TGIF Tech-April 29th

Posted on April 29, 2011 by jdungan

In case you have just come off a deserted island or emerged from a cave that did not have wifi, you might have heard about the Royal Wedding so I thought I would start with a couple ways to keep abreast of all that is the Royalty Wedding.

Download the Wedding Program into your iPhone (you will need to have the free iBooks application on your Apple mobile device)
All right onto tech stuff…
Teacher Showcase:
Here is a nice example of using the MACS for Math integration. In this lesson 5KC had students use the Huckleberry Mirrors (Image attached) that turn the iSight camera on the MacBook into a forward facing camera. Then using Photo Booth the kids recorded themselves solving different algorithms using mini white boards. This is a great way to have students reflect on their learning.
http://portal.saschina.org/video/media/25861/5KC_Integers/
Grade 1 Has been busy finishing up their drawings for the Shanghai Goes Wild Project. You can check those out below:
Ed Technology Stuff:
Concordia Apple Training Center is back May 14th!
Please use the link below to visit their site. This is a laid back Saturday of Tech PD at Concordia (Pudong). 100RMB gets you some great sessions led by Apple Distinguished Educators and lunch. You can’t beat this deal and I have heard very positive feedback from teachers that have attended.
iTunes U:
iTunes U has some great k-12 content on it. To access iTunes U, open up iTunes and on the left click on iTunes U. You can search for just about anything.
Here are a couple that have some great content:
Emergent Literacy from Florida Dept. of Education
This one is great to learn about registering for a google account, to Google Docs, to everything in between that Google has to offer-lots of short tutorial vids here to watch.
ES Technology Links: (From TekTok Blog)
In the spirit of Spring and with everything beginning to green I thought some links on plants would be fitting.
Here are some links for your classroom:
What is Pollination?
In order to thoroughly understand pollination, try these hands-on activities in your classroom. Students will hand pollinate plants, create their own flowers, sort flowers by the types of pollinators they require, and classify flowers.
Sprout a Seed
It’s spring – time to sprout some seeds! Students can learn a great deal about seed requirements for growth, as well as their anatomy, when they sprout some seeds in the classroom. Be sure to track progress daily, keep records, and compare results.
The Plant Life Cycle
Try this Brain Pop entry for an introduction to the life cycle of a plant, and then click on the second link for lesson ideas on the plant life cycle.
http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/plants/plantlifecycle/preview.weml
Link 2 – http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/plants/plantlifecycle/grownups.weml
Plant Cycle Review
Now that your students are familiar with the life cycle of a plant, try this printable student exercise for testing knowledge.
Have a great weekend here ever you are. I hope your weather is as nice as ours has been in Shanghai.
Posted in Educational Technology, J Dungan, Literacy skills, Podcasts, Technology integration, jeff dungan, professional development, teacher training | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shanghai Goes Wild

Posted on April 23, 2011 by jdungan

The Shanghai Goes Wild project is well underway with many classes starting to finish their drawings and starting to draw their partners drawings. This is always an exciting time for me with this project as you start to see the comparisons between the original artwork of the author and the rendition drawn by their partner only using the written description. I am always amazed at the number of pictures that get drawn with close resemblance. A great example of this is the 1 LF Class Page. These are first graders and some of the kids really nailed it.

One thing I am struggling to get going in this project is the communication between classes. I have given instructions on how to use the discussion tab and ideas for how to use it with teacher’s partner class but it doesn’t see to be taking off. If ou have any ideas how to improve this, please send them my way. Also, while the project is closed for 2011, spread the good word about Shanghai Goes Wild to your ES teachers for 2012.

Posted in Educational Technology, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, J Dungan, Technology integration, collaboration, jeff dungan | Leave a comment

TGIF Tech April 22nd

Posted on April 22, 2011 by jdungan

Here you go
Happy Friday all,

A couple sites for you to look at. But before we start a little humor. Here is a funny clip from Louie CK on Conan Obrien. It is called Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy. Sorry in advance for some of the profane language in the comments below the vid.

A couple of Professional Development links for you this week….

This one was passed on from Debbie Lane my way. It comes from Harvard. IT is called Nine Hot Web Tools for Students
One worth checking out for grades 3-5 in this article is Scratch. It is a programming language out of MIT and it is awesome. I just wrapped up my ASA using this and the kids were really into it. By the end of five classes I had one student who had almost finished programming a very simple video game of his own. He was a 4th grader.

