Computer Science Resources Recommended by eSchool News

During Computer Science Week or Hour of the Code Week, whichever you want to call it, loads of great ideas were published to help teachers bring computer science understanding into their classrooms. A good example is an article, by Laura Devaney of eSchool News, who compiled a list of ten resources and facts to help with programming. They include Daisy the Dinosaur (free app), Cargo-Bot (puzzle game), MIT Inventor (build apps), Hackety Hack (learn computer science), Codecademy (learn to code site), Computing in the Core (facts), Computer Science Unplugged (learn computer science without a computer), w3schools (examples, quizzes, tutorials, etc), recruiting girls to computing classes (suggestions), and Dot Diva (suggestions for girls). Devaney offers links to the ten resources in her article.

Create Beautiful eBooks

Drop your manuscript into Vellum and it will open as a book divided into chapters. While in Vellum, you can edit your book or start writing a new one. Books may be shared with family and friends and uploaded to online stores. There’s a free download to try the software; if you wish to purchase, the cost is $49.99 for a single book, $99.99 for three books, and $149.00 for five books. The product was developed by Pixar veterans, so one wonders if Vellum may evolve to include interactive capabilities appropriate for exciting eTexts? In the meantime, it looks like a very nice solution for students and educators who want to create good-looking eBooks.

Coding, Apps, and 3-D Models for Kids

Richard Bryne, in The Digital Shift from the Library Journal, discusses helping students “make things” in his article, “Teach Kids How to Code, Make Apps and 3-D Models With These Tools”.  Some of the learning sources he recommends are: Daisy the Dinosaur, which teaches programming basics; Code Monster with lots of coding lessons complete with instant feedback; Blockly, which uses visuals to teach about if-then logic; MIT App Inventor for creating smart phone apps; 123D Design for designing 3-D models; 123 Catch to turn pictures into three dimensional models; and 3DTin that lets students build 3-D models from scratch or with the help of templates.

EDUCADE: Lesson Plans & Teaching Tools

EDUCADE Beta is an online community designed to help you create what you want for your students and share your work with other educators. You’ll need to sign up to create lessons, resources, and materials, but it is free. You can search for lessons by subject, tool type, topic, and platform, or you can enter a keyword. Available lessons will be listed, along with a summary of each. Lessons include objectives, Common Core alignment, resources, 21^st Century skills, step-by-step guides, and more. As an example of what’s available at EDUCADE, take a look at the lesson featuring electrical engineering for Grades 4-9. It uses MaKey MaKey circuit board kits. Impressive.

Time-Traveling App

Back in Time, an IOS app that can be used with all ages, is described as best for Grades 6-12. The site TeachThought calls in an innovative educational app, and although it comes at a high ($7.99) price as apps go, it is sure to capture your interest and that of your students. It includes all subject areas. With a clock as a time-machine, it takes the user on a journey through history. TeachThought says that it “visualizes the mind-numbing scale of history.” There’s a trailer you can watch to determine if you want to purchase Back in Time and then travel with your students through time whenever you want.

Classroom Timer Apps

If you are looking for a classroom timer that will work with the iPhone, iPad, or iPad Touch, the Classroom Timer Pro ($1.99), by Walsall Academy, is easy-to-use and good for timing classroom activities. There is a free version of this product, but the Pro version had better reviews. Glen Storey offers Silent Light—Classroom Timer and Decibel Meter ($3.99) for the iPhone and iPad. It uses the microphones on iPhones and iPads to monitor noise; you can share its screen through projectors and Apple TV.   Designed to help students with management and productivity, ClassTimer by Ventura Educational Systems ($.99) requires iOS4.2 and is compatible with iPads.

Grammar with Tech

The TL Advisor Blog is always packed with useful information, like Ozge Karaoglu’s suggestions for great grammar tech tools.  Some of those recommended are the Grammar Ninja, Free Rice, Road to Grammar, and Grammaropolis. There’s also Noredink.com (No Red Ink) where you can create classroom materials featuring apostrophes, fragments, hyphens, subject-verb agreement, and all those confusing words such as its, it’s, accept, except, affect, effect, than, then, and loads more.

ALA Best Apps for Teaching and Learning 2013

The American Library Association, always a trusted source for recommendations, provides a list of apps that it considers “of exceptional value to inquiry-based learning . . .”  These are apps that encourage students to be innovative and creative as they engage in collaboration with others. Categories on the list include: Books, STEM, Organization & Management, Social Sciences, and Content Creation. A few of the apps on the ALA Best App List are: Shakespeare in Bits, Got to Have Music, Operation Math, SimplePhysics, Tinkerbox, Dropbox, Evernote, Socrative, News-O-Matic: Daily for Kids, GarageBand, and Educreations. There are links to all the apps on the list.

Everyone’s Favorite Tiger: Daniel

If you are a preschool or Pre-Kindergarten teacher, you may want to recommend this PBS app to parents who are having difficulties getting their children ready for school.  The app, Daniel Tiger’s Day & Night, which includes eight games, helps children with their night and morning routines. Morning games target getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, and putting on shoes. Good night games are: Bath Time, Brush Teeth, Pajama Tim, and Bedtime Story. The app ($2.99 at the iTunes Store) is the second in the series, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

Math Bingo

Fun with math for Kindergarten through Grade Three, Math Bingo ($.99) by ABCya.com, motivates children to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with five Bingo games. The games range in content level from easy to difficult. Bingo Bugs are given as rewards; a scoreboard displays student scores.  Three bonus games come with the app. According to a review in Education World, Math Bingo “is a great app to supplement regular math lessons.”