Math Chimp Expands to Middle School

Math Chimp is a catalog of mathematics games and activities that I initially wrote about last fall. At that time they only listed resources for elementary school. Now they have expanded to cover activities and games for middle school mathematics students. While Math Chimp is far from being a revolutionary mathematics resource, the catalog is handy for teachers looking for materials that their students can use independently. Teachers can find games on Math Chimp by selecting the grade that they teach then selecting a standard or objective. After you make those selections Math Chimp will direct you to an appropriate mathematics game for your students.

On a related note, one of the sponsors of Free Technology for Teachers, ABCYa offers great elementary school mathematics games that can be played online and on an iPad.

Teaching in a 1:1 Environment in Maine - Guest Post

Editor's note: Whenever I travel out of Maine, teachers ask me about Maine's 1:1 MacBook program for middle schools. Since I don't teach in a middle school, I thought it would be good to share the perspective of a Maine middle school teacher. 

The great thing about teaching with technology is that it can open new doors for your students. However, you have to be willing to walk through that door with them in order to see those benefits. Since you’re reading a blog entitled “Free Technology for Teachers,” I’m guessing you’re already there.

The trap too many of us fall in to with technology is that we’re just doing the same things we’ve always done, except now there’s a computer involved. Sure, there are some “21st Century Skills” that students achieve (often times we falsely assume through osmosis), but at the end of the day, showing video clips on Youtube is no different than popping a video in the old VCR.

Likewise, much of the same classroom management challenges we faced before we introduced laptops to our students are still there and are manifesting themselves in new ways. Too often I hear teachers blaming these classroom management problems on the technology itself, rather than the real root causes. Texting is just note passing. Even with technology, you still need clear and consistent expectations, engaging lessons, and an understanding of how the adolescent mind works.

In my room, the desks are arranged in groups that face each other to encourage collaboration among students. Some teachers dictate how their classrooms should be physically arranged based on the need to “see” every student’s screen. I made my decision based on what I felt would be best for my students in the long run, not the need to have a semblance of control (an extra benefit is that it encourages me to move more in my classroom to assist students and monitor their activity instead of sitting at my desk and staring at the back of my students’ heads).

To really revolutionize our classrooms, we have to fully embrace Web 2.0. At the end of the day though, the things that make Web 2.0 great- collaboration, peer feedback, real-world application- are the things that have always been the key ingredients to great teaching. The upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy don’t change because you’re connected to the internet. It’s the fact that you can now access and create content on an international level, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, that makes it truly powerful.

In the past, great teachers have struggled to engage their “hard to teach” kids across the learning spectrum. However, we now have a limitless amount of resources at their fingertips. We live in an age of self-guided learning, where students can access huge amount’s of college-level material from MIT and Yale. If the technology your student needs isn’t out there, they can create (and monetize) their very own app to get the job done! The possibilities, for once, truly are endless.

We have always known that learning never stops, but now we have an incredible amount of resources that make it easier than ever before. If you’re a great teacher, you’ll still build your learning activities with those key elements like you’ve always done, except that the doors you open for your students will be more limitless than ever before. 


About the Guest Blogger
Ryan Reed is a second-year middle school teacher in Maine, where seventh and eighth grade public-school students and teachers have been provided Apple laptop computers for the last decade. You can connect with him on Twitter.

Web 2.0 Collaborative Projects in the Middle School

I am the library media specialist for my school and part of my job is to assist my faculty with the integration of technology in the curriculum. As such, I am always searching for new ideas to use in collaborating with my classroom teachers. Showcased below are a few of the Web 2.0 tools I have used with classes along with details of specific projects I have helped students to produce.

Cacoo is a free online diagraming tool which allows real-time collaboration. Teachers can sign up for a free Academic Plan which allows them to add student users. *Please note the Academic Plan is free through June 30, 2012 after which it will be half the price of the Team Plan.

The Project:
After studying Georgia's barrier islands for the term, students used Cacoo to create a food web of native plants and animals. The class was divided into groups of four students. All four students in each group had individual Cacoo accounts and were required to work collaboratively via Cacoo to design one food web. As an added challenge, group members were not allowed to talk about the project but were required to “chat” online within their Cacoo accounts instead.

My Observations:

Teaching the kids how to use the program took half a class period as students caught on very quickly. We had a few problems with students returning permission forms, forgetting passwords, and one group not working well together. Since group activities and the guidelines for group work were very familiar to students, group problems were quickly resolved. I found no technology problems with Cacoo at all and will use the tool with future projects. I do wish they would reconsider the upcoming price increase for the Academic Plan.

Weebly is a free site which allows users to create websites and blogs using widgets. Weebly for Education enables teacher users to create free accounts for students to build their own websites.

The Project:
After studying all year about New York City, our 8th grade gifted groups take a five-day guided bus tour to the Big Apple. Upon their return, students create websites about their trip and are required to use their own digital images. Requirements include at least four categorized pages on the site and a minimum of 10 articles about New York City.

My Observations:

Teaching classes to use Weebly took one class period and required mini-sessions during the week-long project for some reteaching of the multimedia and blog sidebar items. Good web design techniques(compared to bad) as well as using complementary color schemes were also a part of the lesson. Since students had been studying the topic all year, they already had a vision for the content. As soon as I completed instruction, kids quickly got to work on their designs. Weebly was a very simple tool for their websites and I would use with students again.