Some people have asked me for recommendations of good ed. tech. blogs to read for new ideas. This is a good place to start for ES Tech.
http://www.ncs-tech.org/

Last but not least. For those of you returning next year. Learning 2.0 is back! This year SCIS Pudong will host the weekend conference. You can read more on their site:
http://www.learning2.asia/content/schedule

Here are 3 Good Literacy sites for use in your classroom From the TEkTOk Blog http://www.svusd.org/technology.html:
Book Adventure
Parents and teachers looking for ways of motivating youngsters to read will find Book Adventure a wonderful resource. Students can read books, take quizzes on them, and earn points for correct answers on the quizzes. Kids can redeem accumulated points for prizes. There is a database of quizzes on more than 3,000 popular children’s titles. Using Book Finder, readers can search the titles by author, title, grade level, or interests. Book Finder will then create a reading list that can be printed and used at the library. After reading a book, children go to Quiz-O-Matic to take the corresponding quiz. Quizzes have from five to ten questions, depending on grade level. Teachers or parents can register their children and select literature at the appropriate grade level. There is also a mechanism for keeping track of children’s scores and points earned. Teachers or parents can generate reports. Put this safe, child friendly site for improving reading comprehension at the top of your list.
http://www.Bookadventure.com/

Read, Write, Think
Literacy teachers will find a gold mine of information and a wide array of standards-based lesson plans that meaningfully integrate Internet content into the teaching and/or learning experience. Each lesson is research based, and includes a detailed instructional plan and such student materials as worksheets, interactives, and Web resources. The lessons make the connection between theory and classroom practice while providing assessments, correlations to national standards and interactive tools to assist students with a reading or writing activity. Lessons can be sorted by grade level (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) and by three areas of literacy practice: learning language, learning about language, learning through language. All recommended Web resources have been reviewed and selected by educators. The selection criteria are posted on the site.
Reading Rockets
The Reading Rockets project was funded by a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Designed to be a resource for parents, teachers, principals, and librarians, the site includes sections catered to each of these audiences. The site’s features include reading guides, parent guides, tips for teaching reading, book lists, author interviews, and much more.

Ever wanted to print a banner in Pages like you used to be able to do in MS Publisher? Attached is a template made in MS Word but you can open it in pages.
PagesBannerTemplate

MAC OS Tip of the week…
We all hate the spinning beach ball of Death especially when you are in the middle of a project but let’s face it, it happens. Use command + option + esc to bring up the Force Quit menu. Choose the application which is stuck and click on the Force Quit Button. This sure beats restarting the machine and you get to use the keyboard shortcuts which is always good for a few extra style points.

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TGIF Tech April 15th

Posted on April 15, 2011 by jdungan

TGIF everyone

Digital/Media Literacy:
I am about to kick off a Digital/Media Literacy Lesson with 5th grade so I thought I would include links to the resources we will be using. Hopefully you can get some use from them.

Here are 2 articles for Web site Evaluation written for educators. Take a look. There are other articles and resources linked to within the reading.
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/pdf/weval.pdf

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/pdf/07_01_cic.pdf

Here is an A3 printout for your classrooms with the 5 W’s of Website Evaluation and a website evaluation form (from K. Schrock).

Fact Monster:
For younger students who are not quite ready to navigate Refdesk, Fact Monster from Information Please is the tool to use. The Reference Desk on this site features a layout that is designed for easy fact-finding and includes timelines and an almanac, atlas, dictionary, and encyclopedia, as well as a Homework Center. Students can also search by visually identified topics or by typing in keywords. Check out fun features such as Biographies of the Presidents, the Geography Hall of Fame, and the Tallest Buildings Slideshow.
http://www.FactMonster.com/

Google:
Did you know you can sort your google searches by reading level? It’s true. Here’s how…(Screen Capture Attached Below)
Go to google.com->Click on Advanced Search->under the selection “Need More Tools?” use the drop down to select “show only basic results”. Enter your search query and there you go, Google for Kids. Some hits might still be above reading level, but this is far superior to letting kids go crazy on Google.

Locating Keywords:
Help kids locate keywords quickly in any web browser or document. Use Command + F and type in the keyword that you want to find. BOOM, there it is. Just like that. Great for ESOL’ers as well. Also works in PDF’s, Pages, and word.

