More Pi Day Fun – Host a Pi Battle!

Ready for your Pi Battle? Memorize the digits of Pi with these free apps for iOS and Android:

• Pi Trainer App on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.piday.android.pitrainer
• Learn Pi Free App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-pi-free/id518465060?mt=8

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.

iPods in Class: How to Turn the Music Maker into a Productive Machine

iPods and MP3 players easily find their way into classrooms. Add the invention of the ear bud and you have frustrated teachers, when students unfortunately are more interested in their personal technology than in classroom material. But you can turn this situation. You can replace iPod daydreaming with learning by by creating podcasts relevant to classroom instruction!

Podcasts can be created for everything from class presentations to book reports. Engage students in prewriting activities to help them brainstorm ideas for their podcasts. Use PowerUp tips and strategies for helping students draft and review their materials and then set up class time to record podcasts to share with the class. These student-created podcasts would also be a great feature on a classroom blog! Teachers can also create podcasts for a multimedia approach to educating students. There are premade podcasts that teachers can use on Scholastic's website.

3 Free Apps that You Can Use in Your Classroom Today: Math

Each month, we’ll tell you about three FREE apps you can use in your classroom. This month, we’re focused on math !

Apps and animations can be a great way to teach math, because you provide students with a visual representation of a concept that they can see, hear, and in some cases, touch and manipulate.

The first two apps this month would be great for a unit on fractions in conjunction with our Focus on Fractions assessments.

• Pearl Diver HD (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) – Learn the number line while diving for pearls amidst shipwrecks and sunken ruins. Address NCTM standards including: understanding numbers, ways of representing numbers and number systems; understanding and representing commonly used fractions; understanding fractions as part of unit wholes and as locations on number lines; and comparing and ordering fractions.
• Virtual Manipulatives! (iPad) – Virtual fraction bars and tiles.

Our last app this month is a cool graphing tool, that makes use of touch interface to help kids better understand linear relationships. 

• Slope Slider(iPad and iPhone) – increase student understanding of linear relationships by allowing students to manipulate graphs and lines to reflect changes in equations.

Incorporate apps into your math lessons and share the results with your peers on PowerUp!