Week 5 blog review: Tech Edge in the Classroom

Posted on June 23, 2015 by skyross under App Reviews, Reflections

In the video below, Guy Trainin talks a couple different apps on practicing mathematics.

The app that I liked was Math Duels. With this app, students can play against each other to practice their math skills and get better at mental math. The app costs $2.99 and offers a multitude of different practice problems. The student can also practice on their own with a timed one player version. Overall, I think it would be a fun for students to use, but the $2.99 may keep students from, being able to use it.

In the next video, Guy Trainin talks about how to write using different apps.

The app that I found very interesting was called ABC Cursive. This app is very cool because it allows students to trace the letter. This app is free and is readily accessible for students. The app is very easy to use and shows students the correct way to write the letter in cursive and then let’s them trace the letter. The only issue with this is that if the student is using their finger t trace, then they are not getting the muscle memory that writing with a pencil does. Overall thoug, the app can be used very easily in the classroom and could help students that want to learn cursive.

In the final video I watched, Guy shows a couple of apps that help students take notes, and understand their notes better than if they wrote them down.

The app that Guy talks about it called AudioNotes. This app would be great for any age student. This app allows students to voice record their notes and add them to certain parts of their notes. They are also allowed to draw shapes, equations, and anything else that can’t be typed on a keyboard. This app rocks for middle or high school students with helping them learn to take better notes, but it can also help college students take notes faster and more accurately. The downside to this app is it costs $4.99. A little pricey for a note taking app, but if you need help taking better notes, I would suggest it!

Guy Trainin does a very good job of reviewing his apps, and providing comparareble apps all in the same video.

Week 4 blog reflection: iLearn technology

Posted on June 18, 2015 by skyross under Reflections

The cite iLearn technology offers many different reviews of apps, and suggestions on ways to use technology in the classroom setting, that are written by differnt teachers, educators, and education enthusiasts. These are all blogs, and there is one that I was drawn too regents I first opened the page.

The blog that I read and and going to review is, Monster Math: Building Menatl Math Skills and Fact Fluency. This blog is more of an app review of the app Monster Math. Since I am a math major, this was a very cool blog.

Monster Math is an app that helps students gain better understanding of math procedures, and this helps with their mental math process. The app offers many fun games that help the students get a better understanding of their math skills and how to perform the math functions faster.

The blog also offers a couple different ways that the app can be used in the classroom. The blog offers the ideas of using it in 3rd and 4th grades. It helps with subtraction and addition, as well as multiplication and division. It is great for these classes when trying to remember the common mathematic equations using the app like flash cards. This is a fun way to develope a better understanding of the four main areas of math.

Another way to use the app would be for individual students to use as an individual tracking device. The student can see their progress on their personal technology device and they can see what they need to work on, and what they know pretty well.

This blog offers a very in depth review of the app and is very helpful. The editor of this blog is not given, but whoever wrote it, did a very good job of researching the app. Hopefully I can use the app when I become a teacher!

My First Tellagami Project

Posted on June 8, 2015 by skyross under App Reviews, Projects

App: Tellagami

Price: Free or $4.99 for education version

Link: Tellagami by Tellagami Labs Inc.
https://appsto.re/us/nK0iI.i

App Description: Animate your life! Download today! Tellagami is a mobile app that lets you create and share a quick animated video called a Gami.

Application in classroom: students could use Tellagami for different projects. Projects like book reports and picture description, and teachers could even use it for daily greetings for parents. The options are endless.

The Tellagami I made above is the poem My Spring Garden. The author is unknown, but you can see how when I read the poem, the character mouths my words and creates a “personal” touch to the poem.

Limitations: although the free app allows you, as a creator, to make the Tellagami the way you want, it doesn’t offer much of a customization for the characters and background. You are also limited to 30 seconds for a recording. This works for many situations, but for anything that you would like more customization, the full $4.99 version would be for you.

Conclusion: this app is lots of potential. The free version is severely limited on the customization factor, but it still offers slight character and background customization. The full version offers all the bells and whistles wanted, and needed. Very cool app, and very applicable for classrooms.

Week 3: Comics in the Classroom

Posted on June 8, 2015 by skyross under App Reviews, Projects, Reflections

I tried out the app called Make Beliefs. In this app you can do many things. You can create your own comic obviously, but you can also teach something to the kids. I like my comics to be clever and funny, but still entertaining. The fun thing about Make Beliefs is that there are endless ideas for teachers that use this app correctly. The app itself is free, which is very nice, and the range of products you get with the free download is incredible. You get quite a few characters, as well as backdrops, text bubbles, and background colors. You are able to do so many things for free! Overall, I think this app is a lot of fun! But, can it be used in the classroom? Absolutely! Students can make their own comic in a way that helps them remember a topic. If it is for science, math, English, or just for fun, this app could be used on many different levels. One way it could be used would be to have the students create their own word math problems and then solve them as the comic goes on using the different mathematical procedures. Doing this would help solidify the idea of the math concepts and help the students find a way to remember the idea on their own.

