Tagged With: apps
39 Resources for Read Across America Day
Many people in the United States, particularly students, parents and teachers, join forces on Read Across America Day, annually held on March 2. This nationwide observance coincides with the birthday of Dr. Seuss.
Here are some great reading websites for students K-5:
- Aesop Fables—no ads
- Aesop’s Fables
- Audio stories
- Childhood Stories
- Classic Fairy Tales
- Fairy Tales and Fables
- Listen/read–Free non-fic audio books
- Starfall
- Stories read by actors
- Stories to read for youngsters
- Stories to read–II
- Stories—MeeGenius—read/to me
- Stories—non-text
- Story Scramble
- Ziggity Zoom Stories (more…)
Top 10 Websites and Apps of 2017
Throughout the year, I post websites and apps the Ask a Tech Teacher crew’s classes found useful, instructive, helpful in integrating technology into classroom lesson plans. Some, you agreed with us about; others not so much. Here, I’ll share which sites you-all thought were the most helpful in efforts to weave tech into the classroom experience. Between these, they had over 240,000 visitors during the year. See if you agree:
- 12 Websites to Teach Mouse Skills
- 16 Great Research Websites for Kids
- 10 Tech Tools for Your Math Class
- 67 K-8 Hour of Code Suggestions–by Grade Level
- 6 Ways to Make Classroom Typing Fun
- 16 Websites on Natural Disasters
- 9 Best-in-Class Digital Storytelling Tools
- 84 Math Websites for K-8
- Hour of Code Suggestions by Grade Level
- 13 Ways to Use Canva in Your Classroom
Have a wonderful 2018!
Top 10 Websites and Apps of 2016
Every week, I post a website(s) or app(s) that my classes found useful, instructive, helpful in integrating technology into classroom lesson plans. Some, you agreed with me about; others not so much. Here, I’ll share which sites you-all thought were the most helpful in efforts to weave tech into the classroom experience. Between these twenty, they had over 240,000 visitors during the year. See if you agree:
Websites
- 12 Websites to Teach Mouse Skills
- 67 K-8 Hour of Code Suggestions–by Grade Level
- Hour of Code Suggestions by Grade Level
- 16 Great Research Websites for Kids
- 84 Math Websites for K-8
- KidzType–the Keyboard Practice Site You’ve Been Waiting For
- 31 Websites for Poetry Month
- 15 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms
- 5 Programs That Make Digital Note-taking Easy
- 14 Websites That Will Excite Students About Tech
52 Resources for Read Across America Day
Many people in the United States, particularly students, parents and teachers, join forces on Read Across America Day, annually held on March 2. This nationwide observance coincides with the birthday of Dr Seuss.
Here are some great reading websites for students K-5:
- Aesop Fables—no ads
- Aesop’s Fables
- Audio stories
- Childhood Stories
- Classic Fairy Tales
- Fairy Tales and Fables
- Interactive storybook collection
- Listen/read–Free non-fic audio books
- Magic Keys–stories for youngers
- Mighty Book
- PBS Stories–Between the Lions
- Signed stories
- Starfall
- Stories read by actors
- Stories to read for youngsters
- Stories to read from PBS kids
- Stories to read–II
- Stories—MeeGenius—read/to me
- Stories—non-text
- Story Scramble
- Storytime for me
- Teach your monster to read (free)
- Ziggity Zoom Stories
Top Ten Websites and Apps of 2015
Every week, I post a website(s) or app(s) that my classes found useful, instructive, helpful in integrating technology into classroom lesson plans. Some, you agreed with me about; others not so much. Here, I’ll share with you which sites you-all thought were the most helpful in efforts to weave tech into the classroom experience. Between these twenty, they had over 200,000 visitors during the year. See if you agree:
Websites
- Hour of Code Suggestions by Grade Level
- 21 Holiday Websites For Your Students
- 20 Great Research Websites for Kids
- 84 Math Websites for K-8
- ProdigyGame.com
- Teach Financial Literacy with Banzai
- Resource Review: Mentoring Minds
- Website Review: Grammarly
- Need to Create Lesson Plans? Try Frolyc
- 8 Tech Tools to Get to Know Your Students for Back to School
3 Apps That Encourage Students to Read
Reading is defined as “the action or skill of absorbing written or printed matter silently or aloud.” Sounds dry, maybe even boring, but once a child learns to read, they get much more than an understanding of words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. It has been credited with providing an escape from reality, exercising the mind, saving lives, bringing people together, answering problems, and predicting success in school. It alleviates boredom in the bits of free time that pop up between soccer and dinner and it can be done alone or in a group.
