Introducing New Web Tools!

Today's kids are computer savvy from an early age.

Kids today are very comfortable with technology. They interact with it from a very early age and don't have the same degree of uncertainty when it comes to technology as many adults do. For kids, technology has always been a part of their lives. They don't know a life without it! This semester I am taking a graduate course on how to use new technologies in the classroom and I wanted to share a few of them with you.

Kid Blog:  Kid Blog is a great way for students to interact with one another around a given question or idea. When students log on to Kid Blog they are able to respond to a question posted by their teacher. This page is only viewable to those with passwords and all comments have to be approved by the teacher before they go live. These features help with the online safety of the site. We are using Kid Blog this year to have book discussions related to the comprehension strategies we are learning about in class. Since we are studying weather, we are also going to keep in touch with our classmate Saket, who is in India until January. He is going to keep us posted on the weather in India and we will tell him about the weather here in Massachusetts!

Ten Marks: In the coming weeks we will begin looking at an online program called Ten Marks. Ten Marks is a way to check in with students on skills we are learning in math class. Sometimes we will use Ten Marks in the classroom and sometimes I will send the link home as a homework assignment. This program will provide students with a series of 10-20 math questions and will be used to check in with students to see if they are able to independently apply the skills we are working on in class.

XtraMath and Fact Dash:  Both of these sites are great ways to practice your math facts. Math fact automaticity is incredibly important as we move towards solving larger addition and subtraction problems, and later as students move on to large multiplication and division problems. Students who have mastered their math facts have a much easier time with these skills. Some students dislike XtraMath because of the timer feature. If this describes your child, check out Fact Dash. In Fact Dash you have the option to turn the timer on or off, which makes it more comfortable for many students.

All of these sites are linked on the side of this blog. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you are having trouble logging into or using any of these sites and I'll be happy to help you out with it. Be on the lookout for login information for Ten Marks, which will be coming home with your student in about a week! Enjoy!