PBS Program Will Promote Engineering to Middle School Students

PBS Program Will Promote Engineering to Middle School Students

§                                 By Mike Hohenbrink

§                                 08/23/11

PBS program "Design Squad Nation" has announced it will partner with Rocket21 to engage its community of tweens in the show's content and activities to help meet the demand for engineers in the job market in the years to come.

"Design Squad Nation," produced by WGBH, is a program for middle school children that includes television episodes on PBS, an interactive website and hands-on engineering activities.  The show is designed to increase kids' awareness and understanding of engineering.

On the program's site, kids can post real-life solutions to real-life problems and respond to challenges from the show by sketching and building their own prototypes. The site's blog features engineering and DIY content from across the Web.

Read more … http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/08/23/pbs-program-will-promote-engineering-to-middle-school-students.aspx

Design Squad site http://pbskids.org/designsquad/

Rockt21 site http://www.rocket21.com/  

 

 

iCivics, Prezi and Online Counties Work Game

Check out this great, web-based, game-based civics education project:

 

What is iCivics? http://www.icivics.org/

iCivics (formerly Our Courts) is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy. iCivics is the vision of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is concerned that students are not getting the information and tools they need for civic participation, and that civics teachers need better materials and support.

 

[Also … if you are not familiar with prezi as a presentation tool, then you might want to see its functions in action via the “What is iCivics?” prezi presentation at http://prezi.com/pfornjdkfizq/what-is-icivics/ Prezi is free and would be a great instructional tool.]

 

New on the iCivics site …

 

New Free Online Game Lets Students Run a County

§                                 By Dian Schaffhauser http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/08/11/new-free-online-game-lets-students-run-a-county.aspx

§                                 08/11/11

A free online game can help students learn the basics of being in county government. "Counties Work" was created by the National Association of Counties (NACo) and non-profit gamemaker iCivics. The game puts participant avatars through the paces of directing citizens to the right county department to deal with their specific requests or rejecting the requests outright, depending on budget availability and the relevance of the request. At the same time, they're busy setting tax rates and managing town growth--which comes with development expense and new tax revenues--and dealing with unexpected county emergencies. Every four years in game time the player has to meet or exceed a citizens' satisfaction ranking of 50 percent in order to be re-elected.

Intended for students in grades 6 through 12, Counties Work was designed to communicate the roles and functions of various county agencies by letting them run their own county. Students learn about the various services provided by county departments, such as road maintenance, law enforcement, courtroom and jail services, parks and recreation, and health and human services. A curriculum and Webquest has also been developed to assist teachers with preparing lessons on county government.

 

iCivics includes curriculum tools to help teachers prepare lessons about county governments.

"This is a great opportunity for students to better understand the programs and services that counties provide," said Tarrant County, TX Judge Glen Whitley, former NACo president who led development of the game under a "County Government Works" initiative during his term.

iCivics was initially the vision of former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was concerned that students don't get the information and tools they need for civic participation and that civics teachers need better materials and support.

"We are thrilled to partner with NACo to make the first video game about counties and teach students about the intricacies of local government," said iCivics co-founder Jeff Curley.

Counties Work can be played as a guest or registered user at icivics.org.

 

Back to School Apps for Teachers

Back to School Apps for Teachers by Vicki Windman (TL Advisor Blog)

Written by:
8/13/2011 9:29 AM 

It's time to get your iPad ready for school.  I suggest at least one grade, attendance, note taker and lesson plan app. 

Gradebook Pro $9.99 - allows you to grade and take attendance.  For high school teachers, it supports weighted and standard grade scales.

Gradepad $2.99 -  Assess a variety of behaviors and performances with GradePad rubrics that have criteria and scales. Manage groups of individuals and track their performance over time.

Essay Grader $5.99 - allows teachers to grade essays with three banks of prepared comments for a multitude of topics within the categories of praise, organization, content, mechanics, style, and documentation. All comments are editable, and Essay Grader comes with three empty banks where you can write original comments of your own.

Smart Seat $3.99 - create seating charts, record attendance, choose random students for class participation, make student notes, and store student photos all in one place. Update allows you to import photo of student.

k-12 Attendance  Free - Attendance application lets you enter your students' attendance and check for any missing attendance in the last ten days.

iPlanlessons  $9.99 - a concise planner that allows teachers to define lessons, set target dates,  prioritize and report to administrators.

Noteshelf $4.99 - An all note-taking app that allows you 17 different color pens, different kinds of notebooks and the ability to lock notebooks.  One place to write your student notes, department notes, and ideas without paper.

