Edgaged

www.sumdog.com is a great website for math-fact practice. It takes math and puts it into a great interactive format because the games are fun, competitive, and many require strategy. Creating an account is free (which is what I will show you). Detailed reports require a paid membership. This site does work on the iPad, however, you must use the Rover app to use it because it is Flash-based. (As of 4/23/2012, Rover is not working on the East Noble network.) First, you start out with creating a class and the students get a username and password. You do have the ability to adjust their passwords.        Once the students login, you will be able to see how many games they have played and questions they have answered. A paid membership will give detailed information as to what areas are their strengths and weaknesses. Now about the games... Your students compete against random students in a variety of interactive games. Some of them require strategy along with their ability to answer math ...

www.wonderopolis.org . If you have never checked this site out, please do not delay. This site is maintained by six educators that attempt to answer the questions that many students, as well as adults, wonder about on a daily basis. They have subjects categorized for ease of searching as well as numerized for each wonder that has been answered. It also provides the opportunity for dicussion and feedback with each posted wonder. (The feedback portion may require some lessons in regards to digital citizenship and cyberbullying.) The authors provide answers using a voice with which students can relate, and would be appropriate for all elementary readers. This site may prove useful for your students that are reluctant readers, or for researching needs. The best part of it all...it is free! I will be adding this site to the East Noble Symbaloo pages so that your students will have access to them.

Explorer: The American Museum of Natural History is a great iPod app for the purpose of touring the museum in New York City. Not all the features are available since the user is supposed to actually be inside the museum while it is in use. This mostly includes the mapping portion of the app. However, it will provide a great virtual tour for students with short snippets of facts about the exhibits. You as a teacher could create a questionnaire/scavenger hunt as the students visit different parts of the museum. It would be a fun way to take a field trip...without the worry of losing a student. You could still have parents come in as chaperones!

This week we have been consumed with getting the online practice ISTEP to work properly. We have been spending a lot of time uninstalling and reinstalling the program, attempting to communicate with the technology department on the issues, and working around our latest network changes. This includes not being able to access Google and iTunes which we use on a daily basis. Many of you are wondering what the issues are, and Zack and I cannot really give you a straightforward answer. What I do know is that Rick has been working hard to reconfigure the new filter for our network. At some point in time, we will be better off than before. We will continue to attempt to add materials to this website, but it will be a little more limited because we never really know when we will be able to access it. I also have found it to be helpful if I download a plethora of apps in the evening so that I can test them while the network is not cooperating with us. Nevertheless, we will continue posting abou...

3D Brain gives students a glimpse of the complexity of their Brain. It features a fully rotational model along with descriptions of the various parts. The text reading level is pretty complex, however, the biologist in your classroom will be hooked.

Geometry Pad would make a great app for students studying angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals. Students can make the angles and shapes, and also keep their work directly on the iPad. It does not have an export feature, but students could easily take a screen shot of their work and email it to their teacher if necessary.

Google Translate is a language tool that is extremely relevant in today's classroom. Numerous times this tool could have been useful for me to communicate with parents and students of different nationalities. The great part is, you can also record your voice. However, it does not always accurately script your voice. I also had the opportunity to check with some Arabic speaking students to check the accuracy of the translation. According to them, it translated correctly. The iTunes version is linked on the title of this app, but you can also use the web-based version at translate.google.com .