Tool #9

I think it's important to tie technology to the objective because it ensures that we are taking that extra step to incorporate technology instead of just relying on "the old way".  Of course, it is important to know the old way so that you can keep it as a back-up plan in case the technology fails.


Students need to be held accountable for their work at stations/centers because we need to know that they are doing the work, and we need to have a provable behavior.  In order to get on board with this, we need to ensure that we are on board with the "shifting paradigms" theory.  And, of course, we should be on board with it because times and paradigms are changing whether we like it or not.


I visited Thinkfinity, which had all kinds of educational games.  I liked the Essay Map because it put the outline into a more user-friendly format.  Students could create their Essay Maps and show them to me as their provable behavior.  This would be a great activity when we've finished our "pre-writing" but have not formally begun writing yet.


I also visited Comic Creator in Thinkfinity.  This was pretty cool.  Not only could my son use this at home (he LOVES Diary of a Wimpy Kid and would do this for fun), but my students could also do it as a provable behavior to show they've mastered a concept.  For example, they could write it to prove they know a certain vocabulary word.  They could write context clues and dream up situations in which those words/sentences can be used.  This is like a grown-up version of window panes in which we create one panel that illustrates a vocabulary word and what it means visually.


Students could be held accountable for both of these activities because there would be an actual product produced.


In the SBISD interactive database, I found many more flipcharts than I've seen before.  I also noticed the Classtools webtool.  I like the idea that I could host games on my blog.  To make students accountable, I could have them post something about the game to tell me how it went against another student.


I also saw that they have a Lexipedia webtool.  This webtool gives them the part of speech AND it relates the word to other words.  Students could be assigned certain words, and they could be accountable for them by creating a certain number of comics in Comic Creator as well as some related words in Lexipedia.


As far as the iPod Touches and iPad 2s are concerned, I know my students would enjoy the Flashcards App.  I usually hesitate to make them to flashcards because of all of the paper involved, but now they can make them and use them to review each other all in one sitting.


I also will love the Mad Libs app.  I already have them create their own Mad Libs in class, but this app will ensure that their Mad Libs make sense and are extra silly.  They will also be able to have more than one student fill out their Mad Libs.  This would be a great station because students are already chomping at the bit to share the Mad Libs that they've done, so accountability ought to be no problem.


I also love the Pages app.  Students will be able to use this to revise and edit their papers right on the device.  It will also save it to the iCloud so there will be no need for them to e-mail their final drafts.  They will even be able to print wirelessly.  I will definitely have to play around with this to see what the best way to do this would be.  It seems like it would work best with students during tutorials, but maybe I'll be able to use these in stations when we are doing very specific revision and editing changes, and the students will take turns changing their papers right on the device.