’t really “color” anymore.  “It’s a surprise,” I said.

While I was getting my hair colored, so was the two-dimensional young lady on one of the coloring sheets I provided my skeptical daughter.  The real fun came when we used the ColAR app on my iPad to bring her drawing to life.  Before we knew it, we were demonstrating the app to the owner of the hair salon and 4 other customers.  A shy, five-year-old girl delightedly took one of the other sheets I offered, and giggled excitedly when we made her teddy bear, complete with the monogrammed t-shirt she had designed, gesturing to her from the page.

ColAR is an augmented reality app (available on both iTunes and Google Play) that has been touted on several websites in the last 24 hours, but I first read about it on Larry Ferlazzo’s “Website of the Day.”  On the website, there are several coloring pages that you can print out to use with the app.  Once a picture is colored, you use the app on your device to scan the colored picture, and it will become a virtual 3-d picture.  I like Larry’s idea to have students write stories about the drawings, as I’m sure young students would be totally motivated to create original writing once they see their pictures move.

ColAR is limited right now.  There are only 6 coloring pages at the moment – but you can see from their Pinterest board that kids can come up with many variations for those pages.  The app is free, but be forewarned.  To “unlock” all of the current pages, at this time you need to make an in-app upgrade to the full version.  The full version is free until 7/28/13.  However, if you have an institutional iPad (in other words, one belonging to a school district), in-app purchases may be blocked – even if they are free.  I ran into this problem on my school iPad, but was able to access everything on my personal one, thankfully – or I would have had some explaining to do to my daughter!

For more on Augmented Reality, you might want to visit this post, as well as Richard Byrne’s post on augmented reality in education.  Also, here is another use of an augmented reality app “for fun.”