Word Mover

Word Mover

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Year Level:
1-6

Learning Areas: Technologies and English

Strands:

Sub Strand:

  • Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding
  • Responding to Literature
  • Examining Literature
  • Interpreting, Analysing, Evaluating
  • Text Structure and Organisation

Description:
ReadWriteThink’s Word Mover mobile app is used to supplement classroom instruction, reinforce concepts taught in class, and offer increased student engagement through the use of tablet devices and their associated functionality within the Western Australian Curriculum.

Word Mover allows children and teens to create “found poetry” by choosing from word banks and existing famous works; additionally, users can add new words to create a piece of poetry by moving/manipulating the text.

Features:

  • Multi-user poem storage
  • User management with the ability to delete or restore within 2 weeks
  • 6 poem categories, each with the ability to personalize
  • 12 backgrounds for stylizing poems
  • Helpful how-to information available throughout app
  • Auto-saving of poems as they are created
  • Viewing of finished poem for proofreading
  • Ability to save poem to photos
  • Ability to print poem on a wireless printer
  • Ability to send poem by e-mail

Word Mover is an educational app for all ages that adds creativity and fun to the learning process.

Link:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/word-mover/id52997152?mt=8

Below are other interactive mobile apps related to the Learning Areas of Technology and English for primary school students.

Phonics – Tic Tac Toe Interactive Game
Year Level: 1-4

Link:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/phonics-tic-tac-toe-interactive/id465184366?mt=8

Description:
Practice your phonics skills with a partner in this classic game. Each tic-tac-toe grid gives you a range of questions to develop and test your knowledge of letter sounds. Count syllables, match words with the same ending or beginning sounds, or identify blends and digraphs to make your mark on the grid.

Sight Words by Little Speller
Year Level: F-2

Link:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/sight-words-by-little-speller/id420828421?mt=8

Description:
Learn to recognise and spell 220 of the most common English words by dragging letters to make the word shown. Tap the letters to hear their sound. You can also record your own voice saying the letters.

Sumdog – Educating by Engaging

Sumdog – Educating by Engaging


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Year Level: F-8

Learning Areas: Technologies, Mathematics and English

Strands:

  • Digital Technologies
  • Number and Algebra
  • Measurement and Geometry
  • Statistics and Probability
  • Literature
  • Literacy

Sub Strands:

  • Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding
  • Number and Place Value
  • Using Units of Measurement
  • Chance
  • Data Representation and Interpretation
  • Literature and Context
  • Responding to Literature
  • Examining Literature
  • Texts in Contexts
  • Creating Texts
  • Interpreting, Analysing, Evaluating

Description:
Sumdog is a website that uses educational games to motivate your students in maths, reading and writing. It’s adaptive learning engine monitors and guides them as they work.

Sumdog’s powerful skill browser makes it easy to refine the teacher’s choice, show the curriculum correlations and filter the list by topic or domain. When students master skills, Sumdog rewards them: they earn pets, and their pets learn tricks.

Progress Hub™ is Sumdog’s unique learning engine. It gets to know each student, leading them through the standards, and reports their progress to their teachers. Progress Hub’s skills are aligned to the Australian National Curriculum and broken into manageable steps. As students play, Progress Hub™ learns about each one individually. If students are subscribed, teachers can run detailed proficiency charts showing their growth against the curriculum.

Sumdog is unusual, in that students can practice any skill with any game. While students choose what they play, teachers retain control over their learning. It’s great for motivation: when students move on to a new skill, they can still use their favorite game to work on it.

Features:

  • Cross curricular (Technologies, Mathematics and English)
  • Australian Curriculum aligned
  • Improvement rewards
  • Progress reports
  • Free of charge
  • Engaging games
  • iPad and Android compatible
  • Hold school contests
  • Designed for students aged 4 to 13
  • Adaptive and unique learning engine

Link:
http://www.sumdog.com/

Below are other resources that use educational games to motivate students into improving their Maths and English skills.

