Tag: news

Apps, Augmented Reality, Education, K-12, Teaching Tools, Websites

What You Might Have Missed This Summer

Terri Eichholz

Summer break is over – at least for many of the public school teachers in Texas who return to work today.  Of course, many of us never really stopped working over the last couple of months, fitting in workshops and lesson planning in between trips to the beach and afternoon naps.

I’ve been saving educational articles of interest to Pocket all summer, and I thought I would share some of the news that I curated that might have some impact on your planning for the new school year.  I would love for you to share any other summer education news that I’ve missed in the comments below!

What You Missed

  • Osmo put out two new games this summer, Coding (near the beginning of the summer) and most recently Monster (described as “The Creative Set”).  My summer camp students loved the Coding game, and I’ve just ordered Monster.
  • Speaking of tangible coding, Google has announced “Project Bloks,” which looks pretty intriguing.  The Bloks aren’t available to the public yet, but you can sign up on their interest page to get updates on the program.
  • In other Google news, the Expeditions VR app is now available on Android with expectations to release it on other platforms later this year.  Also, there is a free Cast for Education app that I am really interested in that supposedly allows students to project their work without the need for other hardware/software like Chromecast, Apple TV, or Reflector.  Richard Byrne has a blog post on a new add-on for Google Docs called The Lesson Plan Tool.  By the way, if you want to keep updated on new Google Classroom features, here is a good page to bookmark.
  • When it comes to lesson planning, Amazon Inspire might be your go-to site as soon as it becomes available, with free access to educational resources.  Sign up for early access now.
  • Think about allowing your students to show off what they’ve learned during those great lessons with Class Dojo’s new feature: Student Stories.
  • You may have somehow escaped the Pokemon Go craze, but your students probably haven’t.  Here are some ways to use it educationally.
  • Words with Friends now has an Edu version that is free and can be played on the web or on mobile devices.  I haven’t tried it, but it looks like it even has materials aligned to Common Core.
  • Breakout Edu has Back to School games.
  • Canva now has an iPhone app.
  • YouCubed released Week of Inspirational Math 2 last week.  This is a great way to start your students off with a growth mindset in math.

Do you have some education news that we might have missed this summer?  Be sure to add it in the comments below!

 

Creative Thinking, Fun Friday, K-12, Social Studies, Student Products, Videos

Don’t Forget to Take the Fridge

Terri Eichholz
Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at 11.47.04 AM
from “The Nightly News with Libby and Sarah”

For today’s Phun Phriday post, I would like to share with you a delightful video I found on Neatorama.  Before you watch,  I have this disclaimer: I am certain that Canada is a lovely place, and I’m pretty sure it is not the only spot on the globe that suffers from natural disasters. Also, it might be an interesting strategy for reducing traffic on the road if you insist that every evacuee secures transport for the family fridge before leaving 🙂

Apps, Creative Thinking, K-12, Language Arts, Math, Science, Student Products, Teaching Tools, Videos

Talking Tom and Ben News for iPad

Terri Eichholz

You are probably familiar with the “Talking” apps.  There are a variety that are available for free, and work on iPhone, iTouch, and iPad.  This particular one is only compatible with the iPad at the moment, and is free (though there is an offer for an in-app purchase).  My Multimedia club students had fun playing around with the app to deliver some Thanksgiving Jokes on our school news, which is a video broadcast.  They recorded the jokes, then sent them to the computer, where, once the MOV file was converted to WMV (with a little help from Zamzar), we were able to add music and subtitles.  If you are not crazy about all of those complicated steps, don’t worry.  You can just record and e-mail it.  We have not had a chance to use one of the coolest features of this app, which allows you to insert a video from your iPad on which Tom and Ben can comment.  This offers a lot of learning opportunities in which students can explain some of their own homemade videos.  (Example:  Imagine, “This just in – Allison figured out how to solve 13 times 14!”)

Here is a sample of our jokes from our video club:

[vodpod id=Video.15704637&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
3-12, Language Arts, Philosophy, Reading, Research, Science, Social Studies, Teaching Tools, Vocabulary, Websites

The Learning Network – NY Times

Terri Eichholz

According to its website, “The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content.”  Although the site is designed for students who are 13 or over, I have found many lessons that can be adapted to my elementary level Gifted and Talented students.  The site includes lesson plans with links to related stories in the New York Times, as well as news quizzes and crossword puzzles.  I find the “Student Opinion” section to be a treasure chest of engaging questions that can help students connect themselves to the real world.  The “Poetry Pairings” section is also intriguing.  The site is a great resource for teachers, and gives teenagers a voice and a place to see how the news relates to them