Teacher Tools

BrainFlex

As the school winds down to a close very soon and we worry that students might forget important learning concepts over the summer holidays..... worry no more! refer them to the BrainFlex website.

BrainFlex has created a free daily practice program for math and science students to help them practice and retain their learning achievements over the summer break.

The CK - 12 Brainflex Summer Challenge will begin in a months time and is a program that students can use to practice math and science skill reviews. Students' progress on their chosen skill reviews is recorded for them in their CK - 12 accounts. The beauty about this program is that it is self-paced and students choose the subjects that they want to review.

Applications for Education 

Teachers can send invitations to students to participate in the CK-12 Summer Challenge. With those invitations teachers can include suggestions for subjects to review. CK-12 also provides a template for a letter to send to parents with suggestions on subjects for their children to review over the summer.

I came across this resource recently through another great teacher web based software called Nearpod which I will blog about another time.

Teachers create an account and invite your students to learn! BrainFlex

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Cyber Safety 

Below are two articles that illustrate the dangers and consequences of cyber bullying. 
Please take a look there are some very interesting statistics relating to this issue.

Teacher Tools

Canva

I discovered Canva quite recently when I was trying to create my own infographics on Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying, Canva allowed me liven up my content and make it look professional.

Watch this movie to give you more ideas on how simple and useful Canva is. 

Once again this app and software is absolutely free!

I also like the fact that;

• You can choose form a variety of editable canvas templates which you can customise to suit your own purposes.  
• It has a simple drag and drop feature that allows you to layout the premade images and text
• Images can be resized and cropped  
• There are numerous images, text, layouts, lines, frames, canvases to choose from.

You will need to create yourself an account to get started. 

You can create your account by going to the website, Canva or alternatively you can install the app on your iPad and create your account from there.

Good luck making your posters!

App of the Week

ChatterPix Kids 

ChatterPix Kids is a Free App that can make anything talk. It's a very easy app to use. You simply take a photo, draw a line to make a mouth, and record your voice. 

Watch this short movie, that shows you just how simple it is to use.

I'm sure you guys can think of lots of educational uses for this app, but here are a few I would like to suggest.

In science when students have to investigate paper and its properties.  One of the investigations is to write on two different types of paper and then talk about which was easier/harder to write on and why. The students could take photos of the paper and add voices to the photos explaining their observations.

To extend this activity, the movie created in ChatterPix can be used as an overlay in the Aurasma App and be attached to a trigger image, that when scanned the paper will come to life explaining its own properties.

The app has its uses in MFL and in Arabic, where objects can come to life and say what they are, it makes learning about objects fun and exciting.

I usually test apps out on my son, to see if their user friendly enough? so this is what he produced when I let him have a go. 

Please comment and perhaps share your ideas on the blog of how this app could be used as a teaching and learning tool, I would love to hear more ideas.

App of the Week

Elements 4D 

I love investigating and hearing about new apps so here's one that a colleague introduced me to recently.

This app empowers student learning by SUPERCHARGING the chemistry classroom!

Elements 4D is basically a set of interactive blocks that help students learn the periodic table by showing how elements combine into new chemical substances, what the reaction looks like and the resulting chemical equation.

Take a look at the movie to see how these simple blocks use augmented reality to come to life. 

Instructions:

1. Go to the this link and print off the paper blocks, cut them out and glue them together to make the boxes.Paper Blocks
2. Install the "Elements 4D" App on your iPad, open the app and point your device at one of the blocks.
3. To combine two elements introduce a second element, move the two blocks together until they touch.
4. See the reaction - if nothing happens, those elements don't combine, try another combination.

The website also offers some really creative lesson plans for you to use.

Lesson Plans_Grades 3-5
Lesson Plans_Grades 6-8
Lesson Plans_Grades 9-12

For further information about Elements 4D click on the link below to check out their website

http://elements4d.daqri.com/#intro 

Teacher Tools

Online Language 

List of acronyms teachers should be aware of.

Students are increasingly using secret, 'online language' to stop teachers and parents (people in authority) from keeping tabs on them.

Below are some of the acronym's you should be aware of so that you are able to protect and support students better.

List of Acronyms teachers should know