DimensionU

DimensionU is one of my favorite companies for Game Based Learning.  These games take place in an interactive 3D virtual world where students strengthen their Math/Literacy skills.  The games are designed for kids grades 3rd-9th and are aligned to Common Core Standards.

Here are a list of DimensionU games...

Watch the videos below to see all 4 AMAZING
DimensionU Games in action:

Meltdown is the DimensionU game that

offers students a second chance

when answering difficult questions, and

rewards creative strategies to achieve victory.

Swarm is DimensionU's team-based

game that most strongly reinforces

cooperation and collaboration between

students to achieve a common goal.

Towerstorm is the DimensionU game

 that is best for working through the most

 curriculum in the shortest amount of time.

Velocity is DimensionU's high-speed

obstacle course that ensures players

answer questions correctly in order to

continue progressing through the race.

Click to view the MATHEMATICS or LITERACY content included in

DimensionU Games.

I highly recommend checking out DimensionU by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Game Based Learning click here.

*DimensionU is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Super Teacher Worksheets

Super Teacher Worksheets is absolutely one of my favorite sitse for finding worksheets and printables in a wide variety of subjects.  Also, this is a great site for finding other educational resources such as: custom puzzle/worksheet/crosswords generators, Smart Board files, and more.  Almost every resource at STW is aligned to Common Core Standards and very easy to use.

I highly recommend checking out Super Teacher Worksheets by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.

*Super Teacher Worksheets is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Answerables

Be sure to check out the latest updates!!!

Answerables is one of the most unique sites to come around in awhile.  It is a cross between a Learning Management System and Game Based Learning environment to deliver a innovative and fun learning experience for students.  All of this takes place in a 3D virtual world (i.e. think Second Life but geared towards education) that allows educators to create lessons, scavenger hunts, collaborate w/ other educators, and much much more.  Best of all, all of this takes place in Answerables safe interactive environment.  Also, Answerables can be used by any curriculum to teach any subject using Project Based Learning, "gamifying"a lesson, and differentiating instruction.

I highly recommend checking out Answerables by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo video...



*Answerables is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Storyboard That Timelines

Storyboard That the innovative site for creating storyboards, digital lessons/storytelling, project based learning, and more, has just released an update that allows users to create timelines.  All a student/teacher has to do is create a new storyboard and select timeline.  They then have the option to add a date, text, image, or select one of the many templates/styles of their choice (i.e web, t-chart, grid, etc.).  This is a simple and great way to make a timeline or graphic organizer.  Educators can use this to create templates and then have students fill it out online through Storyboard That's educational portal, making it a perfect tool to use for any subject or grade level.

I highly recommend checking out Storyboard That by clicking here!!!

*Storyboard That is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Prodigy Update

Prodigy is a fantastic free online Math game that is ideal for Game Based Learning.  This super fun highly engaging game designed for grades 1st-6th and is aligned to Common Core Standards.  Best of all is the teacher portal which allows for educators to assess students and get instant real-time reporting.  Prodigy, even has a unique learning engine which allows the game to differentiate instruction and help students w/ areas they are struggling in.  Teachers can modify the game to suit their needs and select which skills their students need to focus on too.  Also, Prodigy is browser based and works on any device (i.e iPad or Chromebook).

*Prodigy is now for 7th-8th grade too!!!
** Prodigy has added thousands of questions covering more than 150 new Math skills!!

I highly recommend checking out Prodigy by clicking here!!!

For more information on the latest news from Prodigy click here!!!

Below is a brief demo...



For my Pinterest board on Game Based Learning click here.

*Prodigy is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Matific

Matific is a great site for finding educational resources for Math in grades K-6th.  These resources include videos, worksheets, activities, and more w/ an educational portal that allows educators to track student progress.  Also, teachers are using this to assess students performance in Math and differentiate instruction.  There is even a free mobile (iOS/Android) app for El Ed math games.

I highly recommend checking out Matific by clicking here!!!

Click here for the iOS app.
Click here for the Android app.

For a more detailed review check out Edshelf.

For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.

Help Teaching

Help Teaching is an excellent site for educators looking for educational resources such as: online assessments, quiz/test creators, or printables and worksheets.  These resources are for grades PreK-12th, and organized by subject and grade.  Finally, Help Teaching offers online assessments in their own virtual private room.  This area is safe for students to take quizzes/tests where teachers can assess them in real-time.

I highly recommend checking out Help Teaching by clicking here!!!
For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.

*Help Teaching is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Dino Dog

Dino Dog is a fun little iOS for kids 6-8 yrs old learning about dinosaurs.  Dino Dog has a dog and bear travel through an interactive cartoon experience digging up dinosaurs bones, cleaning them, and then assembling them to create dinosaurs.  There are over a dozen dinosaurs and four levels of each chapter of Dino Dog.  Finally, once a dinosaur is assembled it can then be kept in a student's very own virtual museum.

I highly recommend checking out Dino Dog by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational iOS Apps click here.

EDpuzzle

EDpuzzle is vastly becoming one of the premiere web/iOS tools around for learning in the classroom.  This is fantastic free tool for editing a video, cropping, adding quizzes/polls, narration, etc. then embedding into site/blog.  It is being used to flip a classroom or lesson, Project Based Learning, grading/assessing, and even for differentiating instruction.  The educational portal allows students to sign-up w/out needing an email account and lets educators track student progress in real-time.

Due Date feature...

A while back EDpuzzle updated their fantastic site/app to integrate a "due date' by assigning it via drop down calendar to a video.  This helps students and educators organize their videos/lessons and see not only how far along an assignment is completed but when it is due as well.  An unfinished assignment can even be archived by the user.  I like how teachers can create their assignments before hand and assign it a "due date' to get a nice visual of what they class will be working on in the weeks ahead.

I highly recommend checking out EDpuzzle by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo video...




I highly recommend checking out EDpuzzle by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Flipping a Classroom click here.

*EDpuzzle is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Zoom In

Zoom In is a wonderful new site for History teachers that I just found out about from Larry Ferlazzo's excellent blog.  Zoom In allows educators to create online classrooms to teach US History through interactive lessons.  These lessons have built in templates to help students' writing, built-in glossary, assessment tools, and more.

I highly recommend checking out Zoom In by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo video...

30hands Learning

30hands Learning is the excellent company for creating an innovative LMS (Learning Management System) as well as the popular mobile iOS apps that are ideal for digital storytelling (30hands Starter (free), 30hands Pro (paid)).  The 30hands community is a perfect cloud based solution that allows educators to: manage/track students, hand in/out assignments, sched
ule events, and more.  While the mobile apps are being used in education for project based learning, digital storytelling, and more.

30hands has lots of exciting news on the horizon...

This Fall, we will be adding new functionality to 30hands Pro based on user feedback. At the same time, we will have to impose some limits on the free Starter version in order to be able to sustain the product. 

After upgrading to Pro, users will have access to existing advanced features and new features in the works:

• Video clips as slides

• Google Drive + Dropbox Integration

• Importing of Google Slides and PDFs as 30hands slides

• Backgrounds and scenes

• Higher quality videos

• Advanced drag-and-drop drawing with editing (Aug 2015)

• Slide sharing with parents and students (Fall 2015)

• Slide Transitions (Fall 2015)

• Unlimited presentations

• Unlimited saves to Camera Roll

Districts that purchase 30hands Pro will get free or discounted professional development (depending on licenses purchased). The PD can be onsite or virtual and selected from our areas of expertise: Digital Storytelling, PBL, Blended Learning, Teaching Coding, and Teaching Entrepreneurship. 

30hands Learning is putting 20% of the net sales of 30hands Pro toward helping kids without hands get a 3D dream hand. Your students can help by printing a hand, assembling a hand, designing a hand, telling a story or buying 30hands Pro.

For more info on how your school can participate, email info@30hands.com.

Join our newsletter here: http://30hands.com/newsletter.

*30hands Learning is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Next Generation Vocabulary Instruction by BoomWriter

Trending Words feature lets data guide teachers in 21st century vocabulary instruction.

Last summer BoomWriter introduced WordWriter (http://www.boomwriter.com/WordWriter), which lets teachers conduct short interactive application activities allowing them to access and enhance their students' understanding of key terms, figures, phrases, and dates.  BoomWrtier is now adding their Trending Words
(http://boomwriter.com/WordWriter/TrendingWords) feature to BoomWriter, allowing teachers to select from top trending vocabulary used by other BoomWriter teachers while displaying the most popular words being taught for that month, in real-time, on a grade-by-grade basis.

The most common way for a student to learn vocabulary words and strengthen their comprehension is through mundane "drill-and-practice" exercises.  However, WordWriter lets educators take a student's vocabulary experience to the next level by creating a collaborative platform in which student's can learn and vote on the Vocabulary process.  Trending Words aids in this process by supplying teachers w/ the most popular words by subject and grade level.  This is ideal for new teachers, ones that have switched grade levels, and for those looking for a "NEW" way to guide their students' instruction pertaining to vocabulary.  This innovative process not only helps students learn vocabulary words but strengthens their comprehension skills as well.

"There's an obvious correlation between students' vocabulary levels and academic performance. WordWriter and our new Trending Words feature lets teachers deliver an engaging and interactive vocabulary development experience that their students are sure to love and benefit greatly from."  Ken Haynes,  Co-founder of BoomWriter 

I highly recommend checking out Trending Words by clicking here!!!

*BoomWriter is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Buncee News

Buncee the innovative site for creating beautiful presentations, projects, greetings, and more... has been getting quite a bit of well deserved press lately.  Besides the unveiling of their new "beta" user interface, they have developed an exciting new relationship w/ Haiku Learning.

What does this mean?

It means that users of Haiku Learning can now embed a buncee inside of it.  Think of it as a place holding frame where users still have the same interactive control of their buncee (all links, animations, etc still work).  It's simple to do (just paste in an embed code) and still maintains the high quality beautiful looking "buncee" that they are known for.

More information can be found here.

I highly recommend checking out Buncee for Education by clicking here!!!

*Buncee is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

**Also, they've recently won an award for one of the tops apps from the American Association of Librarians in the "Content Creation" category.

Otus

Otus the excellent and easy to use Learning Management System for schools has just released a new polished design for their free classroom mobile app and web portal.  This new design, allows for easier to functionality, a brighter customizable color interface, and real-time analytics and third party integration (i.e. Khan Academy).

Here is a list of their updated features...

• Cleaner Interface: A polished, streamlined functionality lets users more easily navigate existing features including polling for instant feedback, a real-time assessment center, blogging capabilities and classroom organization tools.

• Real-Time Analytics: A comprehensive analytics dashboard integrates a wide range of performance indicators into one place, including content from select third-party apps like Khan Academy. Teachers can link data to Common Core State Standards or integrate their own custom standards to report on. Otus tracks a variety of data like attendance, participation, student blogs, assessments and grades. In addition, teachers can also create and track meaningful behaviors like grit, leadership and staying on task through Otus ‘Recognitions’. Because Otus logs all student activity in real-time, teachers can quickly gauge their impact on student growth and provide timely, constructive feedback.

• Toolbox:  Otus functions as an open, interoperable educational ecosystem allowing teachers to integrate and quickly access the third party apps and content that they use everyday in their classroom. Any Otus user can access free third-party apps or content. If third-party apps and content require a subscription, the subscriber must simply link their account to Otus and they will never have to sign-in to access it again.

• Colorful Work Environments: Now teachers and students can choose from a variety of theme and background color options to create a more personalized, vibrant work environment.

Below is a brief demo...



I highly recommend checking out Otus by clicking here!!!
For more information check out Otus on Technology & Learning.

*Otus is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

ClassDojo Groups

ClassDojo the world famous behavior/positive reinforcement manage system for schools has just released their new "group" feature.  This highly requested feature will allow teachers to award points to not only an individual but a group as well.  This is ideal for educators who like to put their class into groups or teams to spark collaborative learning.

Here is how it works...