Tech Showcase:
Third grade has been producing some family videos for their community unit. Kids made their own characters and then scripted their families stories. Photos were taken and imported into Keynote and then they narrated their photostory. Besides being a great use of technology integration, kids also learned how to upload media (pics) from an external device (camera). You would be surprised at how few kids new how to do this even though we often assume as digital natives (I hate this term) that they know how to do it all. They still need your help.

Here are a couple examples:
http://portal.saschina.org/video/media/24835/Timon_Family/

http://portal.saschina.org/video/media/25154/Vivika_Family/

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Reflections of a Newbie Apple Distinguished Educator

Posted on April 15, 2011 by jdungan

Just like Ted Cowan, Steve Katz, Madeleine Brookes, Jabiz Raisdana and Colin Gallagher I thought I would sum up my thoughts on the ADE Asia Institute 2011 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

I won’t lie. I was skeptical that the ADE conference was sure to be more of an Apple marketing conference than a educational transformation conference. I mean, could one of the larget corporate giants, and most recognizeable brands pull off a conference that wasn’t a sell-a-thon for their products? These were questions preimminent on my mind entering the first conferenc session on the first night of the conference. I was happy to say as the next 5 days unfolded, this skepticism never had a chance.

I am just back from the 2011 Class of the Apple Distinguished Educator Conference and I thought I would post some reflections about the experience before it becomes a distant memory. What startedFirst, let me start by saying this is the first tech conference that I have attended in along time that I did not walk away from feeling like it sucked. Much of the time as a tech facilitator, I go to tech conferences and leave very uninspired by what I see and hear in conference sessions. It is much of the same old stuff-how to blog, make a webpage, wikis-Did you know you can have multiple editors on one site, learn how to turn on a computer, email-the greatest thing ever, and so on. This was simply not the case at the ADE 2011 Conference. With the collection of some of the very finest educators in Asia all coming together to share ideas and collaborate on best uses of technology practice in education, the “same-old, same-old” just never seemed like a possibility. At one point it reminded me of a day of kitesurfing with friends where you push each other to go bigger and higher and try new tricks. The whole time hooting and hollering (and there was a lot of both) at each others successes and wipe-outs.

There were several standout moments to the ADE conference that really transformed the whole experience for me. The keynotes, ranging in topics, from presentation skills, to improv and acting, to branding an image for yourself, to photography and film making were all excellently done. Each of the presenters were great story tellers and it is another testament to the power of narrative that they we able to be so impactful. During the conference there were two group projects that we participated in and that led to the production of a learning artifact. The first, a light hearted tromp around greater Saigon, was a scavenger hunt of sorts. All the groups needed to find as many of the 50 items that were on a list that the ADE Advisory Board had preselected. We were given an iPod touch in which to document our progress and which to make an iMovie on the iPod touch. Editing in iMovie on a mobile device was new for most of us and did present its callenges as a collaborative editing tool. But, the point of the exercise-to get out and see some of Saigon that we might not be able to otherwise and to bond with someother ADE’s from other parts of Asia was a success. My group had a blast doing this and we produced a very nice film of our day that went on to take the 2nd place award.

The second project was the Saigon 360 project. In this one, we were free to pick whichever group we wanted and we were to select a topic that was relevant to something happening in Saigon that we could take back to our schools either as a unit idea or a possible spring board for other units or lessons. I had the pleasure of working with fellow collegue Patrick McMahon and Colin Gallagher (Colin has written a great post about our project HERE). What started out for my group as a redux of the Vietnam War classic, Apocalypse Now, ended out being more of a trip into The Heart of Darkness. Our team got sidetracked and had to regroup our efforts. If problem based learning was the objective, we emmerssed ourselves in it, no wait, we wallowed in it. For more than an hour we reshuffled everything, we questioned everything, and we redid…EVERYTHING. In the end, we produced a much more thought provoking short film about the films influence (Vietnam War movies to be more exact) on the perceptions of Vietnam. We interviewed people at the War Remnants Museum and then taking clips and stills from various Vietnam war movies were able to piece together a movie that did this topic justice. In the end, I think we were all grateful that we abandonedour original idea for something a littl emore meaty and meaningful. Thanks again, Jane Ross! The greatest reward was the conversation our piece generated afterwards. Needless to say, I think we kindo of surpised ourselves with what we had produced.

