Using Pearltree

After learning about Pearltree, I was wondering what I could do with my third graders. I read through some blogs to see what everyone else was doing. I was not disappointed. On Lori’s blog I saw that she was setting up a Pearltree in her first grade class that had different games for them. This, I thought, was an excellent idea. Right now, most of my students are proficient at finding what they need in bookmarks or by typing in the website either in the address bar or in search. There are several though, that this is still difficult for. Having a Pearltree will help those students, as well as speed up the process for others. The games have different levels, so students will be doing things at a level that is beneficial to them. I set up a Pearltree and started adding the math sites my class uses. I then searched and found some other games that I thought would be useful. I will also add some sites that the students use often. Pearltree will be particularly useful when our class is doing projects that incorporate getting information online. I will be able to put websites on the Pearltree and the students will have easy access. In the past, I went on each computer in my class and added sites to the bookmarks. With Pearltree, I can add the sites as pearls and they will be there on any computer that goes to the site. Here is how it looks so far. There are a few questions I have. The most important one at the moment: will several computers be able to have my class Pearltree up at the same time? I am guessing that this won’t be a problem, but one I plan on testing out. I would like to have my Pearltree as the homepage on the computers in my class. I am really excited to try this out for my class. What a great way to organize websites for my students!

Math Facts Online Games

Let me start off by saying I love educational video games. I truly believe they are a great way to reinforce and practice skills. That being said, they have to be used right. If you have an average third grader playing an addition game of adding ones, they are not going to be getting anything out of it but the play. The content needs to topics they need to practice on. It should not be too easy for them or so hard it is frustrating. Math facts are an excellent topic for video games. Math facts need to be memorized. It can be done with much more enjoyment with games. I have a few sites I have tried with my students. The program we have been using for years is Math Facts in a Flash. With all the other free options out there, I think I will change. Math Facts in a Flash gives students a set of problems. When they are done, they are shown the amount correct, ones missed, and the time they took. If they answered them all correctly in under two minutes they move on to the next level. It is very dry and doesn’t motivate most of the students. So, I was searching for math fact practice games that are motivating and help students memorize their facts. Looking over the blogs from my PLN I got some excellent ideas. Tomas gave me the idea for XtraMath.com. This looks like a great alternative to Math Facts in a Flash. It is motivating with not a lot of playing. It would be good for our class math fact practice time. I also wanted some games that were more fun for other times. Multiplication.com fit the bill for this. This site has many different games that practice multiplication facts. The one that the students like most is called “Snowy’s Friend.” The first think I liked about this game is you can pick which facts you want to work on. You can work on just one, like all the x7 facts, or you can choose more than one. I like this because I have my kids learn the facts by taking on one number at a time. They know which one they are on and can work on that one on this game. In this game, the player is a snowman that is going along having to jump over things to get to the end. Every few seconds a multiplication fact pops up and they must type in the answer in order to continue. If they get it wrong, it stays up until the correct answer is put in. The kids really seemed to like this game. They are fully engaged. There has been measurable progress in learning math facts with those that are playing this game. It is apparent on the pencil and paper timings we do in class. The other game I tried out in my class was suggested by my PLN as well. It is found on Knowledgeadventure.com. The game is called Math Lines. The learning goal of this game is to learn the addition facts that have a sum of ten. There is a line of balls that winds across the screen. There is a cannon in the middle that has a number as a canon ball. You shoot the number that would make ten with the number in the canon. So far, I had one student work on this. It was a little too easy for her. She liked it for a few minutes, but then wanted to do something else. I have different students that this would be more beneficial for. I just had time to have students that were done with other assignments to try out some games. This is a motivational strategy I use quite often. However, I am feeling the need to provide game time for those students who don’t finish early. They may be the ones who would benefit the most.

Arrghh! The tables showing the results of my class using the Smart Response clicker system in my post below did not stay formatted when published to the blog. Sorry! When I go to the edit page, it looks fine. I kept getting an error warning while trying to publish that post as well. I'm not sure what is going on. Arrgh!

I have been using the SmartBoard since the beginning of the year. What I haven’t used until now are the clickers that go with it- the Smart Response system. I have used other clickers in the past. One advantage I saw right away in this system is that each student has a code to put into any clicker. The other clickers I had used, you had to assign students a number that went with a particular clicker. They had to get the same clicker every time which wasn’t really all that difficult until batteries started going dead. It was a huge pain to switch batteries and only slightly less of a pain to give them a different clicker and assign them a different number in the program. With this system, students can use any clicker and just input their number. It shows them their name so that they are sure they have put in the right number. I just had them use their lunch account number that they use everyday anyway. Teachers in the upper grades where students switch classes throughout the day suggested using those numbers. It would be hard for students to remember a different number for each class. Smart Exchange has countless lessons and activities to use for almost any topic. They also have ones that incorporate the use of the clickers. You can search for topics by grade level(s), subject, and type of lesson, including those that have Smart Response questions. The wonderful thing about clickers is that you get the results of everyone’s answers right away. You can see immediately how the class did and know right away if there is something that needs to be gone over again. It also shows you how each student did on each question. This is a great differentiating tool. You can see which students need more help on certain topics without having to check with them individually or without having to grade paper assessments and analyze them. The system does it all for you. There are many ready-made question sets for many different topics or you can make your own question sets. I was pleasantly surprised at how relatively painless it was to use the first time with my third graders. We did a lesson in math on transformations (slides, turns, and flips) that I found on the Smart Exchange site. After the lesson going over the different transformations, there were 8 questions. You can create a variety of reports once the questions are answered. This one shows an overview of how the students did. I cut and pasted it here. (I changed the names to x's for privacy.) A couple students couldn’t remember their lunch account numbers so I gave them a number until we can get those. Flips, Turns & Slides Quiz Massin 2012-13 Last Name First Name Student ID Mark Grade xxxxxxxxx 3 3 37.5% xxxxxxxxxxxx 5794 8 100% xxxxxxxx 2 7 87.5% xxxxxxxx 4 7 87.5% xxxxxxxx 3214 6 75% xxxxxxxx 9453 8 100% xxxxxxxx 3934 8 100% xxxxxxxx 8066 8 100% xxxxxxxx 4219 There is a report that is great for differentiating. It gives you the questions and the individual students’ response so you can see which questions which students need more help with. I was going to show one of the student’s reports here, but couldn’t block out their name. Here is part of one that I exported to Excel after I deleted the names. It has all the questions included, but I figured you could get the idea from just the first few that fit. Student ID Q1 Q1 Key Q1 Correct Q2 Q2 Key Q2 Correct 5794 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 9453 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 4 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3 FALSE TRUE incorrect B - Slide A - Flip incorrect 8066 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3934 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3214 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 2 TRUE TRUE correct B - Slide A - Flip incorrect I think this is going to be particularly helpful when reviewing for the SBAs. I will find or make some questions sets to see what needs to be reviewed the most. I won’t see my class until next Thursday. We are having inservices today and Friday, and I am traveling to Anchorage for the Curriculum Alignment Institute next week. When I return, my plan is to make a Screencast of my class answering some questions. I hadn't heard of Screencast before. I found a link to it on the Week 7 resources. Thanks, Lee!

Xtranormal Cartoon

A student in my 3rd grade class made this quick Xtranormal cartoon. It's our first try using it in class. I hope to do more with the rest of the class on different subjects. She really enjoyed making it. http://s3.amazonaws.com/farmprod.content.xtranormal.com/2013-03-05/publish/2f00f4ae-85d7-11e2-b9c8-12313d1fe901.mp4