Tech Tool of the Week: Motion Math Apps

Looking for a fun way to give your students extra practice with newly learned math skills? How about trying an iPad math game? This week's highlighted tech tool is a group of math games for iPad by a company called Motion Math.  So far Motion Math has released five different math games appropriate for a wide range of ages, ranging from PreK through middle school. Several of these apps were CAIS student favorites in computer class last year! 

Consider borrowing the iPad cart and having your students spend some time practicing their math skills using one of the Motion Math apps. Stop by a Tech Tuesday to get some hands-on time with  the iPads and try out these games yourself!

Here is a description of the Motion Math games:

1. Hungry Fish (PK - 8th): Practice mental addition and subtraction. Includes a game for adding/subtracting negative numbers (appropriate for middle schoolers and up). A highly addictive, well-designed game that is a student favorite!

2. Hungry Guppy (PK - 1st): A great app for early number learning. Similar to Hungry Fish, but geared for younger kids (especially age 3 - 4). Students build basic number sense and addition skills.

3. Motion Math (3rd - 8th): Helps students perceive and estimate fractions in multiple forms (including decimals and percents).  Move fractions to their correct place on the number line.  A very fun app!

4. Zoom (1st - 8th): Master place value by placing numbers on a number line.  Starts at basic numbers and moves into negatives and decimals.

5. Wings (1st - 6th): Improve mental multiplication and estimation skills. Students must direct their flying bird to pass over the larger of two numbers, represented in various ways: rows of dots, clusters of dots, groups of dots, a grid, a labeled grid, and symbols (e.g. 2 x 3).

Not only have CAIS students played Motion Math apps in the past, but they have also contributed to the development of some of these apps!  The Motion Math team visited CAIS twice last year and once this fall to test their apps with our students. Last spring, 1st - 4th graders helped test "Motion Math: Wings" before it was publicly released. Motion Math returned to CAIS in early September to test their latest app with our 6th graders. This new game focuses on estimation skills and adds a competitive element: it is designed to be played in pairs or small groups. Stay tuned for news on its release!

Motion Math co-founder Jacob Klein works with CAIS student Arthur S. (then a member of the 1st Grade Green class) in May 2012.

CAIS 6th graders Henry P. and Harrison H. test the latest Motion Math app in technology class, September 2012.

Tech Tool of the Week: SpellingCity

Exciting news in the 6th grade!  This year students will learn spelling and vocabulary through a fantastic program called SpellingCity.  I've heard teachers rave about this website at conferences, so I was thrilled to learn that our very own Mr. Sproull is trying this program with his students this year!  Even better, SpellingCity has a new iPad app to accompany its website, so our 6th graders can use the app on their iPads (provided through the new, 6th grade 1:1 iPad pilot program).

On SpellingCity, teachers can choose ready-made lists of words or create their own custom lists.  There is a wide variety of word lists to choose from, ranging from comprehensive grade level lists (levels PK through 12th grade) to lists of words specific to certain topics (like science or math vocabulary).   Students can practice spelling these words and study their definitions.  To help students learn the proper pronunciation of the words on their practice lists, SpellingCity provides clear, spoken recordings of every word.  Students can study spelling, make flashcards, play games, and take tests to check their progress.  

The new SpellingCity iPad app!

One feature of SpellingCity that Jake particularly likes is that kids can take as many games and quizzes as they want and can progress at their own pace.  In his class, the requirement is to pass at least one test per week, which amounts to about 20 words.  His students are to spend at least two days per week for 20 minutes at a time practicing spelling/vocabulary on SpellingCity.

As an added benefit, parents can log on to monitor their child's progress!  Best of all, SpellingCity is free for basic membership.  Premium membership gives kids access to additional learning activities, allows students to have individual log-ins, and enables teachers to track their students' progress.  At an affordable price of $1.95 per student, it is worth the upgrade for Mr. Sproull's 6th grade class!

To learn more about SpellingCity, take a moment to watch these two short (1-minute) videos that provide a quick introduction to SpellingCity.  The first is geared toward Teachers and Parents, and the second shows students how to use the site.

Want to learn more?  Check out SpellingCity's Teacher Resources section or look through their Training Videos.  Or, as always, you can ask me for help...and be sure to ask Jake how it's going with his 6th graders!

Tech Tool of the Week: VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a terrific tool for digital storytelling that is available both on the web and on the iPad. Students can upload photos or documents and record audio or video commentary. In addition, they can invite others to record and add their own commentary. Using simple tools, students can quickly create multimedia presentations. Ideas for ways students could use VoiceThread include: 

• Create virtual tours
• Report on books they've read
• Comment on historically significant photographs
• Debate a topic 

Two things make VoiceThread unique as a digital storytelling tool. First, VoiceThread makes it easy to add audio commentary to images and documents. Second, VoiceThread allows users to add multiple commentaries to a single artifact.

To learn how to use VoiceThread, you can watch this tutorial video.

To see examples of how VoiceThread can be used in a classroom setting, take a look at VoiceThread's library of articles about successful VoiceThread projects. In particular, here is an example of an immigration project on Ellis Island from a 5th grade class.