Overall, this app would be fantastic for students to use on occasion. Lots of fun and lots of room for creativity!

Week 3 reflection: Tip of the Week: 25 moments that changed history.

Posted on June 7, 2015 by skyross under Reflections

I reviewed Glennw’s tip of the week for teaching history. In this short blog, Glenn offers many suggestions on how to teach history in a meaningful way. He gave 9 different options on how to do it, but I will go over the ones I thought where most important.

1) He says to make the lessons more about the students. Have them work in groups, discuss, argue, and back up their thoughts. In doing this, the students will gain a better understanding of their views as well as their peers. They will also become more aware of the actual history lesson.

2) Make it about YouTube! This doesn’t have to be just YouTube. Make it about something the students will understand much more. Something like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook will help the students become more interested in finding out about the topic. Having the research available to a platform that most use daily makes it more fun for the students.

the last big point I gathered from Glenn was this; make it about media. Teaching the normal boring ways can get…. Well, boring. Students need a break from their daily routine. In doing this, students can try new study techniques and fun ways of learning things.

By doing any or all of the things Glenn suggests, history will no longer be a boring classroom snore fest, but instead be a thriving, exciting class adventure. History isn’t fun for everyone, but we all have our own.

Word Clouds in the Classroom

Posted on June 2, 2015 by skyross under App Reviews

I used the app Word Clouds.

this app was very fun to use! Adding up to 100 words to create an image with all the words jumble up in a random order is very cool. Doing this would be perfect for classroom posters or vocabulary helpers for students.

The app is free in the App Store, the link is above. Although it is free, it easily gets the job done, and you should be fairly satisfied with it.

Above is a word cloud using mathematical vocabulary. It made a very nice jumbled mess of the words I chose!

Pros: extremely easy to use, free, navigation is easy, colors are changeable, fonts are changeable, you can pick how many words you would like to use, and there are endless randomly selected views.

Cons: limited to 100 words, can’t pick from any shape, limited on fonts and colors, there are better apps out there.

Overall, for a free alternative to some other apps, Word Clouds does a great job. It is limited in many aspects, but in a pinch will do the trick. Don’t expect too much, but be satisfied with what you get!

Here is a tutorial on how to use the app.

Thinglink in Education: Math

Posted on June 2, 2015 by skyross under App Reviews, Projects

Thinglink is is a very cool idea. Having an interactive picture that you can add picture, links, and videos to it very helpful for teachers. Being similar to a PowerPoint, Thinglink is a fun alternative to having boring slides to look at.

Adding to the uniqueness that is Thinglink is the simplicity of the app itself. Being able to add tags with ease, edits previous tags, and even change what symbol you want to represent your tag is simply awesome. I am not tech savvy at all, and this was very easy for me!

Pros of Thinglink: very easy to use, easy to navigate, website is very thorough.

Cons: limited on the free version, paid version doesn’t offer “that much” more for your money, app is slightly harder to navigate.

The app itself is a free app. For that, it is very well priced! Wishing the app however, limitations arise that would make the online version a little easier to use. The online version has many add one that do cost money, but you do not have to have them.

Thinglink is a great app and program, that when used effectively, could change the way Teachers entertain students!

To view my Thinglink for math, click here!

The link to the App Store is here!

Week 2 Blog Reflection

Posted on June 1, 2015 by skyross under Reflections

For or my reflection, I chose to look at the site Moving at the Speed of Creativity. On this site, Wesley Fryer made a blog called “30 Reasons I Love Teaching Elementary STEM.”

After being in the education profession for 20 years, Mr. Fryer finally switched to elementary for the last 2. Mr. Fryer came up with many different reasons why he loves teaching elementary so much, and I loved how different each one was. They almost all had the overarching theme of advancements in technology and how it benefits being a teacher, but that is why teaching is so much fun! The field is always changing!

One thing that Wesley has done was spending the money he had left over for a fun game for the students to play. The game, called Minecraft, is not usually used in education. But, Wesley has figured out that the students love to play a game that helps with complex problems solving and architectural creativity.

In this game is used in his classroom as a type of “Extreme Lego” problem solving. Mr. Fryer can get online with his students and create problems for them, help the students, and create challenging scenarios that each student must complete. In doing this, Mr. Fryer is able to connect with his students a their level, and help them understand something without “teaching” it.

Another thing that Mr. Fruer talks about is how technology has changed the classroom. iPads are being used more and more every day, and some students are even able to take the iPad’s home with them and do assignments. Having the iPad’s readily available is very handy as a teacher. Not having to go to the computer room every time you want to try so,etching, but instead, having the kids just do it their at th their desk.

Overall, Mr. Fryer has the right idea about teacher elementary. The students that come out of his class will have a better understanding of how to do some things based on their experiences from his class. He is doing a great job, and it is exciting seeing what he is able to do with just 2 years of teaching.

Skylar Ross

Math Teacher in Progress

Monthly Archives: June 2015