If you have more than one iPad in your class this is a great addition to the class:

Splashtop $9.99 - Splashtop Whiteboard allows teachers and students to turn their iPad into an interactive white board. Once connected to their computer over Wifi, they can watch Flash media with synchronized video and audio, control PC and Mac applications, and annotate lesson content from an iPad.  View the tutorial to see it in action.

Vicki Windman is a special education teacher at Clarkstown High School South. http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=2989

How to Load Photos onto the iPad

On Aug 16, 2011, "Anne Sawyer" wrote:

Frank,

What is the best way to transfer pictures from my home Mac to my iPad?

Anne

Frank Kampen wrote:

Several ways to try:

1. Sync with your home Mac 
2. Use DropBox on both devices and then save the photos to your iPad Photo Album 
3. Email them to your self as attached files and then save them to your iPad Photo Album ... Depends on how many you have to send
4. Use the iPad Photo Dock to transfer them from a flash memory card ... I have one you can borrow
5. There are some apps that let you access photo sharing sites from your iPad 
   

   
   

   Hope this helps  ... let me know what route you'd like to try!

   
   

   Sent from Frank's iPhone

   
   

   
   

   From: Anne Sawyer

   Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011

   
   
   

   Frank,

   
   

   I used Dropbox and saved them to iPad. it worked great and was very easy now that I know what I am doing.

   Anne

   Sent from my iPad

TechLearning Advisor Blog: Assessment Apps

TechLearning Advisor Blog: Assessment Apps by Vicki Windman

As administrators and educators, we need to find ways to assess staff and students. If you work with special-needs students, part of the process is documenting goals that are measureable. We now have apps that can assist us with tracking students' progress.

There are quite a few free observation and data apps but you must commit to their software to sync your data. Examples include: Ecove, Stride walkthrough, RANDA, Observation 360, OASYS.

IEP checklist Free - A great tool to have at your fingertips when you need to track IEP goals for your students. It allows you to input relevant data so you can keep track of your student’s goals. Additionally, it now allows you to record individual notes while tracking student progress.

Percentally $2.99- Many of the IEP goals are looking for percentage benchmarks for an assigned goal. This app allows you to customize the goal for each student and mark progress using percentage. You can export your information to Google Docs so you have a back up record.

GoDocs $4.99 - Allows you to sync with your Google Docs, even if you have more than one account. It also allows you to edit on the iPad.

K12 timed Reading $1.99 - Fluency app. It allows more than one student levels K-4^th grade. improving fluency allows readers to read smoothly and quickly so they can focus on comprehension rather than on decoding words.

Super Duper Data Tracker $1.99 - Organize your students into groups. Then enter your student’s names and their goals. Track incorrect and correct responses discreetly and efficiently.

Behavioral Tracker Pro 29.99 - Tracks behaviors and automatically graphs them. Supports unlimited number of children and observers!

Teacher Assistant Pro $3.99 - Keeps track of student actions, behavior, infractions, and achievements in the classroom.

SMART Response VE -  Will be available shortly. If you use the Smart Board, this tool will allow you gain immediate insight into student understanding.

PAR Assessment Toolkit Free - Provides assistance to psychologists, mental health workers, and anyone else who administers standardized assessments. The scoring modules allow for conversion from raw scores to T scores for our most popular assessments.

Google doc teacher evaluation template- Add this to your Go Docs as a template to evaluate teachers.

Vicki Windman is a special education teacher at Clarkstown High School South.

 

Education Week's Digital Directions: E-Portfolios Evolve Thanks to Web 2.0 Tools

E-Portfolios Evolve Thanks to Web 2.0 Tools
Web 2.0 and other technology tools are making it quicker and easier than
ever to create digital portfolios of student work, a method of
assessment experts say increases student engagement

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/06/15/03e-portfolio.h04.html?tkn=
LVOF%2FBKTSdYunosUlZmqAjiukUhCFnOkWNtc&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

Digital Kindergarten

FYI ... this blog by teacher Sue Holt may have ideas and reviews of interest to a wide range of teachers. Check it out.

Digital Kindergarten

Using technology in meaningful, developmentally appropriate ways to make learning come alive and differentiate instruction so that all students achieve. I hope this blog is helpful to anyone utilizing technology with children. If you have found it useful, I appreciate you letting me know so I know it's worth the time to keep updated.

http://digitalkindergarten.blogspot.com/

Frank Kampen

ScreenChomp - Whiteboard App

From the developer ...