Tech Tool of the Week: Edutopia

Welcome back to school!  Hope you had a great summer and are feeling energized for the new school year.  One of my favorite parts about teaching is the unique opportunity we get as educators to start fresh every year.  It's a chance to try new things in your classroom; to repeat things that worked well or change things that didn't; to recreate yourself as a teacher and, as our mission says, to strive to "become your best self".  How many other professions get the same type of opportunity?  We are lucky, indeed!

Here at CAIS we have had a lot of change in our technology program in a short time.  We sincerely appreciate everyone's patience and cooperation.  Xiaoqing and I are looking forward to helping you find new and exciting ways to integrate technology into your curriculum this year!

For my first post of the new school year, I wanted to recommend one of my favorite resources for learning about educational technology.  Edutopia is a fantastic website run by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging innovation in schools.  The website has a wealth of resources for teachers on topics such as project-based learning, technology integration, social and emotional learning, integrated studies, teacher development and comprehensive assessment.  

In addition, Edutopia sends out a weekly newsletter that contains links to practical, interesting articles and videos.  The newsletters also provide great ideas about how to use technology in the classroom.  Sign up for Edutopia's weekly newsletter here.  Spending a few minutes each week reading Edutopia's newsletter would be a great way to get new ideas for ways you can integrate technology into your curriculum.


From everyone here in the IT office, we wish you a terrific start to the school year!

Build Your Tech Skills This Summer

School's out for summer!  Congratulations to all of the CAIS faculty and staff on wrapping up a terrific school year.

While you are enjoying your time off this summer, why not take advantage of your free time and learn a new technology skill?  CAIS recently subscribed to lynda.com, a website with thousands of classes you can take on subjects such as digital photography, video, software, basic computer use, operating systems...the list goes on and on!  Peter Moore described this as being like "great surf, Christmas, and my birthday all rolled into one."


Take a look at Lynda and see what courses interest you.  You can watch just one short tutorial per day (each video is about 2 minutes long) and complete a course in no time at all.  You will learn more about a topic than you ever thought possible!


Here is how to get started:

1. While you are on campus at 150 Oak St. (you cannot set up an account from home), go to: http://iplogin.lynda.com
2. Click "Create a Profile"
3. Sign up using your CAIS email address
4. Start using lynda.com!  (Once you have signed up, you will be able to access Lynda from anywhere.)

Hope that you enjoy using lynda.com!  We think it will be a terrific resource for our faculty in providing another way to build new technology skills.  The beauty of lynda.com is that you can access it anytime, anywhere, whenever it is convenient for you.

From all of us here in the IT Department, we wish you and your families a fun, relaxing, rejuvenating summer break!

Tech Tool of the Week: TED Talks

This week's highlighted technology tool is TED Talks.  TED (Technology, Education, and Design) is a nonprofit organization that sponsors "riveting talks by remarkable people".  These talks are made free to the world through TED's website.  More than 900 talks are available, and they are all free to watch and use!  There are many fascinating talks by smart, interesting, creative people.  TED Talks are great for watching on your own or for sharing with your class!


Now you can not only watch TED talks on your computer, but also on your iPhone or iPad!  TED just released a free iPhone/iPad app which you can use to download any TED talk and watch it offline.  In addition, our school iPads all have the TED app installed.  So if you find a TED talk that you would like your students to watch, you could either project it in front of the entire class or have individuals students watch it on the iPads.


Here are a few recommendations for TED Talks to get you started.  These are all favorites of our very own Peter Moore.


Steve Jobs
John Wooden
Sheena Iyengar
Ken Robinson
The 20 most-watched TED Talks (as of June 2011)

Tech Tool of the Week 2: Storia

Since our first Tech Tool of the Week is a Chinese app, here is a similar tool that is appropriate for our English classes.  Storia is a new iPad app that is designed for reading Scholastic eBooks on iPads, Android tablets, or Windows computers.  The app is free and comes with five free eBooks.  Beyond that, teachers (or parents) can purchase from a wide selection of books appropriate to a variety of different age levels.  Scholastic is continuously expanding their library of eBooks, so more and more titles will become available over time.


The eBooks include audio narration, pronunciation tools, and phonics and vocabulary activities.  Older readers can highlight, take notes, and watch videos that provide real-world context for book topics.  Scholastic also offers a series of "Enriched eBooks" which feature word games, story interactions, and animations.


This is a great app to recommend to parents who are looking for educational iPad apps for their children to use at home!  While Storia is not currently installed on our classroom sets of iPads, we would be happy to install it if teachers are interested in using it in their classes.

Tech Tool of the Week 1: ChildRoad for iPads!

Many of our Chinese faculty are already familiar with ChildRoad, a website that offers over 1,000 books read in Mandarin by professional actors and television hosts in China, with characters and Pinyin for reading along.  ChildRoad has now released an iPad app featuring all of the books from its website!  This app is newly installed on our Lower School and Middle School iPads.  Now Chinese faculty who are interested can borrow the iPad carts and allow children to read and listen to ChildRoad stories on the iPads.  Please feel free to spread the word to parents who may like to download this app on their personal iPads for children to use at home.

