APP of the WEEK: Prodigy Math Game

Prodigy is a game that I have been using with my own kids for about a year now and I have been super pleased with, but up until now it has only been accessible through the website.  Prodigy has now come out with an App for the iPad that works both online and off, which is a huge bonus.  

The game itself has the student create an avatar and traverse a magical land, meeting different guides who give them various tasks to complete.  During these adventures, the students have to complete math problems to battle the creatures they encounter.  

As a teacher I can set up my class view their progress and any areas of difficulty.  I can assign "homework" for my students to "complete".  What's great about this is that the students don't even realize that they are doing an assignment.  The math content that I assign, say "addition of three digit numbers with carrying over", is woven directly into the game.  Once they have completed the specific math problems assigned Prodigy gives them problems from other areas of math at their level.  

They game is very engaging and kids, as far as I've seen, play much more after their assigned "homework".

APP of the Week: Wonder Box

http://www.wonderbox.io/

What I love about this app is the basis on the design/creative process.  When kids start a project they first are provided with a wealth of resources from which they can develop their ideas.  My four year old daughter was working on the project of drawing a butterfly and was given all of these resources for inspiration.

As can be seen some of the inspiration comes in the form of actual photos, some of other student's drawings, and some instructional videos.  After watching the videos and looking at the pictures, gathering ideas, she moved to the creation stage and made this.

She even added my wife's name Elizabeth (Lzbf).  

From the creation stage she went on to "publish", by sending me the photo of her work along with all of the process leading up to her creation.  

There are loads of projects found within the app, like "make a penguin talk" where they learn about Antartica and penguins lives then report what they learned through recording their voice and inserting it as the penguin speaking.  More projects come through daily with links to articles to pique kids interest in newsfeed like way.

(Yes, it is an interesting place to put the mouth)

Online Responsibility and Nearpod

If you haven't checked out Nearpod yet have a look at this presentation I made about online responsibility.  I've been using Nearpod with my MYP 1 students in Design and they love it.  It's great being able to bring the presentation right to their hands and have them interact with it.  I definitely feel like I get more participation and engagement from my students when I use Nearpod.  I particularly enjoy seeing the responses from those students who have great ideas, but are reluctant to raise their hand.

Yours,


The Resourcerer

Google Tip: Protect a Range or Sheet

So I have shared a Google Sheets document with some colleagues and want them to be able to edit it, cool, easy enough.  Just share with them and give them 'editing' rights.  Then I find that one of the users has edited something they shouldn't have, by mistake (the Sheet had shared login and passwords on it).  Luckily I had the password written in another place, but I thought, 'how do I stop this from happening again without taking away the right to edit?'.

AH HA! Google has thought of this as well!  Protect a Range or Sheet

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/144687?hl=en

Using the protect a range function I highlighted the 8 cells that I didn't want anyone to edit and set the rights for those specific cells.  The teachers can still edit all of the other information on that page, but not the usernames and passwords.

MERGE CELLS in Google Docs tables!!!!

In speaking with different teachers and other staff members about shifting from keeping all of our documents on the file server to using Google Apps for most of our content, I have found that a lot of the resistance comes from the less than extensive capabilities of Docs and Sheets compared to Microsoft Word and Excel. One of the gripe worthy misgivings of Google Docs is the inability to merge cells in a table.  Well gripe no more! You can now Merge Away!

  http://www.thegooru.com/merge-cells-google-docs-tables/

Google will continue to make their Apps better and more functional as different needs arise with their users.

ONLINE TIMELINE

Poppy's Timeline 

If you are looking for an alternative for the static, hand-drawn, poster-board timelines of yesteryear here is an excellent option for your students.  TimeGlider

I found that some of the other online timeline creators were not that user-friendly, crashed, or lacked in their capabilities.  The free version of TimeGlider is sleek, user-friendly, and has a lot of capabilities.  The paid version has even more, but is unnecessary for most purposes.

One of the biggest issues I was having with other web-based timeline software was that they would only allow you to upload photos that were being web-hosted by another program(Flickr, PhotoBucket...) and not from your files on your computer.  Since I don't have a web-hosting photo program it made creating a timeline quite difficult.  TimeGlider allows you to upload from either a web-host or from your own computer.

The other big benefit is the ease of linking youtube or vimeo videos to your  timeline.  However it only displays as a link.  It would much cooler if you could imbed the video into the timeline.

Another nice feature of TimeGlider is that once you have created the timeline you can share it publicly either in a link, as in the one at the top called Poppy's Timeline, or imbed the timeline into your website or blog as seen at the top.  The only real issue I'm having with this is to see the pictures in the embedded timeline the reader has to drag the bottom line, that says "this is the image lane" up

 Happy Timelining!

You Can Book Me

I've just created an account enabling anyone to book an appointment with me.  For teachers this may be for 1 on 1 help with any software, hardware, or curricular help you may want to  discuss involving technology, meetings with year groups for planning, or any other groups requesting a meeting or tutorial on any technology integration subject.



One of my goals as an ed. tech integration specialist, was to be a bookable resource and this app has made it so easy.



https://timothywilson.youcanbook.me/

What I want to be able to do as an Educational Technology Integrator

I've been reading a lot of what other tech integration specialists are doing in their schools and it all looks so fantastic.  There are so many ways to use technology in the classroom to support teaching and learning that it can be difficult to know where to start.  I thought it would be important to write out what I want to be and do in the school community, then start taking the steps to make these ideals a reality.

I want to be Inspiring and Inspired : The whole draw for me with technology is that it is inspiring.  Students and teachers are able to see significant growth through ever changing means.  I want to, through my own practice, demonstrate to teachers that they have the capabilities to fully engage their students and enrich learning.

I want to be a Resource and a Resourcer (maybe a resorcerer) : Once the system is set up, I'd like to be a bookable resource that teachers can schedule for 1-to-1 training or curriculum consultation, for individual class lessons on Internet Safety, Digital Citizenship... where I am leading the class, co-teaching, or supporting the class teacher.  I also see myself spending a good amount of time researching apps, hardware, teaching techniques... that will help teachers enhance their lessons.

I want to be a Connector : I do not hold all of the knowledge about every app or piece of equipment that will be used in our school, but there are experts all around us.  I think it is a critical aspect that I am finding the abilities, previous experience, and passions of the staff in order to reach towards our goal of creating a community of learners.  I'm really looking forward to finding out teachers strengths and helping them connect with teachers who may not have these strengths but are looking for ways to be develop their own teaching practice.

I want to Continually be Learning : I want learn how to code, I want understand the games that the students are playing, I want to take Google Educator courses online, I want to explore different apps ... because if we demonstrate a passion for learning our students soak these attitudes in and there is just too much out there for us not to strive to know as much as we can.

I hope to be these things and I'm sure more will arise through this experience.


The Resorcerer,