Is This Your Vietnam? from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.

In the end, what stood out most about this “technology conference” was how much the technology got out of the way. It was the personal connections, and the networking among people I didn’t know a week ago, but now consider peers. It was about pushing my comfort zone, going beyond it, and ultimately coming out a better educator for it. It was exploring new ideas and and hearing what other educators are doing in their schools. It is 3 days after the conferenc eended and I am still following the ADE Twitter Tag #ADE. One person tweeted the “what if we started a school with the 60 ADE educators that were at the conference…” Now this, this is an idea worth following.

Images:
Steve-http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2008/11/19/steve_koolaid2_2.jpg
ADE-homepage.mac.com

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TGIF Tech April 10th

Posted on April 10, 2011 by jdungan

I thought I would take a different tack this week and focus on tech items that are happening here in the ES or resources I have come across that have been shared by other teachers on campus. Other than Date Nights we don’t get the chance to share with other educators on campus to hear what they are doing with tech. If you have great projects you are working on, send them my way so I can share them with everyone. Remember, sharing is caring. ;)

This week I have included a couple attachments for you.
Included is a nice math integration idea using Comic Life (you can find this on your Dock). Kids in 3AH took pictures usin

Page_1g digital cameras around campus of fractions (don’t believe me-math is all around us, have a look), uploaded them and added them to comic life with descriptions of the fraction. Have a look and email your tech integrationist if you are interested in using Comic Life in your classroom. The kids love it and this is a creative way to get kids to reflect and explain math concepts learned in class. Click the Thumbnail for  larger version.

-5th Grade has been using Kerpoof which is a super fun, easy to use media creation website. They are using it for creative ways to report out on books that kids are reading durin gReading Olympics. Students love it for

LWW Kerpoofseveral reasons. One, the more you create, the more “Kerpoof money” you earn which they can spend in the online store to add more features for use in Kerpoof. Two, there is a social network side built into it and students can share their work with classmates and their teacher all from within Kerpoof. Three, kids get to be creative and create and in the process of making movies in Kerpoof, they also get to learn very basic computer programming skills. Attached is a poster a student made in Kerpoof from 5KC. Thanks 5th grade for providing choices for your students on ways they can report on books and allowing them creative expression in the classroom. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version.

Skype and making Global Connections:
Thanks to Hope Myers and Patrick McMahon who pointed out Skype’s new educational portal: “Skype in the Classroom – Meet new people, discover new cultures and connect with classes from around the world, all without leaving the classroom.” You can connect with your Skype account and create an online profile which takes about five minutes.

To get you jump started, here’s a list of 50 awesome ways to use Skype in the classroom; I personally like #41, where you can log on to ePals and find other teachers and classes around the globe using Skype.

iPhone VPN:
VPN’s are things that hide your IP address on your computer and allow you to get around Firewalls…like China’s. Our school uses them on our network and this is why you are able to access all the sites like Facebook and YouTube here on campus. The Tech staff is pretty amazing at keeping us connected and unblocked seeing as we are behind the great firewall.

But, what happens when you are outside of school and mobile and you want to access sites like FB and YouTube? Fear not, Amanda Decardy has found a nice, easy to install, VPN for your iPhone that is working…for now. It is called Express VPN and it will allow you to get around the Great Firewall on your iPhone. China will probably figure out a way to block this one too, so enjoy it while you can. The first 100mb of data are free and you can opt to buy more if you need it. Best part, it is free!

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TGIF Tech Returns April 1st

Posted on April 1, 2011 by jdungan

TGIF All,

I can’t speak for all of you, but my week has flown by. Best of all, we get back from one vacation and turn around and have another. Teaching is a fine profession indeed.

I thought I would pass a couple of sites and other assorted tech related things your way for your leisurely perusal. These sites were also posted on the Tek Tok Blog.

