Thursday, March 22, 2012

Another Money App for the Classroom



Lil' Kitten Shopping Cart Game 


This app requires students be able to read on their own to some extent.  Student must help Lil- Kitten choose items from a shopping list that Mama Cat gives to Lil' Kitten.  Of course there is a budget and Lil' Kitten's goal is to stay as far below the budget as possible in order to have the most possible money left over.  With saved money the Lil' Kitten then gets to choose a toy from the toy store.

This app could be made into a center, as the game is set up already for good money practice.  This could extend into using it to write their own story problems for others to solve using scenarios in the game.
Here is a youtube demo of the game:



Notice that there are more than one brand and price for the items on the list!  This requires the students to do some thinking and looking before choosing what to put in their cart.  This could extend into upper elementary and middle school levels by sparking a discussion on brands, pricing, and finding the best deals in stores!













Tuesday, March 20, 2012

An iPad Microscope?

What I like about the iPad or iPod Touch, is that the technology has so many options.  With the camera, one can convert the iPad into a small microscopic digital camera, for materials that total less than a ten dollar bill. Disclaimer, your iPad or iPod touch needs to be beyond 1st generation with a camera.  Check it out on this video from Hall Davidson.



Monday, March 19, 2012

iDevice Cadre March 19th - Ontario

Cadre Starts promptly at 4:00.
Please Sign In Here


  1. Welcome
  2. Preparing your iPad for projects
  3. Library of PDF files 
  4. App Sharing
    • Think of one app, or a tip, or interesting how to you want to share regarding the iPad with others in the cadre.
  5. Rotate and Collaborate
  6. Share Out
  7. Other Resource for Epubs/Ebooks
  8. Next Cadre: ? Volunteers ?

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Recap of App Share Out from March 14th

During our app share out yesterday a lot of great apps were mentioned!  

Some great free ones of note:

         

               Itunes Link: Qwiki 
Explore topics visually.... 
a great app in a one iPad classroom for things such as listening practice, building background knowledge of a subject, and doing fact gathering.  There is also the Qwiki website:  http://www.qwiki.com/  




Some great elementary math apps were shared as well.

Itunes Link:   Ihave 

I Have Who Has 
Math game for more than one player, this would be a 
great game for a math center with 4 students with levels from Easy to Extreme.  Though it may look it, this is not purely an elementary math game.  With negative numbers as well, this can easily reach into middle school grades.  

Itunes Link:  Sticker Shop

Students can always use money practice!
This fun app allows students to choose a sticker and then must use the money to give the correct amount.
Very simple concept, great practice with money! 
You could extend this by giving the students story problems such as: 
 If you were to purchase the tomato and the giraffe, how much money would you need all together?  


The last app I'll talk about today is a paid app, but having been an elementary teacher, and seeing this app used by students in a 1st grade classroom, I feel that it is well worth it! 

 Itunes Link:  Fluency - Michael Tillyer


Many of you have asked about this app, and like I said, having seen it used, it's worth the money.  It uses dropbox in conjunction with the itouch or iPad to record your own passages for fluency assessing or checks.  The key is, YOUR passages.  
From the itunes store preview page:

Description

Teachers and parents help your children become better and more confident readers.
** Children use the power of self correction to improve their own reading skills.
** Add any genre or reading level to Fluency for your children to read.
** Students can zoom in or out of text for their reading comfort.
** Students can very easily submit their best reading to their teacher.
** Excellent for Second Language learners, speech and resource students.
Fluency uses Drop Box to display reading scripts. Children can then record their reading and listen to it record it again or easily send their recording to their teacher.




Tuesday, March 13, 2012

iDevice Cadre Agenda March 14th, 2012

Cadre Starts promptly at 4:00.
Please Sign In Here


  1. Welcome
  2. Preparing your iPad for projects
  3. Library of PDF files 
  4. Table Time
    • Think of one app, or a tip, or interesting how to you want to share regarding the iPad with others in the cadre.
  5. Rotate and Collaborate
  6. Share Out
  7. Other Resource for Epubs/Ebooks
  8. Next Cadre:
    • April 9 - Monday - This is a change from before! 
    • May 9

    The 1 iPad Classroom

    This is a link to a post on TechChef4u interviewing a 2nd grade teacher on how she uses one iPad in a classroom.  There are examples for lessons, a great podcast, and links to more iPad lesson resources.

    Understand this is with an iPad1 and this teacher was handed the iPad at the end of the school year last year, having never touched an idevice before!

    Some very simple, easy ways to make the iPad a tool in your classroom.    

    Wednesday, March 7, 2012

    COSN 2012 presentation

    Download the COSN 2012 Presentation here

    New iPad and some Free Apps!

    Apple just announced it's new iPad - seriously - it's called the New iPad.  Increased resolution, better camera, HD video recording, retina display, 4G.... I could go on.


    Price point the same as the previous version with 16GB wifi starting at $499.  I could see some pretty nice benefits in the classroom with an increase in the photo abilities - that's always been my biggest complaint about my iPad2.  Word is the cost of the iPad2 will drop by $100.  You can get more info here: Mashable Live Event Blog.

    Also announced:  iPhoto for the iPad  Released today for $4.99

    More Importantly- Utah Coalition for Education has their list of free apps for the day.  This is a good blog to bookmark and check in on from time to time!

    One of the free listed today is:

    U.S. Presidents! - JWVincent  US Presidents App - reference guide - great for 5th grade social studies.

    Monday, March 5, 2012

    Looking for some Digital Storybooks for Elementary?

    Here is a list of 20+ free digital storybooks!  There are some great titles; Miss Spider's Tea Party, Jack and the Beanstalk (my son's favorite!), and Toy Story.