Tuesday, June 24, 2014

K-5 Apps to try this Summer

Many teachers have asked us what apps we would recommend for summer learning, so here's a VERY short list of apps we like for all subject areas in Grades K-5.  

Math Doodles
 Math Doodles was chosen the 2012 Parent's choice Gold award winner, and Editor's Choice award for Excellence in Design.  It includes Math challenges such as Sum Stackers, Connect the Sums, Splat Go Round, Symmetry Shuffle, and a Sneak Peek Challenge.  There are also several challenge modes for children to keep track of their progress.  It is bright and entertaining to eliminate the "I'm bored with this" response!

Stack the States
 Stack the States is one of my children's favorite apps!  It includes multiple choice questions about state capitals, landmarks, geographic locations, and flags.  When you answer correctly, you drop the states onto the board, one on top of the next, in order to reach a goal line. It has similarities to Tetris, but more educational!

Puppet Pals
 Puppet Pals is a very simple digital storytelling app for young students.  The free version of this app is slightly limited to characters and backgrounds, etc. but overall, Puppet Pals offers a good starting point for students to get creative with the writing process.

Trading Cards 
 Trading Cards, from ReadWriteThink, is a great app that allows students a way to express their understanding of a topic in a more unique way.  Students can sort their cards into collections, create fictional characters, or use this app to fulfill the Trading Card requirement in the Frog unit for 3rd grade.

BrainPop Jr. Movie of the Week
 If you are already familiar with BrainPop or BrainPop Jr., the Movie of the Week app is available on iPads and iPods for your students to view the movie and then follow up with related materials such as quizzes, and other educational activities. All core subjects, as well as Health and Arts & Technology are included.

30 Hands
 30 Hands is an innovative storytelling app that allows for students and teachers to be creative with their pictures, drawings, writings, etc., while recording audio to coincide with their images.

Vocabulary Spelling City
 Vocabulary Spelling City is an app that tests both Spelling and Vocabulary with built in word lists or customized lists from school.  Students can play different games like Alphabetize, Sentence Unscramble, and HangMouse to practice their list.  Fun app for the summer, indeed.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

From The Field - Port Jervis High School Students Doodle 4 Google

This year Google again offered its Doodle 4 Google competition for K-12 students throughout the country.  The winner of this competition will have their doodle shown on the Google Homepage, receive a $30,000 college scholarship and $50,000 in technology for their school.  This is an awesome opportunity for students to have an authentic audience for their artwork. Granted, it is artwork that revolves around a for profit business, but much of the art in today's society is done in the name of commerce through advertising.

Google doodles began in 1998 when Larry and Sergey, Google’s founders, placed a stick figure drawing behind the second ‘o’ in the word Google as a message to users that they were “out of the office” attending a music and art festival. From there the idea of decorating Google's logo to mark cultural moments was born.  Since then thousands of Doodles have graced Google's homepage for holidays, significant historical events and famous people's birthdays.  On June 9th some talented student will have their Doodle displayed to the world on Google.

This year Ashley Kaufman, an art teacher at Port Jervis High School, had her students create a Google Doodle and were given the opportunity to submit it to Google as part of this competition.  The theme this year was If I Could Invent One Thing to Make the World a Better Place...  and Ms. Kaufman gave her students two weeks to come up with a Doodle to submit.  Most of that time was spent preparing through brainstorming and researching their ideas.  Students had a smaller public audience initially with other art teachers coming in to the classroom to critique the students' ideas and execution as well as provide feedback.  Ashley commented that "It really is a fantastic exercise in creative problem solving, a very valuable part of the arts."

Six brave students submitted their work to the Doodle 4 Google contest.  Ashley shared that "Most of the students were quite self-conscious about putting themselves “out there.”  A few of the students completed the assignment but didn’t submit their entries to google, so I compliment those that had the courage to do so." Here are the designs of the 6 students and their description of what they would create to make the world a better place.

Brittany – Miracle Machine
If I could invent something to make the world better it would be a machine that cures all diseases, disorders and sickness. It would all be accomplished by one machine.



Maria – Grid at First Sight
What if people who were blind were given something to let them see? The sensor on their shoes broadcast a grid around them, outlining objects in their path. It would be similar to sonar.



Marissa – Wordly Conversation
If a translator could translate from any language to any language, people would make new friends and learn new languages; making the world a better, more understanding place.



Molly – Peaceful Radiation Device
I would invent a radiation device that will emit a compound that will end war and create peace.



Sarah – To Here, There, and Back Again
I love to travel, and so much of space is unexplored. My invention is a plane-like-rocket in which you can see the elephants in Africa, explore through space, and then come back and visit the Eiffel Tower all in one day.  



Zoe – Memory Helmut
I would invent a helmet that sees into peoples memories and deciphers whether they are lying or not. This helps decide if the person accused is really the culprit.