Grammar Gorillas: Parts of Speech—Still Important

Practice in reading, speaking, and writing is essential for today’s students, but have we forgotten to include the rules of grammar and word use in Grades 1-5? Often, when I review Reading and Language Arts programs for software awards, I find great practice in reading and writing, but almost never in grammar.  Students who come from families who speak correct English, start steps ahead of others, but all students seem to profit from elementary school lessons targeting parts of speech and sentence structure.  If you are looking for digital material emphasizing grammar for young students, you might want to try searching for links at 19pencils.com and learni.st.com. Funbrain includes Grammar Gorillas games for beginners (nouns and verbs) and advanced students of grammar (all parts of speech). The Texas Computer Education Association provides an iPad list of grammar and vocabulary apps for all grade levels. A few other places you may want to look for grammar lessons for your students are Thinkonline, Softschools, Appfinder, Funeducationalapps, and LearnEnglish Grammar.

Doodlecast Pro – Creativity

Doodlecast Pro ($2.99) is a fun iPad digital tool for teachers and students. With it, you can create learning media, such as this lesson genetics assignment by Grades 7 and 9 science teacher Jenn Corron. With the program, you and your students can share ideas, review curricular content, and create reports and projects. The app records automatically what you draw and what you say. It comes with a variety of backgrounds, but you can add your own photos and illustrations and put them where you want on your screen. Your Keynote files can be added to your Doodlecast videos, and Doodle pages can be saved within the program and/or shared in email, on YouTube or through your Dropbox. Watch the video to learn more about this easy-to-use tool.

Game: A Difficult Path

Game: A Difficult Path lets you follow in the school path of an At-Risk student. The “Game” is part of the report Diplomas Count 2013, Second Chances: Turning Dropouts into Graduates. According to the report, “By high school, it can be easy for . . . risk factors to create a self-feeding cycle.”  As you make your way through the game, you’ll feel the pressures of the cycle that most At-Risk students face. Take all the paths and think about the courage of At-Risk students who make it to graduation.

Teachscape Win Professional Development Award

The 2013 Golden Lamp Award for Professional Development, presented by the Association of Educational Publishers went to The Teachscape Effectiveness Platform. The online product helps schools and districts by providing observation and evaluation tools. Teachscape was honored for the Platform’s “teacher friendliness, wealth of information and streamlined time-saving approach . . . .”

Robotics & Literature—Watch

Watch students merge literature and robotics using a Hummingbird Robotics Kit. On the Hummingbird site, you’ll find two videos—one is the presentation of Robert Frost’s Fire & Ice and the other shows how the students created their poetry theater. It’s not just in language arts that you can integrate engineering with course content. Creative teachers and students are finding ways to have fun with the electronics kits in science, art, math, and social studies, as well as, technology. Hummingbird kits are priced below $200 and include tutorials, hardware, and software that works using Windows, Mac, and Linux. On the Arts & Bots curricula site, you’ll find full curricula, after-school activities, project ideas, and classroom resources.

Creating Presentations Through Sites and Apps

As we look beyond PowerPoint for tools and software to help our students and us create the best presentations, it’s difficult to tell which way to turn. That’s because so many digital resources are available. To the rescue comes Tech & Learning’s David Kapuler, who after an extensive search through the expanding universe of sites and apps offering presentation and slideshow creators, has compiled a list of his 40 favorite tools.

iPad Mistakes to Avoid

Tom Daccord, in his Edudemic piece, warns us about five critical mistakes schools make when using iPads in classrooms. These include “Focusing on content apps”, “Lack of teacher preparation in classroom management of iPads”, “Treating the iPad as a computer and expecting it to serve as a laptop”, “Treating iPads like multi-use devices”, and “Failure to communicate a compelling answer to ‘Why iPads?’”. 

Although, many schools and teachers are eager to jump into digital device use with students, critical mistakes like these can ruin iPad initiatives.  Daccord suggests we think beyond content apps as we look to integration tools and strategies and content from sources other then apps. In other words, if an app for a particular part of course content cannot be found, that doesn’t mean iPads can’t be used effectively for that content. Essential ingredients in iPad initiative success are: providing time and guidance to help teachers with using iPads in the classroom; having enough iPads for 1-1 integration; and helping teachers, parents, and students understand that iPads are unique devices and not mobile computers.

Transforming Education with Digital Resources

Grade 6 teacher Jody Cohen says that the use of digital media makes her feel like a brand new teacher. It’s given her the opportunity to move away from textbooks and worksheets and enter a world her students understand. According to Cohen, the technological resources available to teachers today give them an abundance of ways to help their students learn. Cohen is especially pleased that her students have the ability to review content, as needed, and to find content that fits their needs. “We are very fortunate,” this veteran teacher says, to have digital media available to us. When asked whether she would like to return to textbooks and worksheets, Cohen gives an emphatic “no”, saying that they can be very boring.

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

Check out Samantha Morra’s “8 Steps to Great Digital Stories” in order to get ideas for integration of oral storytelling into your classroom. The author believes that digital storytelling is the “21^st Century version of the age-old art of storytelling.” The difference is that today students can share their stories via video and the Internet worldwide.  Students, however, need a plan of action to help them tell their stories. Morra provides one as she suggests you lead your students through a series of steps that includes thinking of ideas, developing storyboards, gathering input, creating products, and getting feedback. She also notes that great digital stories are usually personal and concise, follow a script, use available materials, involve collaboration, and are based on universal story elements.

Do You Know What SEL Is?

SEL or Social and Emotional Learning is one of strategies that the George Lucas Foundation promotes in its effort to transform learning. When SEL becomes part of a school’s curriculum, students increase in self-esteem and in the appreciation of others, improve academic performance, and “reduce aggression and emotional distress.” Watch the SEL 6-minute video to find more about student success in programs that emphasize social and emotional learning.