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends…”
― Charles William Eliot
According to Early Moments, reading is associated with the following traits:
5 Favorite Classroom Apps
Apps are out of control. When you think you have just the right one for your classroom, a better/faster/snazzier version pops up. Often for free. It’s not like a decade ago when every teachers’ favorite tech tools were MS Office, KidPix, Reader Rabbit, and the internet. Apps changed all that. Suddenly, the list exploded to include names like Voki, Tellagami, Wordle, ScreenChomp, Evernote and scores more that are weekly pushed aside by a new generation.
So before I unfold my favorites, here are guidelines to what I expected, culled from top education sites like Edutopia, Google Education, Educational Technology, and EdWeek:
- free or small fee
- support the ‘4 C’s’–creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration
- offer compelling content (although this is subjective; ‘compelling’ varies teacher-to-teacher and student-to-student)
- are not distracting or overwhelming in colors, music, or activity
- offer levels that become increasingly more difficult, providing differentiation for student needs
- stand the test of time
- positive parent reports
- few ads–and those that are there do not take up a significant portion of the screen
- intuitive to use with a short learning curve, encourage independence
- easily applied to a variety of educational environments
- doesn’t collect personal information other than user credentials or data required to operate the app
- rated ‘for everyone’ or ‘low maturity’
- no in-app purchases or billing
Based on these criteria, here are my top five:
TurboScan–Great Class Management Tool
TurboScan
Scanning app
$2.99
A teacher friend is already stressed–and the year is only half over. Her school is putting together digital portfolios for every student which will include representative work monthly in each subject. That means posters, math papers, art projects, tests, summatives must be scanned into the server and filed in each student’s digital portfolio. Not so bad if there are enough scanners and computers to get it done. Which there aren’t. My friend has to wait in line, squeeze this work into breaks, or stay late or come early to try to get her portion of the work done.
One $2.99 iPad/iPHone/Android app would take care of the problem. It’s called TurboScan. Using the iPad (or Smartphone) camera, you take one-three pictures of a single- or multi-page document, tweak it so it’s the way you want it, email it to wherever you need it or save it to the camera roll and transfer it that way. Instead of hours, she’d be done in minutes.
Read Across America Day
Many people in the United States, particularly students, parents and teachers, join forces on Read Across America Day, annually held on March 2. This nationwide observance coincides with the birthday of Dr Seuss.
Here are some great reading websites for students K-5:
- Aesop Fables—no ads
- Aesop’s Fables
- Audio stories
- Childhood Stories
- Classic Fairy Tales
- Edutainment games and stories
- Fables—Aesop—nicely done
- Fairy Tales and Fables
- Interactive storybook collection
- Listen/read–Free non-fic audio books
- Magic Keys–stories for youngers
- Mighty Book
- Open Library
- PBS Stories–Between the Lions
- RAZ Kids–wide variety of reading levels, age groups, with teacher dashboards
- Signed stories
- Starfall
- Stories read by actors
- Stories to read
- Stories to read for youngsters
- Stories to read from PBS kids
- Stories to read–II
- Stories to read—International Library
- Stories—MeeGenius—read/to me
- Stories—non-text
- Story Scramble
- Story time–visual
- Storytime for me
- Teach your monster to read (free)
- Tumblebooks (fee)
- Ziggity Zoom Stories
3 Classroom Management Apps You’ll Love
You became a teacher to inspire the next generation, to guide students toward their future with patience and wisdom, to be able to go home at the end of the day having accomplished something important. You figured a typical day would include predominantly teaching with the addition of planning lessons, remediating those who were struggling, and differentiating for those who needed a different approach. You’d happily miss lunch to help a child or a colleague.
What you didn’t realize was how much of your time would be spent managing the classroom. That includes tasks like arranging seats, quieting the noisy and energizing the shy, fairly and objectively choosing teams and partners, insuring resources are equally available, filing papers, making time to catch up students who missed a quiz or got sick during it or just couldn’t get to school that day. It didn’t take long to realize these tasks are just as important as how you teach, your depth of knowledge on a subject, your ability to unveil information in multiple ways, and how you scaffold and spiral. At the end of the day, these as a group are a barometer of your ‘teacher effectiveness’. In fact, how well you manage your class decides whether students trust you enough to listen to what you teach.
Hello there! We are a group of tech ed teachers who work together to offer you tech tips, advice, pedagogic discussion, lesson plans, and anything else we can think of to help you integrate tech into your classroom.
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