Alien Scavenger Hunt The website:
http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/alien/ash.html
Classroom Applications:
Partner Activity: Use the above website as an individual or partner...
Techniques for Engaging All Students When using interactive online resources, often you may want students to respond to a question you have displayed with your LCD projector or on your interactive whiteboard. ...
Ordered Pairs Stories
The websites:
http://resources.oswego.org/games/BillyBug/bugcoord.html
http://resources.oswego.org/games/BillyBug2/bug2.html
Classroom applications:
1) ...
Justification for Teaching with Interactive Content In this age of accountability, it is more important than ever to be able to justify the tools and techniques we use in our classrooms with solid research. So, not only am...
Categorizing Interactive Content After I had been teaching with online resources in my classroom for a few weeks, I began to notice that the interactive content I was searching for fell into four distinct...
The websites:
Classroom Applications:
Whole Class Activities: Add variety and a new challenge to basic multiplication facts practice by asking your students to find missing factors in multiplication problems. Use the first three websites to demonstrate finding missing factors and for whole class practice with the skill.
The websites:
These two websites have many versatile uses sure to spice up your next classroom project. Voki.com allows students to create their own character and then record a message for the character to deliver. Blabberize.com allows students to upload a photo, outline the mouth, and then record a message so it appears as if the photo is speaking.
Classroom applications:
1. Oral reports and presentations are the two most obvious uses for these websites. If you have assigned reports on historical figures, consider having your students find a picture of their subject and record their report so the historical figure can tell the class about himself/herself.
With the appearance of quality online virtual manipulatives, many traditionally paper and pencil activities have become opportunities to engage students with technology, as is the case with the following website.
Classroom Integration Ideas:
Students can create a printable flip book to demonstrate their understanding of multiple concepts. Here are a few examples:
Cause and Effect
Direct your students to create a flip book with alternating pages of causes and effects. Have them share their books with each other and turn the sharing into a prediction exercise. Have the student being presented to brainstorm potential effects from each cause in their partner’s book before flipping the page to see their partner’s chosen effect.
Inevitably, when I am speaking with someone about using technology in the classroom, I will be confronted with the question, “What is wrong with using books and paper and pencils to teach reading and writing and math like we always have?” To which I respond, “Nothing.” I firmly believe that traditional teaching methods should not be thrown out the door completely in lieu of teaching with technology. However, I also believe that technology is the language of today’s students and that a blend of old and new instructional methods will reach a wider range of learners with unique skills, needs, and interests.
In a previous blog post, Categorizing Interactive Content, I shared four categories I use to group online interactive content. This helps me to select specific online resources based on the way in which I would like to utilize the content in my lesson. Since that post has been the blog’s most viewed and commented on, I thought I would provide additional information about the topic as was requested by GarykPatton.
Below I have described the specific ways I utilize each type of interactive content when teaching the topic of 2-D shapes. One site is given below as an example, although I use multiple sites in each category when teaching a topic.
Interactive Animations:
When first introducing 2-D shapes to my class, instead of relaying the information about each shape via a lecture, I let interactive animations do the initial instruction for me. Instead of sitting and just watching the animation, my students take notes by creating their own flip books to be used for later study and review.
