If you don't tie technology to the objective, it's the same as not making students responsible for their stations: there's no accountability and nothing to tie the concepts you learn together.
Since there aren't many sites that address middle school language arts, I'd have to say that the sites that focus on basic grammar skills would be a good "center" for students who are struggling with a concept. A sort of way to re-teach them without the poor kids having to hear me repeat the same ideas. Because I'm lucky enough to have 90 minutes a day with the kids, I can budget time at centers easily. (online-stopwatch.com is perfect for helping keep me honest when timing the kids!) I like Karen's rule of having each kids always use the same computer (or device in this case), since you can narrow down the culprits if someone doesn't use the technology appropriately.
I found this blog: Apps in Education, a site that chunks iTunes apps by subject and price. Found a few great ones that would work well in English "centers," where students could sign in to log the amount of time spent on computers, netbooks, iPads, or even iTouches:
- StoryKit: FREE: "Create an electronic storybook. Create the text, add photos or drawings and then add sounds or music."
- Free Audiobooks: FREE: We take 2,947 of the greatest classic books in human history, package up their audiobooks, and make them available to download and listen to anytime, anywhere.
- Wordflick: FREE: A fast-paced, arcade-style, word game for the Touch devices. Wordflick is truly addictive, because it is so intuitive; it is easy to play, yet a challenge to master. The goal of the game is to score points in the allowed time. Flick or drag game tiles to the bottom of the screen to spell words. The longer the word, the more points. (This would be a reward-based center, one that would help dyslexic and ESL students gain fluency with sounds and spelling.)
No comments:
Post a Comment