Elementary Technology

If you’ve ever felt that you couldn’t keep up with everything Google, Google now has a tool for that.  Similar to the Periodic table, Google now has it’s own table of products. You can scroll over each “element” and then click on it for a complete description and link to that product. If you’ve heard terms like “Google Buzz” or “Google Sketchup” and you had no idea what that meant, now you have one place to find out. Not only can you click on each one but you can filter the table by scrolling over the categories at the top such as Search tools, Gadgets etc. Thank you, Google.

http://code.google.com/more/table/

Try these two games on the SMART Board to have your students practice their skills with addition combinations.  The first one is Connectsums. The object is to find as many combinations of numbers, dice, or coins that equal a target sum, all while trying to beat the timer or using a countdown. One additional constraint is that the numbers have to be next to each other. I found this game is an excellent way for students to practice their number combinations with a variety of options.

Another way for them to practice is with the game Sumstacker. This game asks you to drag and drop number combinations until you have the correct sum in each column. You can also choose numbers, dice or coins as well. This game is also available as an iPhone/iTouch app.

Who has time in the school day to teach handwriting? It seems that there is an ever increasing demand to pack more curriculum content in the school day. And it also seems that handwriting continually moves down to the bottom of the list. Here’s one tool that may help save some time when teaching handwriting. The Writing Repeater is perfect for the SMART Board and allows handwriting to become interactive. Once you demonstrate how to make a letter, you can quickly save the letter, and click play to show the exact letter formation over and over again. Instead of writing the letter a dozen times until students see the correct formation, just have them click the play button. When they are ready, move on to the next letter and repeat. But all the letters can be saved so that students have access to each one if needed.

A new way to communicate….

Wall wisher is a free, online notice board maker.  It’s ideal for making announcements, posting notes and responding to questions. Wall wisher is an online bulletin board that can be collaborative and interactive. All you have to do is follow this link http://www.wallwisher.com/ to post a question, make an announcement, take notes or anything else that comes to mind. Your students can comment, respond and post. They can even include images or videos. Imagine reading a book and asking the students to post an answer to a question about the story online.  Not only do they write for an audience but they can also see each others responses.