Three Free Apps You Can Use in Your Classroom Today: Common Core for Educators

Technology in your teaching practice helps to create order, organization, and provide invaluable resources. With the new Common Core Standards, here are some apps to reference in creating lesson plans or tracking student progress:

• Common Core Standards by MasteryConnect: Easily reference all of the Math and Language Arts CCSS for all grade levels in one convenient app! (iPhone, iPad, iPod)
• CS Core: Includes standards for California State and allows users to create notes and comments within the app, as well as send emails regarding standards. (iPhone, iPad, iPod)
• Core Math: Details Common Core Standards in Math and allows educators to enter and track the progress of up to 50 students. (iPhone, iPad, iPod)

Resource Roundup: Digital Learning for Educators

Every month we feature a Resource Roundup to highlight a key topic in technology integration and teaching and learning with digital materials. This month’s topic: Digital Learning for Educators!

Professional development activities—especially those that are collaborative— are resource hungry. Effective teaching resources that have direct application to the Common Core Standards can excite teachers’ imaginations.Below are several resources with the potential to stimulate creative juices, motivate ideas, and help teachers strengthen lessons.Check out these resources; discuss how they can be used; use them in your classroom; and reflect upon them with your colleagues.

• Beyond Slices of Pizza, Teaching Fractions Effectively by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and the Department of Education, discusses the importance of teaching fractions to students as it is the first abstract math concept they are approached with which will lead to their understanding of algebra. Common metaphors, such as the slice of pizza in reference to fractions, often confuse students later in learning multiplication of fractions and beyond. The five part video series discusses best approaches to take in educating students on the not-so-simple subject of fractions.
• Often times a classroom is comprised of students of various backgrounds and levels of learning. The Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice 4. Different Kinds of Smart - Multiple Intelligences is a 30 minute Professional Development session for educators, which delves into the different levels of intelligence within a classroom. The mini-seminar focuses on how teachers can utilize the different levels of student intelligence in teaching a lesson. When viewing this video, consider how to reach students at every level by employing a UDL classroom.

In addition to different levels of learning and intelligence, students have different backgrounds in language. Duolingo and Mindsnacks are two free language learning apps that are great PD resources for teachers looking to break the language barrier with students who speak another language. Mindsnacks teaches Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; Duolingo teaches English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Once you sign up online you can access either app from any apple device, making it easier learn a new language to connect to ELL students. Mindsnacks also has apps devoted to students, including vocabulary to increase language proficiency and reading skills.

Also, be sure to search for Professional Development resources on PowerUp WHAT WORKS!

Meeting the Common Core Standards with Technology Tools: Geocaching!

The Common Core Standards call for a decided shift in the way we teach mathematics, with an increased focus on procedural skill, conceptual fluency, and the ability to flexibly apply math knowledge to new situations and problems, both inside and outside the classroom. Geocaching is a great way of providing your students the opportunity to use real, authentic math in context—without losing the rigor.

Geocaching is a real-world scavenger hunt that uses a GPS—with so many curriculum and cross-curriculum possibilities. For example:

• Math: Teachers can hide treasure and set up geometry puzzle Caches (at their student’s level) around their school and at nearby accessible trails.
• Reading and Math: Caches can be set up as multi-step puzzles involving reading and computation.
• Writing: Students can write a journal entry or a report about the Caches and Trackables found on their adventures. Take it one step further by having students create a digital story with Animoto where they can add illustrations or videos of their day’s treasure with these ideas.
• Geography and Math: Further intrigue students with information on ancient navigation. Students will be surprised when the lesson takes a turn from math into navigating with latitude and longitude. Talk about real-world applications!

Check out these online Geocaching lesson plans. Also be sure to see how Interacting with Peers is beneficial to student learning so that you can include that in using PowerUp’s Lesson Plan Builder!

Three Free Apps You Can Use in Your Classroom Today: Writing

The writing process has three key steps: prewriting, drafting, and reviewing. Educators can check out PUWW resources in our content area sections for tips on instructional practices. To help students practice all aspects of writing, check out these apps:

• Red Stamp: Let students practice writing letters by sending creative greeting cards! Writing for an audience can be a great way to motivate struggling writers. (iPad, iPhone, iPod, Android)
• Puppet Pals: Students can create videos by choosing characters, audio, animation, and more to tell a virtual story. (iPad)
• Moleskine: Like its namesake notebook, it allows users to write and draw in four different types of notebooks, including a ruled composition and a storyboard notebook. The app includes various tools to add colored text along with images, as well as a feature to export notebooks via email, Evernote, Facebook, and Twitter! 
• Tip: After students have drafted and reviewed a story, have them create a final “book” with the storyboard complete with images, and export for grading! (iPad, iPhone, iPod, Windows Phone 7.5/8, Samsung Galaxy Note)

Need more free writing apps? Try Lino to take notes, including videos and pictures (iPad or smartphone). Have writers block? Try Name Dice if students need assistance in creating character names in the early stages of writing (iPhone, iPad, iPod) or try WordDot: a random name and phrase generator to get those creative juices flowing.

Meeting the Common Core with President’s Day Activities: From our Forefathers to Obama

President’s Day, is an “inclusive” celebration of all our nation’s presidents.  Teach students about our nation’s leaders this month by incorporating history into all aspects of your classroom.  Get your class interested with an introduction by sharing brief videos; try one on George Washington or Presidential Fun Facts.

Depending on grade level, read with students about the Seven Roles for One President. Make a class chart to summarize the roles, or even try a class wiki post. Using online interactives like the If You Were President: A Scholastic Online News Activity in reading instruction can help further student understanding. With the Scholastic interactive, students get to imagine as if they are president, choose their advisors, learn about the responsibilities of the president, and get to make (and defend!) virtual decisions.

Also mingle history and math with U.S. Presidents: A Math Hunt Activity. Students will learn about U.S. presidents while solving math problems. Math problems focus on fractions, multiplication, and division. If students are stumped by a question posed by a history-based word problem, they get to “Hunt for the Answer” on a linked educational website.

Washington's Inauguration, 1789, Architect of the Capitol

Let’s not forget the significance of George Washington, which is—of course—the goal of this next activity.  Plays about the President: George Washington asks students to remember more than just a few facts about our country’s former leader by acting out a class play. It also includes a Bibliography and three class activities; vocabulary discussion, a writing prompt, and researching/reporting on another related subject.

Read President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address. Students can learn more about President Obama staring his second term by reading an article on their own or by following the account of a student who was in attendance for the ceremony.

President Barack Obama holds a conference call with advisors to discuss the Aurora, Colorado shootings, during the motorcade ride to Palm Beach International Airport in Palm Beach, Fla., July 20, 2012. White House photostream

Also use the free Brain Dip Magazine app to help students analyze the President’s speech in multiple subjects, by grade level according to Common Core Standards. By combining reading, writing, and math with history, students are provided with a comprehensive lesson that will enhance their understanding.

Celebrate Digital Learning Day February 6th!

February 6th is the 2nd Annual Digital Learning Day! 

From the Digital Learning Day website:

Digital Learning Day, February 6, 2013, is a national celebration of educators that shines a spotlight on successful instructional technology practice in classrooms across the country.
http://www.digitallearningday.org/

A number of activities are planned, culminating in a live webcast Digital Townhall from Washington, DC. 

In preparation for Digital Learning Day, why not plan a lesson using a new-to-you technology tool or resource? Search our PowerUp resource database to find lesson plan ideas and interactives, or browse our collection of strategies and technology articles. Then use our Lesson Planner tool to create and share your lesson with the PowerUp community!