Blog #5-Web 2.0 Tools-Ripped Apart: A Civil War Mystery

Picture courtesy of the National Museum of American History

Apps for teachers and teacher librarians are quite plentiful these days, but I still struggle to find things to support social studies and science curriculum for my elementary students.  I was thrilled to find a great app for social studies on AASL's Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2015 list!  The Smithsonian Institution has developed Ripped Apart: A Civil War Mystery, available for free in the app store.

 

This innovative product uses an inquiry-based approach to teach students about the Civil War.  Users participate as an intern in the National Museum of American History and must solve puzzles to unlock clues and make notes in a journal as they work to solve the mystery.  Did I mention that the app incorporates primary source documents?  With an amazing collection of historical photographs, the app brings a portion of the museum right into the classroom.  The creators shared a webinar to explain the reasoning behind the app as well as insight into its use.

 I downloaded the app and played around with it.  Puzzles and clues and even a creepy basement, oh my!  It was incredibly easy to navigate and totally engaging. Who doesn't love a good mystery?  Plus the bonus of learning content from curriculum standards make the one a real winner.   I would recommend it for upper elementary and middle school students as the content and reading level is more appropriate for those levels.  This best app of 2015 will be a hit with your students and teachers.

Post #4-BlogShare-Free Technology for Teachers

For those of you who love a good blog and are interested in the latest technology, I have a great one to share today.  Free Technology for Teachers (www.freetech4teachers.com) is an award winning blog written by Richard Byrne whose purpose is to "share information about free technology teachers can use in their classrooms."  I discovered it last summer as I was looking for ways to use iPads in my classroom.  Now that I subscribe to his blog, I receive updates on all of his posts.  Here is where I came across a tip on a favorite app of mine-Kahoot!

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that allows teachers to create quiz questions for students to answer on their devices.  Points are awarded for answering quickly and correctly.  Believe me, students are completely engaged and excited to play this game.  I prefer to use it with teams of students so that they can work cooperatively to answer questions.  The only drawback is that it can take time to create quizzes.  Using others' quizzes is hit or miss, as they may not exactly meet your needs.  Free Technology for Teachers shared this amazing tip...you can duplicate and edit public quizzes!  What a time saver!  Here is a video Richard shared to explain the process:
I used these instructions to locate, duplicate, and edit a public quiz on Harriet Tubman.  Within in five minutes, I went through the quiz, deleted a question, added a question, and changed a question.  It was saved and ready to play within in five minutes...wow!  I am excited about this option to edit already made quizzes because I think it makes Kahoot even more useful to busy teachers and librarians.  And now I have a quick, fun quiz to review with my classes this week...not bad for five minutes, huh?  I hope you get a chance to check out freetech4teachers as well as Kahoot.

Post #3...Web 2.0 Tool-Smore

This week I am sharing Smore, a great Web 2.0 tool that I was introduced to at our monthly district school librarians meeting.  This easy-to-use service allows users to create online flyers that can be quite dynamic.  Our chairman uses it to create eye-catching agendas for our meetings.  When I say eye-catching, I mean cute, pretty, neat, organized.  We were all immediately asking...how did you do that?  Students and parents would definitely be attracted to the information you wanted to share.  Below is a brief video overview of Smore.  Notice how quickly a project can come together and how easy it is to modify.

A Cupcake Story from Smore on Vimeo.

Although registration is required, many basic features are offered for free!  The free service allows you to create and save flyers as well as a shareable link so that you can publicize as needed.   Although the service does offer limited backgrounds and templates for free, an upgrade is available to educators for an annual fee of $59, which is a bargain compared to $15/month for personal accounts.  The upgrade allows you unlimited flyers, use of all templates and backgrounds, the ability to use your own backgrounds, and tracking statistics.

My favorite thing about Smore is its ease of use.  Once I was registered, I created a flyer literally in minutes.  Once my background and template were selected, the website led me through each section.  The pictures were on my computer, so adding them to the flyer was as simple as uploading them into each spot.  Any information that I did not want to include on the template, I just left blank.  Serioulsly, this was so easy, I don't know why you wouldn't want to try it.

The possible uses for librarians and teachers include newsletters, web pages, announcements, and even powerful promotions for fundraisers or school events. Really the possibilities are endless, especially if you purchase the upgrade plan.  I was impressed even with the free options of Smore and plan to use this service for my monthly newsletters, announcements for faculty meetings, and I am going to investigate ways to tie it into my school webpage as well.  While I am not sure I will purchase the upgrade package, the shareable nature of the flyers makes them super easy to distribute, and think of the trees we can save!