Rainforest Maths
Year Level: F-12
Description:
Rainforest Maths is a suite of interactive maths activities, covering the outcomes for each year level and state in Australia. It is useful for preparing students for various state and national testing programs.
Link:
www.rainforestmaths.com

Reading Eggs
Year Level: F-8
Description:
ABC Reading Eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for students, with great online reading games and activities. The students love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate them to keep exploring and learning.
Link:
http://readingeggs.com.au/

Mathletics
Year Level: F-12
Description:
Mathletics is the next generation in learning, helping students enjoy maths and improve their results. It’s fun, supportive, and effective for students of all ages and abilities. Mathletics covers the Australian Curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12.
Link:
www.mathletics.com.au

 

 

 

Kodable

Teaching Kids to Code: Mission Possible

Kodable

Subject: Digital Technologies

Year: P-4

Strand: Digital Technologies

Sub-Strand: Processes and Production Skills

Content Descriptors:

Year P: Use data to complete a task

Year 1: Use data to solve a simple task/problem

Year 2: Use data to solve similar tasks/problems

Year 3: Use visually represented sequenced steps (algorithms), including steps with decisions made by the user (branching)

Year 4: Use simple visual programming environments that include a sequence of steps (algorithm) involving decisions made by the user (branching) 

General capabilities: 

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy
  • Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability
  • Critical and creative thinking

(“Technologies Learning Area Scope and Sequence”, 2015)

Kodable

Kodable introduces students to the concepts involved in computer programming. It provides visual instructions and step-by-step levels. It begins with a back story, introducing the ‘Fuzz family’ crash landing on a planet called Smeeborg. Students then explore mazes and collect coins.

The ‘Fuzz family’ are guided through these mazes as the students drag and drop commands. Each level then reinforces the concepts students are learning, and adds new concepts along the way. Levels are unlocked as students progress through the mazes, but teachers can manually unlock levels as need, which is a great feature for Gifted and talented students who may learn the concepts very quickly and need to be accelerated through the levels to continue to be challenged.

Kodable engages students with fun and colourful characters, and fun games. It keeps them challenged but not overwhelmed. Students build conceptual understanding and build on their knowledge as they think and act like programmers. Videos are provided to introduce students to new concepts, and extensions are provided in the teacher portal.

The Kodable website also provides learning guides for each area. There learning guides provide an overview of the topic, techinical vocabulary, lesson plans, un-plugged activities and on-line activities. Activities provided in the lesson plans include a range of whole group, guided practice and independent activities.

How to Use

Teachers can simply visit the Kodable website and sign up for a free account. Create a class name and class code and add your students to create student profiles (you can simply copy and paste students names from a class list to save time).

Advantages

  • Teachers can manually unlock levels
  • Provides differentiation and extension
  • Scaffolded learning sequence
  • Free teaching resources

Possible Disadvantages

  • After 30 levels it will cost $6.99USD to unlock the rest

Resource Links

Kodable website: https://www.kodable.com/

Kodable App (iTunes): https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/kodable/id577673067?mt=8

Kodable App (Google Play): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.surfscore.kodable.main.android

Platforms

Android

iPad

 References

Kodable. (2016). Retrieved from website: https://www.kodable.com/

Technologies Learning Area Scope and Sequence. (2015). Retrieved from School Curriculum and Standards Authority website: http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/p-10-curriculum/curriculum-browser/technologies/digital-technologies2/technologies-overview/Tech_Scope_and_Sequence.pdf

2 Resources: Kids Rex, Maths is fun

Introduction: The new curriculum provides teachers with a range of resources to use with in the classroom. These can be found on line through many different websites, however how valuable are these resources? Are our students learning? How do we know as educators the resources are providing relevant information to our students and they are learning from this information?

Subject: Digital Technologies

Strand:

Digital technologies knowledge and understanding

Digital technologies processes and production skills

Year Level:

  • Year 1 to 6

Links to other Learning Areas:

  • Maths
  • Literacy
  • Language
  • Science

Cross curricular and General Capabilities:

  • Critical and creative thinking
  • Personal and social capability
  • Literacy
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) Capability

Overview:
The first resource Kids Rex provides a safe search engine for students to research different information needed to complete projects for all curriculum areas.
The second resource Maths is Fun looks at engaging students into different math’s strategies and games to consolidate their learning and understanding.

Resource 1: Kid Rex

This search engine provides valuable information for students to research different topics without the need for teachers to pre read and check the website for inappropriate materials, as all websites have already been approved for children. This is also a great resource to have as all year levels can use this for many different situations such as, educational games, project information and images.

