Virtual Oilwell

Thanks to a recent issue of Technology & Learning, I read about the American Geological Institutes's Web site. On it, I discovered a fascinating game. I can't really decide if it's incredible useful, right-wing brainwashing technique or both. Ha! It's called Virtual Oilwell. This interactive role-playing game casts the students in the role of a land-owning Louisianan (is that a word?) who wants to drill for oil. They must learn about geology, consultants, fossil fuels, etc. in order to do so. A description of the game:

"This online strategy game has the player as a prospector trying to find oil, working off a limited budget. The player collects and interprets seismic data to search for oil traps. They are required to file environmental impact statements before drilling and use drill logs to determine when to start pumping. The player has access to a library, with several pages on how oil is trapped and how to find the traps using seismic data."

I could see how it would be useful for Geology classes. I have forwarded it to my science teachers in the middle school but no takers so far.

PBS Learning Media

Every now and then, you find a glimmer of pure gold in the rush of information streaming past you. Today was one of those days. I found out about PBS's new product, Learning Media. Why do I like it? It offers primary resources, like these actual images of the Amendments to the Constitution. It also offers interactives and games for students like Alpha Pig's Alpha Bricks for Kindergarteners and Preschoolers. You can refine your search by grade level, then by subject area, and then even further by indicating that you want only interactives (thank you!) or only videos. Yes!!

From their site:

PBS LearningMedia, a next-generation digital media service, empowers PreK–16 educators to re-imagine classroom learning, transform teaching, and creatively engage students. It brings together the best of public media, produced specifically for educators, from PBS, WGBH, and over 55 public media partners. High-quality content tied to Common Core and national curriculum standards is freely available to all educators as a basic service. The basic service offers:

• Unique access to best-in-class resources from PBS producers and partners tied to Common Core and national curriculum standards
• A robust content library of thousands of digital core curriculum resources, designed with today's student in mind
• Carefully created, purpose-built media: videos, interactives, audios, lesson plans, multimedia, professional development, and more
• Ability for educators to search, save, share, and review content
• A flexible, high-speed platform supported by cutting-edge technology

Ipad Apps

As I think I have stated before, my school is moving towards implementing ipads in the K-2 hallway. That means I get to start exploring possible apps. This list from Tech and Learning is a great resource if you're looking for them. The comments also provide more resources. Thanks to Vicki Windman. I'm digging down now...

image credit: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=5778933&searchId=09401fded433c34709fd1f1872728162&npos=2

New Projects: Busy as Little Bees

What am I doing? Busy as a bee. I thought I'd just share some recent projects and tools we are using:

Preschool: We visit PBSkids Games section. Not exactly ground breaking, I know.

Kindergarten: They just started learning about patterns so we visit the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and complete their various patterning activities.

First Grade: They're learning about money/making change/selling items so we use Jump Start First Grade, The Money Challenge and The Lemonade Stand to reinforce those skills.

Second Grade: We just finished a several week unit using Scratch programming to create animations of the bean plant life cycle. Here is an example of one. Now, we are beginning Martin Luther King Jr timelines using Timeline Maker or SumoPaint (the kids choose).

Third Grade: They just finished a Microsoft Word unit (not terribly exciting) and are now beginning keyboarding. We use Type to Learn 3 and some old school keyboarding drills as well. I even have a very old word processor I show them and give them a chance to try out!

Fourth Grade: They just finished a copyright unit that I designed and described here. Now they are starting a keyboarding unit of practice.

Fifth Grade: These students just created blogs for the book Kokopelli's Flute. Each student chose a character from the book and composed one blog post per chapter as if they were keeping a journal. They were graded on creativity (did they use a song or poem instead of just text?) and communication skill. They were also graded on their commenting skills with other kids...they had to comment on at least 10 other blogs. We used Kidblog. They're set to private at this point. So we can't share here.  Now they are using Masher to create short travel videos for South Africa. It's our very first time using this tool and I'm nervous. Our tools in this year have not always gone well (Glogster shut down mid project, MyFakewall functioned horribly, Nota had glitches). Kidblog was awesome so I'm hoping for another score.

Little Bird Tale

This year, our first graders used Little Bird Tales to make digital e-books on the Wampanoag Indians. They learned about these Native Americans in their class and they reported on their studied by using this free drawing, writing and recording tool. Here is one particularly hilarious report...make sure your audio is turned on.

• Click to view my tale.
• 

Copyright Video--Pretty Accessible and funny too

Nota

My fifth graders voted this the very best digital poster in their class. We made these Nota-pages using Notaland. Each student highlighted what they viewed as important moments in technological history. Pong was one! My only complaint about Nota is that they are not easy to print and "sharing" does not always work correctly. I think there are problems with the flash updates related to the software.