Thing 30: DIY – You Pick

This was a lot of fun and took way more time exploring and getting lost on the internet than I expected. I started out going through each of the items in the Things to Explore section.  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for to do so it was nice there was a lot of information.  Kathy Schrock’s got a lot of information.  It is actually a bit overwhelming.  I would like to fine tune my copyright lessons for the sixth graders, but this just more than I was ready for on a Sunday morning.  I’ve booked marked the site for use at a later time.

Initially, I was interested in the Be Internet Awesome game.  However, I found it difficult to navigate and a suggestion pop-up to change my settings.  For this reason I decided this game wouldn’t be the best choice for my students.  Unfortunately, a district administrator (tech person) is the only person able to change settings on the computers in the library.  Therefore, I think the lack of control with the arrow keys would frustrate the students while playing this game.  I did want some sort of fun game to replace the online safety game I’ve used in the past which has now disappeared from the internet.  It was called Surf Swell Island and it was by Disney, but was out of Australia.

Then I tried Prodigy a math adventure game. This was a lot of fun and I think this would be a fun way to review for the state test coming up.  The questions appear to be asked in a random order of topics.  What I liked was if I got a question wrong the same question reappeared for me to try again with different answers.  I liked the reinforcement of the concept in this manner.

Next I looked into Class Hook which provides tv and movie clips to go with topics you search for. The clips are short 5 minutes or less, but it gives the students real world application to their learning.  I searched copyright and didn’t really get anything useful for elementary students.  I also searched fractions, money, and skeletal system and found some useful clips.  What I really like is there is a box to check if you would like the site to screen out clips with profane language.

Then searching through previous years of AASL list of best websites I came across Kahoot which I have used before and the students enjoyed. So I started searching online for similar student response tools.  Which I found Quiz Show. I played a sample game and found it to be fun so I signed up to create a game.  I downloaded a bunch of images and couldn’t get the images into the questions the way I wanted so I ditched the game.

Finally, I turned to the internet and searched Google for student response tools and came across various websites. One had a Who Wants to be a Millionaire game, but it required a subscription fee.  Then searching for Who Wants to be a Millionaire I came across a free one.  I created a Dr. Seuss Who Wants to be a Millionaire game which I think the students will really enjoy.  It is a public game and I have a password so I can edit the game if changes are needed after I play it with the students which is really nice.