Photo Story 3 is a free software download from Microsoft which enables users to create slideshows using your own digital pictures. The program allows you to edit photos, include text, add motion, insert narration, and create your own soundtrack. Please note the program is  Windows-based and is not available for Mac.

The Project:
Students created book trailers on their favorite fiction book to share. Similar to movie trailers, a book trailer is a video advertisement for a book produced to encourage viewers to read it.

My Observations:
I always start with a project introduction a week before we begin working with Photo Story 3. To grab their attention, I show several examples of trailers and talk about persuasive advertising techniques. Students work on storyboarding for the next week in the classroom to graphically organize their thoughts. Once they come back to the media center, teaching how to use Photo Story 3 takes one full class period before they can begin creating their book trailers. More details including examples, a rubric, and a project timeline can found on my book trailer post.

One of my 8th graders chose to create his book trailer on Peak by Roland Smith.

Fotoflexer is a free online image editor which allows you to perform basic editing options as well as some advanced features. You can create an account to save a project you are currently working on to login later to complete.  


The Project:
Students must select an online image to edit and employ techniques taught during the Fotoflexer Media Literacy lesson.


My Observations:
Most of my students have no idea how much editing is done to photos. I start my lesson by showing some before and after celebrity photos. We discuss that our perceptions of a normal body image are impacted negatively by these examples. 




I also show classes how edited photos are used to manipulate the way we think. After our class discussion, I show students how the pros edit photos. 

I use Fotoflexer because it is very simple to use but it also has some advanced features under the “Geek” tab. My favorite tool is the Smart Scissors which allows you to cut out a portion of an image for placement in another. The kid’s favorite is the distort tab which allows a plus-sized model to lose 30 pounds with one mouse click.


About the Guest Blogger:

Denise Borck has been teaching for 20 years at the middle level, the last twelve years of which have been spent in the library media center. She loves being able to share her love of reading with her students as well as her interest in technology. Denise has been selected as the 2012 Teacher of the Year for her school and the 2010 Media Specialist of the Year for the Coastal Region District of Georgia. You can follow her at http://dborck.wordpress.com or at http://wjms.bulloch.k12.ga.us/media_center_home.

Middle School Students Love Little Bird Tales Too - Guest Post

At first glance, one would think that the online story creation and narration site, Little Bird Tales, is just for young children. But, my 8th grade English students would beg to differ. Ever since I showed them the site as part of our daily “Tech Two Tool” lesson, they have found multiple ways to put the site to work for them. Not only do they use the site to record stories they have written, but one student even used it to help her remember her editing symbols.  Another student used the site as a creative way to share his figurative language unit poem about Einstein. Yet another student chose to use Little Bird Tales to write a letter to the author of a book he read. And a group of students recently used the site to display their persuasive public service announcement about modern day slavery. When students have a video project that needs a storyboard, Little Bird Tales is the go-to tool for that as well. Many students have also reported using the site for projects in their other classes (Math, Social Studies, Spanish, Art) in lieu of power points, posters, and presentations. Plus, during exam week, students used the site to make narrated study tools, like illustrated flash cards and outlines, to share with each other.  Even I have used Little Bird Tales as an idea board for what I think a “perfect” school might look like. So, as you can imagine, “May we use Little Bird Tales for this?” is a common question in my classroom.

Little Bird Tales is very easy to use. Just upload images (or draw your own right on the site), type in text, and record your voice. Then use the link for your “tale” to share it with the world. A demo video on the site’s home page walks you through these steps as well. Judging from the things my students have come up with to do with Little Bird Tales, this site is MUCH more than just a storytelling tool.

Here's a video about little bird tales. 




Guest blogger--Shawntel Allen--dog-lover, global gypsy, teacher (at an international school in Bogota, Colombia), tech-junkie, and student (in the Master’s of Arts in Learning Technologies program at Pepperdine University.) In my “spare” time, I am working on adding coder to that list. Join the conversation on my blog, Disruptive Force, or “follow me” on Twitter, “globalgypsygirl”.

An Animated Guide to Electric Circuits

The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits is a neat series of interactive animations designed to help students of elementary and middle school age learn how electric circuits work. There are five sections to the series. Each sections builds upon the lessons of the previous section. The series starts with the basics of what makes a circuit complete and concludes with diagramming and building circuits. Each section in the series has a few short lessons and is followed by an animated interactive activity to which students can apply what they have just learned. 

Applications for Education

The name, "Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits" reminded me a bit of the Squishy Circuits activity that I wrote about last fall. The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits could be a good way for students to learn about electric circuits before you attempt a classroom activity like that of Squishy Circuits. 

Thanks to Jen Deyenberg for sharing this great resource on Twitter. 

Chronicles of the American Revolution

Liberty, The American Revolution is a feature on PBS.org. There are a couple of resources in this feature that are worth noting. First, and probably the most useful, is The Chronicle of Revolution. The Chronicle of Revolution provides a timeline of events that contributed to the start of the American Revolution. Students can read newspaper accounts as they go through the chronicles. Within each newspaper account are links to further reading about important people and places mentioned in the articles.

The second item of interest in Liberty, The American Revolution is the Road to Revolution game. The game isn't really a game, it's more like a quiz with some graphics added to it. The game is designed to quiz students on the information in The Chronicle of Revolution.

Applications for Education
The Chronicle of Revolution and the Road to Revolution are best suited to use with middle school students or possibly older elementary school students. Neither resource will replace your textbooks, but they certainly make good supplements to them.

Please click here for seven more resources for teaching about the American Revolution.