Students can use Kids Rex to investigate, plan and produce a range of technologies for their community, classroom and globally.

http://www.kidrex.org

This resource links to the following content descriptors:

  • Identify, use and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose (ACTDIK001)
  • Explore and use a range of digital systems with peripheral devices for different purposes, and transmit different types of data (ACTDIK007)
  • Investigate the main components of common digital systems, their basic functions and interactions, and how such digital systems may connect together to form networks to transmit data (ACTDIK014)

Resource 2: Maths is fun

This resource provides a range of games for all abilities to consolidate and engage a student’s knowledge and learning of different Maths strategies and sums. This page is updated daily and links to all curriculum needs. You can provide feedback about the page or contribute other ideas.

Students are able to use this site on tablets, smart board or computers. It can be used as small groups, pairs or individual.

This resource links to the following content descriptors:

  • Identify, use and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose (ACTDIK001)
  • Explore and use a range of digital systems with peripheral devices for different purposes, and transmit different types of data (ACTDIK007)
  • Investigate the main components of common digital systems, their basic functions and interactions, and how such digital systems may connect together to form networks to transmit data (ACTDIK014)

References:

http://www.kidrex.org

https://www.mathsisfun.com

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/rationale

Pierce, Rod. (18 Jun 2014). “About Math is Fun”. Math Is Fun. Retrieved 10 Aug 2015 from http://www.mathsisfun.com/aboutmathsisfun.html

The Aussie Educator Design and Technology Page & An individual (student) site

With the introduction of the new curriculum, many new resources have been produced to aid teachers in the delivery of their lessons. Many of these new resources can be found online but the question we are all faced with is: how can we as teachers tell which of these resources are valuable and which are impractical?

Subject: Technologies

Strand: Digital Technologies

Year level: 6

Links to other areas: 

  • Language
  • Literacy
  • Health
  • Science

Cross curricula and General Capabilities:

  • Critical and creative thinking
  • Personal and social capability
  • Literacy
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) Capability
    (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014)

Overview:
This activity looks at students’ ability to attain the skills and knowledge to perform ten Sign words for the class. This activity looks at a students ability to use the technology to find the relevant information and how they can attain the reliability of the information.

I have reviewed two resource sites for teachers to use. Both of which I have found helpful in my planning for teaching technologies.

The Aussie Educator Design and Technology Page
The first valuable resource is The Aussie Educator Design and Technology page (Aussieeducator.org.au, 2014). This webpage breaks down the curriculum into a handful of subheadings that can assist teachers in the use and navigation of the website. The website is a portal to many others. Many of the adjoining webpages are interactive, informational pages that may be useful.

This website also looks at the ethical practices as well as the responsibilities associated with the use of technologies. This practice is often forgotten by teachers or not explicitly taught. The following content descriptors explicitly state that students need to gain an understanding of ethical practices.

“Work with others to plan the creation and communication of ideas and information safely, applying agreed ethical and social protocols (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014).”

“Manage the creation and communication of ideas and information including online collaborative projects, applying agreed ethical, social and technical protocols (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014).”

These content descriptors can be found in years 3 to 6.  Both content descriptors are concerned with ethical protocols. This webpage also looks at the impact of technology and the history of design.

An individual (student) site
The second site available for teachers is An Individual (student) Site; this site looks at consolidating a number of important sites for teachers into one spot. This site has direct links to the Australian Curriculum (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014) and ACCARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority) (acara.edu.au, 2014).

This site can be useful for teachers as it provides access to most of the major webpages needed by teachers in an easily accessible place.

References

Acara.edu.au,. (2014). Home | ACARA. Retrieved from http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp

Aussieeducator.org.au,. (2014). Design & Technology – Aussie Educator. Retrieved from http://www.aussieeducator.org.au/curriculum/technology/designtech.html#tbt

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0 Digital Technologies Foundation to Year 10 Curriculum by rows. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/Curriculum/F-10?y=F-2&y=3-4&y=5-6&y=7-8&y=9-10&s=DIKU&s=DIPPS&c=7&layout=1

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0 General capabilities – General capabilities in the Australian Curriculum. Retrieved 11 August 2014, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Overview/general-capabilities-in-the-australian-curriculum

Digital Technologies,. (2012). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from http://studenteportfolio.wordpress.com/140-2/