I must admit the last few weeks of work have been a little frustrating. The older grades have been doing a lot of testing, and I mean a LOT of testing (way too much if you ask me). As a result, my room is used for testing, as are all the laptop carts, which means I have had to get a little creative in teaching computer lab sans computers. I will share some of my go to sites today.
To start, I figured Spring is a good time to review some of our Internet Safety rules. NetSmartz.org is an excellent resource for this. They will send free training materials, and the presentations are quite engaging. The young kids are a BIG fan of Clicky and his friends. I also like to Faux Pas the Techo Cat to switch things up a little bit.
For the older kids I like to use Professor Garfield. By fourth and fifth grade they have seen the Netsmartz presentations multiple times, and professor Garfield addresses some older kid issues that Netsmartz doesn't delve into as much.
Once Internet safety has been reviewed I find some of the learning labs on Discovery Education Science very interesting. These have built in authentic problems and the students find them interesting. Although better in partners or small groups, they are do-able whole class. If your school has a license to Discovery Education, I highly suggest the add on package of Discovery Science. Not only are their videos great, but the labs and explorations are designed very well also.
Brainpop and Brainpopjr are also excellent tools and allow for great discussions. DON'T just play the videos through. Stop and discuss the vocabulary and concepts being introduced. One five minute clip can easily turn into a twenty minute lesson when you incorporate think-pair-share and class discussions. The quizzes at the end are a great way to assess student learning, and for when students do have individual computer access there are some worth while learning activities that go with each clip.
My new favorite website to use, especially for the last five to ten minutes if a lesson didn't go quite as long as I thought, is Interactive Sites for Education. Again this can be used on individual computers or whole class. The activities are numerous, engaging, and appropriate for a variety of grade levels.
And of course, there are the numerous game templates available on the Interactive Whiteboard sites (Promethean Planet or Smart Exchange for example) that can be customized to fit any unit the students are learning. I will be using Midwest Region Jeopardy with my fifth grade class tomorrow.
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