Friday, August 24, 2012

Free App Friday - A Triple Feature

To help start off a new school year, today's Free App Friday will be a triple feature of useful apps.







Spelling City (a wonderful Web 2.0 site) now offers a free app version that gives users access to a list of over 40 thousand words.  There are separate activities such as Teach Me, Test Me, Match It, Word Unscramble, Hang Mouse, and Which Word. While registration isn't required to use, if you do register, you can then create custom lists for your students.


Applications for Education: 

  • Use pre-created or custom word lists for students for spelling tests.
  • Use Teach Me activity to have words or sentences read out loud to younger students.
  • Use games such as Hang Mouse and Word Unscramble in learning centers.

Geometry Pad is an app students can use to learn geometry and understand key geometry concepts through practice. With Geometry Pad you can: move/resize geometric shapes and watch how its metrics are changing in real time, demonstrate theorems about incircles and excircles locations, and create and annotate complex geometric figures.


Applications for Education: 
  • Create geometric shapes and measure all its possible metrics like length, angle, area, perimeter, intersections, distance between points, angles between lines.
  • Demonstrate circle theorems by creating and changing inscribed and center angles.


K12 Periodic Table of the Elements is an app that lets you explore the elements and their key attributes in an easy-to-use manner.  Simply tap on the element and a display of the elements  name, symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, Lewis dots, and radius appear. Colors change in the table to show classification, melting point, boiling point, outermost orbital, radius, ion radius, electronegativity, and ionization energy. Temperatures are shown in Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit scales.

The table even includes the newly named elements Darmstadtium (110), Roentgenium (111), Copernicium (112), and Ununhexium (116).





Friday, August 17, 2012

Polls.io


Summer is over, so as you prepare for the new school year, here is a Web 2.0 resource that is perfect for student laptops or a personal student device.  




Polls.io is a free and simple site that allows you to create simple one questions polls in a matter of seconds. There is no registration required for the site. Simply go to Polls.io and type your poll question. You can enter up to eight answer choices for respondents to select from. 





A URL is given which you can then share with anyone you would like to participate in the poll. 




Classroom Integration Ideas:
  • Use to poll students prior to introducing a new topic
  • Take a poll during a class discussion 
  • Use with faculty during a campus meeting or training