photo taken from www.siia.net on March 4, 2014

Source

http://www.readinga-z.com/

What is it??

This is a wonderful tool used by teachers to teach guided reading! I have personally used these leveled books during guided reading and they are a great resources to help students learn to read during guided reading. The students are able to take these books home and keep them to help build a library at home if there already isn’t one. This site includes non-fiction and fiction book, worksheets, quizzes, and even lesson plans to go with the books!

Educational Uses

The educational use of this tool is to provide another resources for teachers to use when teaching guided reading.

Content Standard

Possible Kindergarten content standards could include:

RL.K 10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. RI.K 5. Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book. RF.K 1.a. Follow words from left to right,top to bottom, and page by page. These are all skills taught during guided reading.

Assessment

These assessment of the site itself would be the effectiveness of the books in guided reading. Assessing the students could happen during guided reading as well. The students abilities, skills, and gains are an assessment that teachers can record and use to plan future lessons.

Value

Pros: More resources for teachers to teach guided reading effectively, easily accessible, and affordable.

Cons: In order to use these resources you must become a member. I honestly have a hard time coming up with bad things about this resources because it is such a wonderful and effective one!

Reference

Information taken from http://www.learninga-z.com/index.html on March 4, 2014

Photo taken from abcya.com on March 4, 2014

Source

www.abcya.com

What is it??

This is a tool for students to use to play interactive fun games to aid in the learning process. These games are free as well as educational. All games on this site are approved by certified teachers assuring that they have an educational meaning and purpose behind them. This tool has games for grades k-5 and there are games fro subjects like math and science !

Educational Uses

The educational purpose  of this tool is to provide the students with a fun and interactive way to aid in the students learning. This is another fantastic tool that students can use during center time or even at home.  This toll is also familiarizing students with technology and the internet while aiding in the teaching of the standards.

photo taken from www.freelyeducate.com on March 4, 2014

Content Standards

possible kindergarten content standards could include:

K.CC 1. Count to 100 by ones and by tens. K.OA 5. Fluently add and subtract within 5.

Assessment

This tool is another tool that can be difficult to assess within the site itself. I think that teachers can assess the value on this site based on the students improvements withing the subject area. The assessment of the tool itself would be how well the students use this site and the gains that the students are making.

Value

Pros: Educational games, engagement for the students, online so the student can access this tool at home or at school, and integrating technology and digital teaching in the classroom.

Cons: Again, this is a very public site and can be unsafe for the students if it isn’t being used correctly, and pop ups that can also be unsafe if the students aren’t sure what to do in a situation like this.

Reference

Information taken from www.abcya.com on March 4, 2014

Photo retrieve from busemd.edublogs.org on March 3, 2014

Source

http://www.starfall.com/

What is it???

Starfall is a website that teaches children to read using phonics. This site works with children on phonemic awareness skills to help children learn to read. This site can be used for children in preschool to those students in second grade even students that are being home schooled. This tool is an interactive set of instruction that ignites children’s imagination and the engagement in the learning. This tool is even used to help ESL students learn to read!

Educational uses

The major educational uses of this website is to teach students to read using the phonemic awareness skills this tool emphasizes. An example of using this tool in the classroom could include using this at centers. I’ve seen this used in the classroom as a center while the teacher is working with students at the guided reading table. This was an effective and enjoyable center for the students.

Content Standards

Possible content standards could include: Kindergarten RF.K 2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and phonemes. A. Recite and produce rhyming words. B. Count and produce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words. or C. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single syllable spoken words. These are all kindergarten standards that could be used when using this tool in a classroom.

Assessment

Assess the students when using this site could be difficult because it is an open site and there isn’t an account for each student to keep track of scores on games and activities that they do. An assessment outside of this tool could be improvement during guided reading or even during a phonics lesson.

Value

Pros: Phonics based reading skills, interactive, fun, engaging for the students, and this tool pushes the students to learn about reading.

Cons: Public website, and pop ups that the students might not know how to handle.

Reference

Information taken from http://www.starfall.com/ on March 3, 2014

Source:

https://prezi.com/

What is it??

Prezi is a form of presenting information. It is a way to capture tour audiences attention and view the information in an interactive and engaging manner. It also creates a visual aid when presenting information to a group of people. When using a prezi you can add images videos, and even links. It a wonderful tool to create a presentation when working in a group.

Educational Uses:

Students could use this tool when working on a project together or even individually. Students could also work as a class using prezi to put information together. Teachers could use this tool when teaching students. It would be a great way to engage students in the lesson or topic being presented. It can be very individualized and creative. I would recommend the use of prezi by students in a middle school setting. This can be a hard site to navigate if the user isn’t already familiar with it.

Content Standards

This could be used as a tool to teacher anything or assign students a project where presenting the information is part of the requirement. Specifically this could be a good tool when creating autobiographies  or even maybe a presentation over the presidents. Those a few examples of many in which students could use this tool. The site has lots of templates that have themes that could connected to so many standards and projects that students could potentially have.

Assessment

If students were using this for an assignment the assessment would be the presentation itself. When playing around with this site and assessing it as a tool for teachers to use I think its a great site and can be learned rather fast if you take the time to familiarize yourself with the tools and options that a prezi offers you.

Value:

Pros> Individualization, creativity, students can work individually or in groups, engaging for students to watch and learn from, tons of options to make presentation engaging and pre-created templates ready to use

Con> This site can be difficult to navigate if you don’t know how to use it.

Reference:

Information and photo taken from https://prezi.com/ on March 2, 2014.

Source: http://www.queeky.com/

What it is: Queeky is an online, interactive are experience. Students and even teachers can get online to create their very own unique artwork. Queeky does not require a membership but you have the option to get the premium edition which does cost.

Educational Uses: This site can be used for so many things in the classroom. This can be used in an art class to address the standards that require to incorporate digital technology in the classroom. This is also a place where students can explore digital art art and evaluate and look at other artists work. This tool could also be used to allow students to illustrate stories or extensions to stories.  Students could illustrate personal stories, classmate stories, or even for a books that’s already published. 

Content Standards:  Possible content standards could be:

W.K 6. With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing including in collaboration with peers. This would be a good standard to reinforce the use of the digital online tool. Every writing needs illustrations.

WK3.  Use a combination drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order that they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened. I would unpack this standard to where the students are using this tool to illustrate a story that they have written.

Assessment:

I think the assessment of either of these standards would be to assess the students thinking and not specifically their work. At this age students aren’t going to draw an illustration that only the might be able to recognize and connect with the text. I would assess the students based on how they explained the illustration to the text.

Value: 

PRO: students can have the experience of creating artwork without the mess and students can interactively work on the same piece of artwork at the same time. This works well if students are able to use ipads or maybe even more than one computer.

CON: This is not a pre-monitored site so some of the artwork already posted to this site might not be appropriate for students, especially early childhood.

Reference

Information retrieved from http://www.queeky.com/ on February 27th, 2014.