Author: kzomer

by

3rd World Farmer

Resource: 3rd World Farmer

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Description: 3rd World Farmer is an interactive game where you must make decisions on how best to manage a farm based in a third world country. The user must make decisions on how to best spend their money to build their farm with no knowledge of what disasters await. There are multiple strategies that can be used to yield the best return for your investment and there is no one right way to achieve success.

Subject: Technologies
Strand: Design and Technologies
Sub-Strand: Design and Technologies Processes and Production Skills

Negotiate criteria for success that include consideration of sustainability to evaluate design ideas, processes and solutions (ACTDEP027)
Year Levels: 5-6

Link to Resource: http://3rdworldfarmer.com/

Cross-Curriculum Priorities: Sustainability.

General Capabilities: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology Capabilities (ICT), Critical and Creating thinking, Personal and Social Capabilities Ethical Understandings and Intercultural Understandings.

Links to other Learning Areas: Mathematics, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Review: I believe this game could be used effectively in the classroom as it not only activates students critical thinking skills, it is also a platform to begin open ended discussions about ethical and intercultural problems within our global community. Students are also forced to make critical decisions with no knowledge of the eventual outcomes. This encourages students to reflect on any failures and informs their future thinking.

There is also a range of mathematics embedded throughout the game. This may appeal to gifted and talented students as mathematical understanding can be used to gain small advantages during the game. This game appears to have strong links to Facebook so teachers need to follow teaching standard 4.5 (Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically) appropriately when using this resource.

Screenshots:

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References:
Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2015). Home – The Australian Curriculum v7.5. Retrieved 10 August 2015, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

3rdworldfarmer.com,. (2015). 3rd World Farmer: A simulation to make you think.. Retrieved 10 August 2015, from http://3rdworldfarmer.com/

 

 

 

by

Khan Academy

Resource: Khan Academy

Khan
Description: Khan Academy is free online resource that helps the user develop their mathematic content knowledge. The content ranges from basic early math, such as counting, all the way up to calculus and beyond. Teachers can set up classrooms to monitor how their students are going as the site highlights areas of strength and weaknesses within its users. Not only is this targeted at children, teachers can also use this resource to develop their own content knowledge. Khan Academy has now also branched out beyond maths with its learning content as it now also offers learning areas in Science, Arts, Computing to name a few.

Subject: Technologies
Strand: Digital Technologies
Sub-Strand: Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding
Identify, use and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose (ACTDIK001)
Year Levels: F-10
Link to Resource: https://www.khanacademy.org/
General Capabilities: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology Capabilities (ICT), Critical and Creating thinking.
Links to other Learning Areas: Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, The Arts.
Review: I believe this website is a great technology resource for mathematical learning. I have already implemented this in my classrooms and have found the feedback that it provides very helpful for planning future lesson content. It has been well received by the students so far and they seem to enjoy the points reward system. This website is American based so on occasion there can be grammatical discrepancies between Australian and US English. Also as the content is US based so it does not align identically with the Australian Curriculum. However, as mathematics is universal this is not a problem.

Screenshots:

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Students can use a scratchpad to help them with their working out.

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Khan Academy offers supporting videos and gives hints to assist student learning.

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The videos play directly on the site and students are able to pause, rewind, skip or re-watch the video to their needs.

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Clicking on hints provides support to the student without giving the answers directly.

Video:


References:
Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2015). Home – The Australian Curriculum v7.5. Retrieved 10 August 2015, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/
Khan Academy,. (2015). Khan Academy. Retrieved 10 August 2015, from https://www.khanacademy.org

 

YouTube,. (2015). Salman Khan talk at TED 2011 (from ted.com). Retrieved 10 August 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk