Weekly App Practical- Classroom Management

Weekly App Practical- Global communicators

"Biomes Around the World" Lesson Brainstorm

I would like to incorporate the apps Google Earth and ePals into the unit that I teach on Biomes at the end of the school year. Students learn about the different biomes on the earth such as the desert, grasslands, tundra etc. My idea for this unit is to connect with teacher on ePals from countries that represent these different biomes. I would then like to work on a join project with those classes, if they are agreeable, to have our students "report" on the biome that they live in. This could take whatever form the class chooses. They can write a brochure for our biomes, make a video report, or write a paper detailing the important characteristics of the different biomes in North America. We would then share our reports with the classes in the other countries and hopefully receive their reports back on the biomes that they live in. I have sent collaboration requests through the ePals site to a number of different teachers all over the globe. Uganda, Italy, Mexico, and Spain are just a few of the places that I am looking to connect with someone. Make your own account and check out my ePals profile here. 

Google Earth will come into play as I am introducing the different biomes to my students. Once we
have made a connection with another school, we can explore what their country looks like with the app. 

I would like for this to be a student driven endeavor and I would like to experiment with not grading my students on this assignment. I think that the curiosity of what it is like in another country and the chance to represent what it is like where they live will motivate them more than a grade. 

Stay tuned for how this goes! I will report back probably sometime in June as this is usually our last unit! 

Weekly App Practical- Boardmaker

I'll admit that at first I wasn't sure that I would find a good use for the Boardmaker software in my 9th grade biology classroom but Boardmaker Online proved me wrong! I created the labeling activity shown below for my students who are currently practicing labeling the parts of the cell. It took less than 30 minutes to make and was quite a bit of fun!

If you have a boardmaker account, you can actually log in and play the activity by following this link. If not, you can get the idea by viewing the screenshots below:

This first photo shows the editing mode where I created the activity from a labeling template.

This is the screen that is available to the public when searching for the activity on Boardmaker or using the URL.

Students will move the labels from the left-hand side of the screen to the appropriate boxes on the image. When they have completed the labeling, an arrow appears at the bottom of the screen allowing them to move onto the next page of the activity. 

Once the student has finished the activity, the move on to a screen that tells them they are completed and allows them to exit the screen. 

Though I will certainly use this labeling activity with my students, I don't intend to buy the software. I plan to print out the activity pages and give it to my students on paper because I don't want to get them started on something that will only last a 30 day trial. Still, I'm glad I took the time to play around with Boardmaker!

Weekly App Practical- Administrative

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Weekly App Practical- Student Researcher

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Weekly App Practical- Student Tutorial- Explain Everything