Monday, 12 August 2013

BrainRush

BrainRush is an excellent new site that I just found out about from Larry Ferlazzo's blog.  BR is a fantastic site for students to create and learn through flashcard style games.  Also, these games utilize a "adaptive practice technology" which is ideal for Differentiated Instruction as it tailors learning to each individual student needs.

I highly recommend checking out BrainRush by clicking here!!!

Thursday, 8 August 2013

ClassDojo Class Sharing

ClassDojo the popular "web 2.0" site for managing classroom behavior has just released a highly anticipated update, 'class sharing'.  This update allows for teachers to share feedback w/ other teachers about students behavior.

More from their press release, "With this newest feature, several teachers in one school can now collaborate around a class of students to deliver consistent experiences that emphasize building positive behaviors and character strengths like like participation, hard work, persistence, curiosity, risk-taking, and helping others. Teachers can now let other teachers provide feedback to their students by giving them ‘full access’ to the class; alternatively they can provide each other ‘view only’ access if they just want to share progress reports."

I highly recommend checking out ClassDojo by clicking here!!

Tabtor

Tabtor is an excellent iPad app/program that is ideal for helping educators teach and students learn Math.  This is done through a very easy to use iPad interface that allows students to solve equations by actually writing on the iPad.  What makes Tabtor "work" is that it allows students to view video tutorials before or after a problem to help them learn the "topic".  This is a great way for a teacher to "flip their classroom" and ideal for "differentiated instruction" in that it allows students to learn at their own pace as well as let teachers access student data and adjust their learning to meet their needs.  Another great advantage is that Tabtor uses a variety of teaching styles that helps learners of all different kinds such as wether they are a visual, auditory, or kinetic learner.

I highly recommend checking out Tabtor by clicking here!!!

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

10 Sites for Differentiated Instruction

"Differentiated instruction and assessment (also known as differentiated learning or, in education, simply, differentiation) is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing students with different avenues to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and to developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability." Wikipedia  Differentiation, the ability for teachers to meet the needs of a variety of learners, is a key component for successful teaching.  While there are lots of ways this can be done and lots of tools that educators can use to accomplish this, there are many sites that can help facilitate the process.

*This list is in alphabetical order

10 Sites for Differentiated Instruction

  1. BrainNook - A wonderful site/apps for Math and Language Arts that generates detailed common-core aligned reports allowing educators to set assignments targeting students weak areas  or areas for improvement.
  2. Clever Island - A fantastic site that covers a wide range of subjects: Math, Reading, Science, etc. Also, CI is geared for students to learn at their own pace as well adapt to children's different learning styles.
  3. Gummii - An innovative site (private alpha)/app for different areas of Math (fractions, addition, subtraction).  Gummi immerses students into a educational 3D world (similar to Minecraft) where they solve mathematical equations tailored to differentiated instruction.
  4. Infuse Learning - A terrific site/app that enables educators to create an educational environment tailored to meet the different needs of their students.  Also, IL has seamless integration w/ BYOD and mobile learning.
  5. IXL - One of the most popular sites around for Math that allows for student tracking w/ detailed reporting.  Also, w/ the ability to track student "trouble" areas a teacher can adjust their teaching (differentiation) to help meet the needs of their students.
  6. No Red Ink - One of my favorite sites for helping students w/ Grammar and Writing skills.  NRI uses differentiated instruction to help students w/ problem areas and adjust accordingly.  Also, teachers can track students and generate detailed reports.
  7. Power My Learning - A great way for educators to differentiate instruction by customizing the learning experience for students using Power My Learning.
  8. TenMarks - A common core aligned program for Math (grades 1st-10th) that uses differentiated instruction to help students learn.
  9. ZooWhiz - A fantastic site aligned to educational curriculums in a wide variety of subjects (Math, Grammar, Vocab, etc.).  ZW offers details progress reports that helps assess students learning needs.
  10. Zondle - A great site that interacts w/ Edmodo where educators can create educational games for individual or whole-class learning.

19 Pencils

19 Pencils is a site that has appeared on this blog a number of times, but over the last few months has recently undergone a site construction w/ some excellent educational tools.  For anyone who is not familiar w/ 19 Pencils, this is a great site for curating the web into a safe environment/web page for students.  Also, I like to use 19 Pencils as a "educational" search engine where I know I can find educational content w/out having to worry about inappropriate sites popping up.  Recently, 19 Pencils added some nice features such as the ability create quizzes (short answer or multiple choice) and the ability to create puzzle-type games such as  crosswords and word searches.

I highly recommend checking out 19 Pencils by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Web 2.0 click here.
For my Edshelf collection on Web 2.0 click here.

Monday, 5 August 2013

Smart Kit

Smart Kit is a nice site for finding safe educational games and puzzles.  These games focus on such subjects as: Math, Logic, Physics, and more.

I recommend checking out Smart Kit by clicking here!!!

Thanks to Richard Byrne's blog for the tip!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational Online Games click here.
For my Edshelf collection on Educational Online Games click here.

Sunday, 4 August 2013

Cram

Cram is a nice site that I just found out about from Free Technology 4 Teachers for making flashcards.  This is a site where teachers can browse through a wide variety of flashcards on any number of subjects as well as create their own.  Also, this is a nice place to find a list of nice mobile apps for creating flashcards.

I highly recommend checking out Cram by clicking here!!