Description

Share a great idea... Explain a tricky concept... Help kids with their homework...

ScreenChomp for iPad helps you do it all.

A simple doodling board, markers, and one-click sharing tools make spreading your ideas and know-how easy and fun! 

Just - Record It. Sketch It. Share It. - to create a sharable, replay-able video that tells your story clearly.

1. Touch RECORD to capture your touch interactions and audio instructions on a plain background, or an image from your iPad camera roll.

2. SKETCH out your ideas and talk the viewer through the "how" and "why" of it all.

3. Stop and SHARE your video snack to ScreenChomp.com to generate a simple web link you can paste anywhere - or - post it to Facebook with one-click!

Why share to ScreenChomp.com? Because…
… it serves up a short URL that's easy to share anywhere.
… you can download your video as an MPEG-4 file.
… there's a Twitter sharing button.
… there's no account to manage. Just post and go (perfect for schools and teachers)!

Users at every skill level can create bite-sized teaching morsels they can share online, again and again, with this delectable app. 

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screenchomp/id442415881?mt=8 

		Frank has recommended that you check out ScreenChomp:
		ScreenChomp TechSmith Corporation Education           37 Ratings

Math Tools: Math apps and lessons for the ipad

From: Ellen Hansen
Sent: Mon 8/1/2011 11:19 AM
To: Frank Kampen
Subject: FW: Math Tools: RE: Math apps and lessons for the ipad

Some good looking apps listed below. It's a two step process to itunes from these links. I should probably explore further to see if there's an easy way to find these. They may not all be ipad apps either.
Ellen

===========================================
A new Math Tools message has been posted to Math Tools.
It is available here:

http://mathforum.org/mathtools/discuss.html?do=r&msg=133577

A copy of the message appears below.

===========================================
Posted: Aug 1 2011
By: Suzanne
Subject: RE: Math apps and lessons for the ipad

Now that we have just added the Android, iPad, and iPhone categories to the "Technology Types" I'm working to catalog all of the apps that I've encountered recently. Your discussion post reminds me that I should do a little each day! Here's what I added this morning:

Tool: MathTappers: ClockMaster
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133560/

Tool: MathTappers: Find Sums
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133562/

Tool: MathTappers: Fraction Estimation
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133563/

Tool: MathTappers: Multiples
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133565/

Tool: MathTappers: Equivalents
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133567/

Tool: KENKEN: Train Your Brain Lite
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133568/

Tool: KENKEN: Train Your Brain
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133569/

Tool: TanZen HD Lite - iPad
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133570/

Tool: TanZen Lite
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133571/

Tool: TanZen
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133572/

Tool: Shmuzzles
http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/133576/

As you try these, perhaps, you could rate them? And as you use any in the classroom, perhaps, you could add comments and/or start a specific discussion for that app. I have a few more to add but this is a start!

Thanks,
Suzanne

Note Taking

From: Anne Sawyer
Sent: Fri 6/24/2011 8:39 AM
To: Ivy Patten; Frank Kampen
Subject: Note taking

Smart note, I think, is better than Note taker. Easier to use because you see writing in real time.

Sent from my iPad

Science App...

From: Frank Natale
Sent: Fri 7/1/2011 11:41 AM
To: Frank Kampen
Subject: Science App...

Hey, Franco!

The app I would like to purchase for the science team is called, " The Elements: A Visual Exploration" by Element Collection, Inc.

Cheers, and have a happy Fourth!

Frank

Note Taking HD App

From: Anne Sawyer
To: Frank Kampen
Subject: Note taking hd app

I found a note taking app that might work quite well as a portable white board that some of us are interested in. It does have a free version, but that one as some ads on it. I think the app is 4.99. I am going to play with the free version a little more. It has capabilities of adding photos from a file, things like number lines, and more. It allows the useful write with a finger and it is very clear. Anyway, something to look at.
Anne

Sent from my iPad (6/24/2011)

JiJi Math

Hi Frank,
I just discovered two apps of interest. The first is a free one from Successmaker called Speed Games by Pearson for grades 1-6. When my son wakes up, I'm going to have him try it. The other is a JiJi math game app from Mind Institute. It only offers basic levels for the Kickbox game and the paid version offers more levels of the same game. Perhaps the company will offer more options in the future.

I've installed another free app called Teacher Pal. It is an attendance and grade app. I'm thinking about using it for my Monday writing class. It is very easy to use, but it is very limited. Has anyone come across a free grading program?

Thank you and have a great day!
Marie

Sent from my iPad (June 2011)