General:
**April Fools’ Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools’_Day

**Did you know SAS has its own iPhone App? It’s true, you can download it for your iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device here:
**Firefox 4 is out and available for downloads. In fact, it just set a record for most downloads in a day. You can read about it and download the new version if you would like here:
Language Arts:
**Giggle Poetry
Giggle Poetry, as the name suggest, approaches poetry with a sense of humor. Poems from Bruce Lansky and other poets are archived for students to enjoy reading or to use as examples. Included are fill-in-the-blank poems, poetry contests, favorite poems, school poems, and more. Teachers will love the easy-to-follow instructions for writing limericks, nursery rhymes, and list poems. These could be used as a supplement to the writing curriculum. The site also provides poems to read and rate whether they should be published. A special Poetry Teachers section includes information on how to teach students to write poetry, poetry that students can perform in class, and fun activities to involve students. This site is sure to put a smile on your face and a giggle in your heart.
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/

**Reading Remedies is for teachers (and especially parents) to use to diagnose potential reading difficulty and support beginning readers. There are quick assessments provided in six reading areas (rhyming, blending, segmenting, sight words, word attack, and fluency) and then followup activities for teaching each skill. The app has been featured in the New and Noteworthy education section of iTunes since it was released last Thursday.
iTunes Link -
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reading-remedies/id423213168?mt=8

Math:
**Decimal Place Value Pirates
Get ready for some rip-roaring adventure as your students conquer these pirates, using their knowledge of place value. The timer’s on, and students will have to correctly identify ones, hundredths, tens, tenths, etc. in order to move ahead.
**Escape from KNAB
Students find themselves on planet Knab in this online math game, where they must save points to buy their return tickets to Earth. Budgeting is a going concern with this game, great for some practical financial skills for seniors – and for high school students in general.
**Crypto Math
A famous quote awaits – but first you have to solve the cryptogram!
**Math Cats
Students of all ages will set their claws into this math site and spend many hours exploring math concepts in these activities. This is not your typical drill-and-practice math site; rather, it is one that encourages exploration and creativity and shows students that math can be fun. Activities cover everything from the simple concepts of addition and subtraction to the more complex concepts of probability, statistics, and geometry. Students can explore shapes and patterns in the art gallery, design spirographs, manipulate animations, send in their story problems for publication, and much more. The crafts section offers ideas and suggestions for students to explore geometry. Math Cats Love MicroWorlds is full of interactive explorations that will increase the student’s knowledge of such concepts as probability, symmetry, and polygons. The “4 Older Cats” (parents and teachers) section offers an idea bank of math activities submitted by teachers.
**Mathcasts
“Mathcasts are screencasts (screen movies) which are created and shared to improve the learning and teaching of mathematics.” Narration is combined with screen writing to demonstrate a variety of mathematical concepts. This site contains a collection of mathcasts that have been submitted by teachers, students, professionals, and children. Both teachers and students of grades four through twelve will find these useful in demonstrating and understanding mathematical concepts. Topics include everything from reading and writing whole numbers to calculus. Information on how these may be used in the classroom is available as well as information on how users can create their own mathcasts.

That should just about do it for this week. Happy Friday.

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Book Review-Mindset! by John Naisbitt

Posted on February 21, 2011 by jdungan

Below is my review of Naisbitt’s Mindset! It is a good book for someone just getting into trend analysis or dabbling in the world of futuring.

John Naisbitt’s Mindset! joins the ranks of other futuring “self help” books by authors such as Edward Cornish (Futuring: the Extreme Future, 2004), James Canton (The Extreme Future, 2006), and George Friedman (The Next 100 Years, 2009). Unlike Naisbitt’s last two well known books-Megatrends and Megatrends 2000, and his more recent, China’s Megatrends: The 8 Pillars Of A New Society. Mindset! shifts  from being a futuring and trend analysis book, to an instructional manual of sorts for predicting future trends Part one of the book focuses on Naisbitt’s 11 mindsets he has used in his trend predictions. Part two identifies 5 major trends he believes will shape the future and then describes which of his 11 mindsets are at work in reaching these conclusions.

Of special interest to me were the mindsets that focused on the reality of slow paced change and the conversion of problems into opportunities. This contradicts much of the business leadership literature available today that seem better suited for the “the world is coming to an end”, fear mongering, rhetoric section of your local bookseller’s shelves.  Regarding near term societal, technological, and geo-political change, I found Naisbitt’s counter to this refreshing, reassuring, and more realistic than other books in the same genre. I also enjoyed an agreed with part two, chapter three, on China. Being a resident of China, I found myself nodding in approval with the majority of Naisbitt’s assessment of China’s emerging role as a global economic powerhouse. One needs to look no further than recent headlines of China superseding Japan as the second largest economy in the world to see that Naisbitt’s credentials as a trend analyst are legitimate.

