This past week, a colleague of mine shared the ultimate bell ringer for my math class, Math Buddy Online. This site asks students a question of the day for math. The questions are organized by grade level.
My students were instructed to save this link to their iPad so they could immediately go to the site every morning. They start with the Grade 5 problem and work their way up to higher grade levels. Students work on the problems in their notebook. Once they figure out the answer, they select it on the iPad and they are immediately told whether or not their answer was correct.
I have not tried either of these yet, but there are additional options for a paid app and student login. I haven't tried them because the current setup works perfectly for my classroom's purposes.
Many times in any History or Language Arts class, we stumble upon those historical figures that have done a lot of wrong in their lives. Wanted Poster Pro can be the perfect app to demonstrate student knowledge of these villains.
Students can find a photo online of their villain and insert it directly into a wanted poster. See below to view all of the different sections of the poster that students can fill out.
Right now, this app is still free. If not, it usually runs at $0.99. What a great activity to do with students!
If you teach the Revolutionary War, then Mission US, For Crown or Colony is a must! This is completely free game that students play online. It's a "choose your own adventure" type game that leads them through decisions during the American Revolution.
The Lesson:
I've taught with this website a few different ways. It can be taught in whole group instruction. I've had students take turns making decisions as the game was projected in front of the class.
Last year I had students play on their own. They seemed to really like this. The only deterent, if you view it this way, is that students liked it so much they would finish it at home.
Mission US also provides several activities and worksheets to use with the game. Check them out!
"We'll be playing Minecraft in Math today." My classroom instantly filled with excitement.
In full disclosure, I had very little knowledge of the game. However, I did know that it was possible to build large buildings with large blocks. I thought this would be a great way to practice finding the volume of rectangular prisms.
The Lesson:
In Minecraft, students were instructed to go to the "Create" option in the main menu. Students worked in pairs to create their rectangular prisms. They had to find the volume of their prisms and take a screenshot to show me.
Afterwards, students were instructed to use the app to explore other students prisms and figure out their volumes as well.
Back in April of 2012, I read Richard Byrne's blog post about the website Sploder. I don't think my students have ever been more excited than when I happened to stumble upon this site.
I knew this would be something that would definitely capture the attention of my Technology Club that I host after school. This group is all 4th and 5th graders that seem to love to play web-based computer games and have an invested interest in learning about how they work.
The day we began this project I simply announced, "No more playing computer games in here, unless you create them on your own." Students were instantly captivated and curious.
"We're going to make our own games like Angry Birds." Now students were really excited.
I instructed students to go to www.sploder.com and sign in to an account. This was probably the most difficult part of the entire process. They had several problems coming up with user names. I told them they could type in my email as the email address, which seemed to work.
Once the students were all logged in, I put a 15 minute tutorial on the projector and they were immediately creating as they watched the video. Since the narrator (an employee of Sploder) talks fast, I would rewind every few minutes. In total, the 15 minute video was probably on for about 45 minutes, which allowed students to make sure they didn't miss anything.
Overall, students had great success with the website and enjoyed it immensely. Upon recognizing this, I came up with the idea to begin a new club: Video Game Creation Club. Stay tuned to this blog for more ideas of how to have students create video games.
With a few iPads in my classroom, I was able to keep my students entertained and using their math skills with a terrific iOS game, Numbler. This game is very similar to Word with Friends, except students use math facts instead of words.
How Students Used Numbler:
I originally used this as an after-test activity for students. They absolutely loved it! They would quietly form teams (usually pairs) and take turns coming up with number sentences to earn points.
Before I knew it, we were setting up a Numbler tournament during our testing week. Students that were eliminated from the tournament began to play against each other just for fun!
This app is currently $0.99, however you could possibly find it for FREE, like I did on Apps Gone Free.
Multiflow is an app that appeared yesterday on Apps Gone Free. Usually $1.99, this currently free app is the best I have seen for multiplication facts.
Touring through this app, I started with the Mad Minute and "Easy" option, since 1-12 are the facts that most fifth graders should know.
You also have the option to go backwards.
I also liked that you can choose specific facts to study or practice with.
Once you type in the correct answer it takes you immediately to the next problem.
Students can see their slowest and fasted answers. This is a great feature to see what problem students struggled on the most during their session.
It's also easy to set up individual user profiles, which is perfect for a class that is not have a 1:1 iPad setup.
Even though I previewed this app, they have FlowPlus and DivisonFlow for free as well. I assume they are very similar and also worth the download.
In an iPad classroom that's not in a 1:1 setting, I feel that a lot of e-notebook apps aren't that practical. However, today I came across an app called "the note, Moka" that I'm willing to give a chance. This app is usually $4.99, but for today only (2-13-13), it is free!
Since I just found out about this app, I am not too knowledgeable about it, however I do like the price. I see a lot of possible potential in this app.
Below are some screenshots as I began to explore this app.
Overall, the app seems promising! I'll be sure to write some more when I come up with some educational uses for this app. But for now, get it while it's free!
Have you used any e-notebook apps that's you've had success with for multiple-students use?
Update (2-14-13): Unfortunately this app is back up to $4.99 in the App Store.
This game has been out for a few years at least, but I must share. The Jamestown Online Adventure is a free online game for students to play after learning about Jamestown. I use this every year, and every year students are challenged to get all "excellent" ratings.
Throughout the game, students are faced with various choices in this "Choose Your Own Adventure" type game.
At the end of the game, students get rated on 4 categories (Food, Health, Wealth, and Morale). It's a pretty quick game, so I encourage students to play repeatedly to try to get the best ratings possible. I usually give them 4 extra credit points for Excellent ratings, 3 for Good, 2 for Fair, etc. I've only seen students get 4 excellent ratings a couple of times.