ClassDojo Groups enables teachers to group students any way they like: table groups, reading
groups, house teams, project groups and more. Teachers can easily encourage a team for any
skill important to their classroom with just a single tap. Each group will keep its own running
total, which students love to maintain a sense of accomplishment and a desire to keep going!
Group points will still show up on student profiles alongside their individually award points, so
that students can see their progress from home and so can parents without any extra work.

Devices

ClassDojo Groups will work and sync across any iOS/Android device and any computer.

I highly recommend checking out ClassDojo Groups by clicking here!!!

*ClassDojo is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Carrot Rewards

Carrot Rewards is an interesting new easy to use reward system for students.  It combines customized printable rewards (i.e stickers, certificates, etc) w/ online digital ones.  The way this works is once a student receives their printable reward on the back will be a 6 digit code they enter online to go into their "digital" MyStickers locker.  Best of all, an educator can manage/monitor student accounts to maintain all digital rewards rather then have to rely on the students to do it.  This is ideal for schools that don't want to give out physical rewards and rather stick w/ those that are digital.  Carrot Rewards is a great way to keep students motivated in a fun an engaging way.

*Carrot Rewards is for UK based schools.

I highly recommend checking out Carrot Rewards by clicking here!!!

FlashSticks

FlashSticks is an interesting new site/app for learning a foreign language.  The way this works is a user prints out a color coded (blue - masculine nouns, pink - feminine nouns, green - other words) flashcard and then hovers their mobile device over it.  A brief video pops up of a tutor showing how to pronounce the word.  Flashsticks are ideal for learning any number of languages such as: French, English, Spanish, and more.

I highly recommend checking out FlashSticks by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo...



For my Pinterest board on Foreign Language click here.

Actively Learn

Actively Learn is a new site for Reading/Comprehension that I just found out about from Free Technology 4 Teachers.  This site reminds of EDpuzzle, but instead of taking a video and making it your "own" a student/teacher can do it to a Reading passage/article.  All a educator has to do is sign up and then create their class.  Once that is done a student joins by a unique code (think ClassDojo).  Teachers can then upload or select a Reading passage for their students to read.  These Reading passages are arranged by subject, grade, and Reading level and some of them even come w/ comprehension questions.  Best of all, a educator can create their own comprehension question and collaborate w/ students through text messages.

I highly recommend checking out Actively Learn by clicking here!!!

Super Teacher Tools

Super Teacher Tools is a nifty little site for educators that I just fount out about from Larry Ferlazzo's excellent blog.  This site allows teachers to create items such as online games (i.e. Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, etc), seating chards, QR codes, and more.

I highly recommend checking out Super Teacher Tools by clicking here!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.

Yogome Summer Adventures

Yogome Summer Adventures is the new free iOS app from Yogome.  This educational app is designed to help students prevent summer learning loss by playing through mini educational games in all subjects (i.e. programming, math, science, etc).  Students will explore through 5 different worlds and unlock more levels as they progress.  Best of all, is the parent/educator app that lets them track student progress.

I highly recommend checking out Yogome Summer Adventures by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational iOS Apps click here.

*Yogome is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Brainventures

Brainventures is a fun free iOS app for young learners ages 7-10 yrs old.  This educational app has kids taking on the role of a brain cell as they play through a wide range of educational activities to develop their brain in areas such as: memory, spatial skills, etc.  As students progress through the game they will meet and interact w/ other characters or neurons.

I highly recommend checking out Brainventures by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational iOS Apps click here.

Livecoding.tv

Livecoding.tv is an interesting social platform that connects coders from around the world.  People can watch as others code "live" on a TV stream on different products.  Best of all, people can follow whichever programming language (i.e html, java, etc) they are interested in.

I highly recommend checking out Livecoding.tv by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Programming/Coding click here.

Quizalize

This is a great site for creating game-quizzes to assess student's learning in real-time.  A educator can browse Quizalize's library of quizzes created by other users or use one of their many templates to get started.  Best of all is the teacher's dashboard that allows educators to track student's progress and differentiate instruction.

Below is a brief demo...



I highly recommend checking out Quizalize by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Quiz Creators click here.