While Mindset! would make a great read for those in the business set, I do feel some of Naisbitt’s methodologies are not practical in other fields such as educational leadership where the scope of change is limited in terms of peripheral factors compared to those of business, technology, and politics. That said, any organizational leader, could easily take these 11 mindsets and apply them to their own unique situation. I enjoyed this book and I appreciated part two of the book where Naisbitt identified 5 major world trends but also allows the reader to see the mindsets considered in part one, in action. All, in all there is value within Naisbitt’s methodology and the pages of this book and I would recommend it as a great introduction into the area of trend analysis

Naisbitt, J. (2006), Mind Set! New York, New York, USA, Harper Collins

Posted in 21st century learning, Doctorate Program, jeff dungan | Leave a comment

Trend analysis-assingment #1

Posted on February 16, 2011 by jdungan

I have started my doctorate through Nova Southeastern University in a dual concentration program. My concentrations are Organizational Leadership and Instructional Technology and Distance Education. I am still trying to decide between the Organizational Leadership or a concentration in Educational Leadership but for now it seems like the Org. Leadership will be more flexible and suit me better if I decide to leave K-12 education. This doctorate program is something I have been considering for about 5-6 years now and there were a few reasons the time was right. First, my kids are getting older and easier to manage for me and my wife so I think I can balance it although this has me the most worried in terms of time balancing. Second, it couldn’t be easier. NSU wants to get a program started in Shanghai and with the help of the Shanghai Community International School they have been able to do just that. Third, the price is right. they offered a 40% discount for the members of this initial cohort. Put all three of these together and it was a no brainer. And, like that, it has begun.

Our first assignment in our first class Trends and Issues was to define trends and why trend analysis is worthwhile today. We then had to, using the comprehensive “trend map” of the future, developed by Richard Watson and Ross Dawson, identify one trend an research it. The conclusion of the paper was to make a prediction of our own based on the trend we identified. For this assignment I choose the topic of Telemedicine.

Here is my attempt at the assignment
Trend Analysis

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Story Telling and Basic Programming Skills

Posted on February 16, 2011 by jdungan

This week I have been making rounds to my 5th grade classes getting them ready for their reading olympics (RO). Part of the RO is that kids are given tons of options on how to report out on their books. That alone is a big selling point for me-giving students options on how they reflect on their reading. The second benefit is the multitude of technology reich options they have within the RO structure. In years past these have included making comic strips using comic life, reenacting parts of the book and making a short film, making a newspaper front page for the story, the list goes on and on.

One of the tools i show kids beside the normal iLife/iWork suite is the site, Kerpoof.com. There are a few reasons I like this site.

  • First, it allows me to set up student accounts under a teacher accounts (teacher accounts take 24-48 hours for validation from Kerpoof) cutting and pasting from a .CSV form making it quick an easy. Being that they validate teachers identities and emails keeps the site pretty safe although we still stress with our kids good online etiquette and keeping their identity hidden (usernames at our school follow a naming convention that wouldn’t mean much to anyone outside of school).
  • Second, Kerpoof is a one stop shop for kids where they can make a picture, a drawing, a movie, and ,ore all within one site. I really like the movie part of the site because the kids are also picking up basic computer programming skills when they make their movies. Users have to direct all the speech, motion, and effects of the characters in their movies by dragging these attributes on to a timeline. This is a great introduction to very simple, user friendly, computer programming and is a great lead in tool for other programming sites like Scratch
  • 3rd there is a gaming and social networking aspect to the site that is really easy to use, keeps students motivated to create more works and allows them to share with other members of the class or the general Kerpoof public with a click of the mouse. As student s create in Kerpoof they are awarded coins and they can use these to buy more functionality within Kerpoof (tweaking your avatar, buying more scenes and backdrops, etc.). The social Networking aspect is an easy safe way to get kids started in this kind of connected environment. Kids can chat and email right within Kerpoof and better yet they can send all their work directly to their teachers from right within Kerpoof-no exporting necessary.

If your classes are doing Reading Olympics, I would love to hear from you about the structure of your program and what the students are reading and producing.

Posted in 21st century learning, Educational Technology, Grade 5, Literacy skills, collaboration, community, jeff dungan | 1 Comment