It's been over a year since I've last blogged. I've taken two other blogs I've created in the past and been able to add them all to this new blog, They Podcast.
I hope this blog serves as an excellent resource for all of my blog posts. These posts contain many activities / apps / websites / resources over the years that have engaged my students.
As I begin my venture into blogging once again, here are some of the topics I plan on blogging about:
All about podcasting in the classroom
Engaging apps for student creation activities
Creative collaborative activities for students
The power of multimedia in class
Assessment tools that work best
Gamification and how to implement it in our classroom
Creating a school podcastathon for charity
These are just a of the topics I'll be sharing! Be sure to subscribe on the right side of this blog.
When I recently attend the IETC conference in Springfield, Illinois, I heard about this free Math game called Prodigy Game. The game seemed like it could be a decent fit for my students, but honestly, I had no idea they'd love it this much.
When I heard stories from students about how they'd played the game for "5 hours in a row" I was definitely curious why they were so addicted to this game with tons of math problems. They were thinking about this game, but all I could think of was that they were doing 5 hours worth of Math.
I asked students to voluntarily tell me why they like Prodigy Game so much, and this is what they had to say:
"The reason I like Prodigy is that you learn while you're playing. As you level up, the problems get harder. So, you become smarter while playing."
"Prodigy Game is awesome because I'm the kind of person that likes fantasy stuff like spells. It is also a RPG (Role Playing Game) that also teaches math. I think Prodigy Game should be allowed by all teachers because it offers a fun learning experience."
"Prodigy Game is fun and addictive. Everyone is setting goals and trying to achieve them."
"It's really fun because you are able to enjoy math while going on adventures and catching really wacky and fun creatures. You do all these fun things while doing math!"
"Prodigy Game is a fun game because you can have fun while you learn and before you know it, you will be a math star."
And, my personal favorite:
“Prodigy is an epidemic for learning in style. If you love role-playing games such as Wizard 101, this is the game for you. It features (new) battles with your friends and creatures of the magical island. Also, the moderator can specify different kinds of problems to do during battles. Every turn to use a move you do a math problem to do, so this game is perfect if you or your students need to learn math inside a video game. In my opinion, you’d think you’re just playing any normal game, but this game is much more. Join the wizardly battles and fun at prodigy.com.”
To learn a little more about Prodigy Game, watch this video. And if you are going to sign up, please use my recommendation code so that I can earn some free memberships for my students. The membership "allows you to get unlimited pets," according to my very excited students.
I fiddled with Codeable Crafts a little bit and honestly thought it was something my 4th and 5th graders would be sick of after 10 minutes. I was wrong! They were working on this nonstop for over an hour. Watch this video to try to figure out why my students loved this app so much!
Below are some pictures of their creations. But remember, they aren't just making images, they are also coding these creations so they are fully animated. What a terrific app!
I've written in the past about how games like Kahoot! are very engaging for our students. Students clamor to compete against one another and make it to the class leaderboard for all to see.
As much as I like these types of games, I can't help but think how frustrating it may be for those students that never get a chance to reach that leaderboard.
Enter the new feature for Kahoot!, the "Highest Climber!"
As you can see in the purple bar directly above, Kahoot! now notes which student has made the biggest climb in the game. This motivates students to keep trying and get that recognition when the leaderboard may be so far off.
Kahoot! has a lot of competition out there now, with games like Quizizz and Quizalize entering the game-based learning area. However, additions like this will help keep this relevant and more importantly, will help motivate all students!
Students in my class have been thrilled about the new way I've taught them about nouns. Since nouns are relatively a review concept to my students, I decided to try this new site that I had heard about on Twitter, Grammaropolis.
Watch the following introduction video about this great, video-based learning tool below.
The nouns section of this site is free. After having students spend a couple of days on this during grammar, they've already begun to get this song in everyone's head.
If you like nouns, I suggest purchasing the rest of the lessons. You and your students won't regret it!
