WEB 2.0 TOOLS
Vocaroo: This is a website that is used to record sound bits that can be shared or saved for later use.
Grade 2 activity: According to the grade 2 curriculum students should be able to connect their own experiences and ideas by using various mediums such as oral , media and print. Something that can help with this objective is to help students with a single question or prompt such as “ favorite sport” or a poem about the beach and encourage them to record stories / poetry/ skits or songs about the prompt and accompany them with drawings that can be shared with the class.
Grade 3 activity:
An objective for Grade 3 language arts as described by the program of studies is to explain how students understand new concepts using their own words. An activity that would supplement this target is doing a science experiment concept with the class and then having students record a sound bit explain how they understood the scientific concept behind the experiment.
This tool can help students who struggle to put their thoughts down on paper by making concepts more accessible via talking. This can also help students who have anxiety about speaking up in class or presenting in front of others by giving them an opportunity to pre record their sound bit.
This site has no age limit and does not require users to signup plus it is free so it is perfect for accessibility to younger ages.
Kids zone NCES
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/classic/
The particular function I chose to focus on was the “Create a graph” part of the website where students can make their own graphs by plugging in their own data.
Grade 4 activity:
A specific outcome in the program of studies is for students to be able to represent information in tables or charts to solve problems. In a math setting this can be translated into an activity such as asking the class their favorite ice cream flavor and then once the data is collected each student can choose between pie charts or bar graphs to represent the data.
This can help students who need visual aid to understand concepts such as fraction by seeing that the blue section represents that 1/6th of the class prefers vanilla ice-cream. This can also help students who are visual and hands on learners by giving them a chance to create their own charts so they can learn math vocabulary and see patterns in math come to life.
There is no signup required and there is no minimum age for this tool.
Education.com
http://www.education.com/games/
I focused on the games section of this website it is a tool that provides education games, songs, quizzes and stories for kids ages 3-7.
Kindergarten activity: One of the curriculum objectives in kindergarten is to learn the alphabet and be able to print letters. This tool would help in this objective because it has games that involve several skills combined such as connecting dots, knowing numbers and knowing letters to make a cartoon character rap about a certain letter. There are also songs about the alphabet that the whole class can sing together while watching the video that goes along with it.
This would bring interactivity to something so simple as the alphabet and reach all different types of learners by singing connecting to auditory learners, videos and images connecting to visual learners , and hands on connecting the dots to help students who need to learn step by step how to learn letters. This tools gives many different options which can ensure that all students are getting the best learning opportunities possible.
This website has no signup and therefore no minimum age.