TIS and That Oct 30 2013 V2 I5

Natalie Barnette, Wood County

West Virginia Technology Integration Specialist Newsletter

Tis and that Jamie Johnson, Upshur County

25 best iPhone & iPad apps for kids Apps are being introduced to the market hourly, it seems.

Due to this some tech bloggers and tech magazines have begun introducing “apps of the month” as a way of keeping up with the latest releases. Recently, the website Apps Playground made a substantial list of the 25 Best Apps for Kids.

The most notable of the bunch was the much lauded reading app Learn with Homer. Learn with Homer explores reading with colorful characters, paired with many interactive features. One part of the app lets the student record themselves saying words, letters and sounds and having the character repeat it back to them.

Happy App-tober!

Another notable app featured on this powerhouse list is Henry Le Worm (4.99). This app for children lets them learn about food and nutrition through the eyes of a French worm and the voice of Simon Pegg.

Another interesting app on the list is Writing Wizard (2.99). Its target ages are K-3. It uses colorful animations to show what letters, words and numbers a student traces.

Follow all the QR codes for a demonstration of the apps via YouTube. For the full article on Apps Playground go to http://bit.ly/1fHLVPz

Volume 2, Issue 4

In this issue:

October 28, 2013

Special points of interest:

25 best iPhone & iPad apps for kids

1

App Advice from a Teacher

1

Using Technology for Your Health

2

What is 20% Time

2

Project-Based Learning

2

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

 October 3, 2013 National Poetry Day  October 14, 2013 Columbus Day  October 31, 2013 Halloween

App Advice from a Teacher By now the school year is in full swing and teachers are counting down the days until fall break.

As we shuffle through our paperwork, emails and technology, we question which apps and downloads are the best.

There are two methods useful to help you decide. First, why not

use something that has already been researched? Fortunately, the West Virginia State Department of Education has a webpage that includes tutorials on many programs available; each giving a brief overview.

One of the biggest blockades for

teachers is which one of the apps/programs was the best? It seems to take about a year of working with the programs or apps to figure out if indeed it is suitable for you and your classroom. Stop the insanity and choose one or two programs and incorporate it into your class.

TIS the season to read ghost stories…

Using Technology for Your Health November is Gluten-free Diet Awareness Month. Gluten is a substance that is commonly found in wheat and cereal grain and rye. Gluten can be ingested but also by cross contamination, eating foods that have been prepared on the same surface, fried in the same pan or stirred with foods that contain gluten. People who have a gluten sensitivity cannot tolerate gluten and may experience a multitude of symptoms ranging from excessive gas and bloating, gastro intestinal symptoms to muscle fatigue, headaches, and inability to think clearly. A proper diagnosis should be made by a physician, but if you feel that you may be exhibiting some symptoms you may try eliminating gluten in your diet. You can read labels and determine if they contain gluten. Attached is a link to a free android app that can scan & identify if gluten is in a product.

Project-Based Learning The recent "High Schools to Work" conference offered an eyeopening experience into ideal ways to flip the classroom. We as educators have heard many times of the 21st Century skills. As educators, we try to bring creativity to the classroom and engage our students to seek the knowledge. One way that we can do flipped classrooms is with virtual field trips, divide the class in teams and have them brainstorm pieces of reading material and provide two key points from each of the pieces of reading. Allow the students to present their key points to the class. This will help engage the classroom in discussion as well. Project and problem based scenarios are another way to flip your classroom.

One website that has a multitude of ideas for project based learning is http://www.bie.org/research. Here you will find a multitude of ideas for PBL.

If you are like many teachers you look forward to various holidays to change up the routine in your classroom. I myself enjoy the holidays because as an English teacher it gives me a break from grammar lessons and gives me a chance to turn down the lights and read ghost stories. iBooks offers a large selection of free books that teachers can share with their students. Whether you want to read Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell Tale Heart or Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow you can find these stories at no charge to you or your school district.

And for as many books that they had available for free, iBooks had just as many or more Halloween-themed titles for prices between .99 and 3.99. After a quick search through the iBooks library I found the following titles for free.

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Indian Ghost Stories Greek and Roman Ghost Stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The Works of Edgar Allen Poe – Volume 1 The Works of Edgar Allen Poe – Volume 2 The Best Ghost Stories

What is “20% Time”?

“This is the most important time to be in education. It is the most important time to care about education. It is the most important time to impact education.” – Al Juliani Have you ever wished that you had 20% percent of your work day to spend working on work related projects that had a specific and personal interest to you? Well, Google has. It actually invented the term, and now that concept is being used in the classroom. There is a movement in the United States among teachers to give 20% of their class time to students and let them work on a project of their choice within the confines of the common core standards. This allows the students to go beyond the surface and dig deeper on the subject of their choice. The argument that “20 Time” supporters use to make a case for it is that throughout a student’s primary and

secondary education they are being forced to learn to tests. However, with “20% Time” they are given the freedom to explore subjects that will personalize their education.

10 Reasons to Include 20 Time: 1. You will join a great community of learners 2. You will allow students to go into depth with a topic that inspires them 3. There is so much positive peer pressure 4. It relieves students of the “game of school” 5. It’s fun!

6. Your class will be covering all types of common core standards 7. It’s differentiation at its best 8. You learn by what you do, not by what you hear 9. It is a perfect way to model life-long learning 10. Your students will never forget what it felt like to create For more on “20 Time”

A New Reality …

Apps have changed our lives, there is no debating this statement. In the last few years a new kind of app has been born, and this group of apps is know as “Augmented Realty” apps. Although the idea behind them is not new, they are new to education and will change the way students learn forever.

Augmented reality is, according to HowStuffWorks.com, “Is a new technology that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer generated by enhancing what we see, hear and feel.” In other words it means the technology will augment or add-to the reality that we experience. We live life in 3-D but perhaps after the introduction of augmented reality apps we can experience it in 4-D. Technology entrepreneur, Gabriela Jagaru recently contributed an article to www.hongkiat.com about the “5 Top Augmented Reality Apps For Education”. The first on the list is Google Sky Map. This app allows you to point your device at the night sky and it identifies stars and constellations. Google Sky Map is not the only star gazing app available; with a quick search of the app store I found four additional apps similar to Google Sky Map with various pricing levels.

Next on the list is Fetch! Lunch Rush, which is an augmented app for math class. I will admit that the name does little to help you understand the app. It is designed to add 3-D manipulatives via your device to the a math problem you or your student is working on. This app is currently available for free.

The last three on the list are amazing and deserve more room than I can give them in this newsletter. They are GeoGoogle, which gives you realtime distance and altitude measurements for whatever objects lay in the direction you are pointing your device; ZooBurst, which allows you to create pop-up books from your stories. The final app listed is called Accrossair. Accrossair is an app with capabilities that are difficult to articulate but what I can say is that it can turn your class into an virtual and interactive classroom. The app lets you and your device interact with what it can pick up nearest to you. So the students can chat and give feedback on twitter because Acrossair senses the twitter users nearest to you. To find

out more about these apps go to bit.ly/GSs82B.

Time management Teachers are constantly on the go with students, lesson planning, and preparing class/course material.

Does that sound like you? Let us add in what we do at home?

Educators need to take care of ourselves as well. Start with eating a balanced diet, limit consumption of caffeine, exercise and avoid smoking. More importantly, take time for yourself.

Do one thing a day for you to de-stress, relax and just breathe. It may take you five minutes or even 20 minutes. YOU DESERVE IT!