GameUp with BrainPop

Seventy-four percent of K-8 teachers in a recent survey by the Games and Learning Publishing Council reported using digital games for instruction. Gaming can definitely enrich your classroom and further enhance student learning. One great gaming tool is GameUp. 

GameUp is a FREE resource through BrainPop that provides fun, interactive and educational games that will engage and challenge your students. GameUp addresses a wide variety of K-12 content areas, including: Science, Math, Social Studies, Health, English, and Engineering/Technology.

GameUp's Quality Learning Games:

- Motivate and provide goals

- Encourage participation

- Foster creative, interactive problem-solving

- Strengthen critical and systems thinking

- Pose adaptive challenges

- Spark inquiry

- Require very little prep by busy teachers

(View on Youtube)

What you need to know about GameUp:

- Search games by K-12 state standards as well as by lesson plans and grade level.

- Lesson plans, games, and quizzes/assessment tools are FREE.

- Students can also watch related BrainPop/Jr. videos if you are a BrainPop subscriber.

- Teachers can assign different game levels for differentiation.

Have you already used GameUp? What other ways are you gaming in your classroom? Let us know in the comments below.  

Resources
Digital Learning Games Used by Majority of Teachers, Survey Finds
Games and Learning Publishing Council
Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World!
Gamification in Education

Infuse Learning: A Virtual Student Response System

 I am excited to share with you InfuseLearning.  Move over Socrative, PollEverywhere, and other student response systems.  It just got easier.  InfuseLearning is the newest virtual tool for this job in the classroom.  It is empowering yet simple to use.  The online tool allows you to push questions, pictures, prompts, and quizzes to each student device.  School districts that are lucky enough to have classroom sets of mobile devices, laptops, or have a successful BYOD program set up are able to use this tool easily.  It provides a platform that allows teachers to engage every student on any device. It is not limited by location or device.  Real-time student feedback, enhanced interest, differentiation, and effective questioning are all part of this tool.

• Quick Assessment, sometimes called on- the- fly questioning, can come in the form of Draw Response, True/False, Multiple Choice, Sort in Order, Open Ended Text Answer, Numeric, and Likert Scale.
• The ability to send a weblink or a math problem to every student device is part of the Interactive tools.
• Quizzes can be created ahead of time and then pushed to the student devices.
• Quiz Results can be downloaded to a spreadsheet and saved.
• The teacher has the ability to see each student response, including how they solved the problem you pushed to them.

Teachers go to:   http://www.infuselearning.com/ to register for free.

Teachers go to:   http://teacher.infuselearning.com/ to set up quizzes and receive your student room number.

Students go to:  http://student.infuselearning.com/ and wait for quizzes and questions to be pushed down to them.

 

One side note:  It must be used with browsers other than Internet Explorer.  You can use Chrome or Firefox with no problem.  You will get an error with IE.

 

 

 

Celebrate February

This month contains many celebrations from Black History Month to Valentine's Day.  Here are some resources for you and your students. 

               Resources for Black History Month

Thinkfinity

PBS

History.com

Smithsonian Education 

Scholastic.com

 

Websites I love....

Flipsnack   Add a pdf document, convert it to a flipping book, embed and share

  
Wetransfer   Send large files (Flipcharts, videos) up to 2 GB to your fellow teachers

Neok12  Check out the interactive diagrams for white boards on this site

Downforeveryoneorjustme   Sometimes I go to a website and it is down.  I always wonder if it is just me/my computer/my network or is the website down for everyone. No longer!  

http://www.symbaloo.com/  Park your favorite websites here using this icon based website.  Access them from any computer.

Gadgets I love.... 

http://standscan.com/StandScan/  Take high quality scans or photograph objects like a pro.  Documents stay flat.  This gadget is ultra-portable and folds flat.  This is the new way to scan documents anywhere, anytime.    The price is right…$19.95 

 http://pinterest.com/techchicktips/tech-stuff-we-love/  This Pinterest page is all about gadgets.  Included on this page are items such as: 

• The KVM switch which allows you to connect both your laptop and iPad to your projector allowing you to toggle back and forth between the two devices with the push of a button.
• Vera Bradley iPad case
• Jam wireless portable speaker