Summer Workshops on Teaching with Technology

There are a number of exciting opportunities for technology professional development that are happening this summer.  We would really like to support technology professional development for teachers, so if any of these workshops sound interesting to you, we encourage you to attend!  Please contact me if you have any questions.

1) Harker Teacher Institute

Registration is now open for Harker’s Annual Teacher Institute!

The Harker School (in San Jose) has again partnered with SVCUE (Silicon Valley Computer Using Educators) to host our annual Teacher Institute on Saturday, June 9th at Harker’s Upper School campus from 9:00 AM to 2:45 PM.  The $20 registration fee includes three sessions, lunch and a 2G flash drive!  Click here for a list of workshop topics.

Go to the following web page to register securely:
http://tinyurl.com/HarkerInstitute

2) Back for an amazing THIRD year: The CUE (Computer Using Educators) Rock Star Teacher Camps!!

Small class sizes: 6+ Lead Learners and a cap of 60 attendees! • Amazing Lead Learners, almost all of them are Apple Distinguished Educators, Google Certified Teachers or BOTH • THREE FULL DAYS of hands on sessions • Price includes light breakfast, lunch, beverages and ice cream • Only $159 for all three days* • Morning "Shred Sessions" where you get a LIVE DEMO by each presenter! Join and change the way you teach!

Who Should Attend?

The CUE Rock Star camps are focused on developing teachers who want to join a larger group of Ed Tech oriented educators that want to "step up", either designing and executing better styles of teaching and learning, or who desire to become presenters and advocates for the use of Educational Technology.

Rock Star Teacher Summer Tech Camp - Central Coast: July 11-13, Santa Ynez School, Santa Ynez, CA

Rock Star Teacher Summer Tech Camp - Minarets High School: August 7-9, Minarets High School, O'Neals, CA

Click Here to Register    Twitter hashtag: #cuerockstar
This camp has sold out both years - sign up NOW - RockStarTeacher.US
Questions? Email Jon Corippo - jcorippo@gmail.com

3) Head-Royce: Institute for 21st Century Educators

http://www.headroyce.org/page.cfm?p=2224
Session I: June 12-15
Session II: June 25-29
One- and two-day workshops in a variety of topics, held at Head-Royce School in Oakland.

4) Nueva School: Design Thinking Institute

http://www.nuevadesigninstitute.org/

June 18-21, 2012

Learn design thinking skills and check out Nueva's super cool Innovation Lab.  Nueva is located in Hillsborough (about a 20-minute drive from San Francisco).

5) The Urban School: Center for Innovative Teaching

June 18-22 (San Francisco) and August 13-17 (New York)

The Center for Innovative Teaching 2012 at the Urban School of San Francisco offers educators its seventh annual program with workshops in key academic, leadership and co-curricular areas. CIT workshops are hands-on and designed to share classroom-tested activities and approaches that will enhance the educational program at any middle or high school.

This summer, CIT workshops are available for a range of disciplines including Math, Science, Language, Leadership/Co-Curricular, Technology & Pedagogy, and Service Learning and will take place in San Francisco and New York. 

6) Google Apps for Education California Summit

If you're interested in Google Apps for Education, this is the first annual Google Apps for Education California Summit to be held at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara on July 12 & 13, 2012. This high intensity two day event focuses on deploying, integrating and using Google Apps for Education to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education. The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team.

For more info or to register, go to http://ca.gafesummit.com/

Tech Tool of the Week: Educreations

This week's highlighted technology tool is an iPad app called Educreations.  This app makes it easy to create, narrate, and record whiteboard video tutorials on the iPad and share your videos with others.


You can find Educreations in the Photo/Video folder on the CAIS iPads.  When you start the app, you will see a blank screen that looks like a whiteboard.  There are ten ink colors you can use for writing.  When you are ready, press the record button.  Begin to write/draw and speak.  Everything you write and say will be recorded into a video.  You can pause while recording if you need a break, then start recording again to continue.  If you run out of space on the page, simply tap the arrow to go to a new page.


One great feature of this app is that you can put a photo or diagram in the background. To do this, click on the image of a photo. You can add images from the iPad camera, the Photo Library, or Dropbox.  You can also move and resize images while you record. 


Prefer to make your video on your computer instead of an iPad?  No problem!  You can create video tutorials on Educreation's website.  Simply set up a free account.


Educreations hosts the videos themselves on educreations.com.  Teachers using the site can choose to share videos privately or make them public so that anyone can see them.  (You can also embed the videos into your class website!)


Educreations is a great tool for creating videos that your students can view at home.  Kids could use your videos for extra practice or even to learn a new concept!  For example, this could be a perfect way to illustrate stroke order or explain a math skill.  Consider saving valuable classroom time by creating videos and having students watch at home!


Here are two examples of Educreations videos made right here at CAIS! The first was created by Kui Lao Shi. Her video explains fraction multiplication.  The second is a basic algebra word problem by 4th grader Hannah F.