All About Mars

Earlier this week SciShow Kids published a new video titled Meet the Mars Rovers! The short video explains to elementary school students what a Mars rover is, what they're used for, and some basic background information about Mars. The notes below the video on the YouTube page for it include links to lots of helpful additional resources. 

A few years ago SciShow Kids produced a related video titled What Would We Eat on Mars? That video explains why plants don't grow on Mars and what it would take to try to grow plants and support life on Mars. The video ends with a series of questions for kids to answer with their thoughts about how we might grow plants on Mars and what to grow and eat on Mars. I think it's a fun video and a fun set of questions to use to get kids thinking about science.



You can give your students some "hands-on" experience with a Mars rover by using the free Spacecraft AR iPad app offered by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The app enables students to learn about various NASA spacecraft including the Curiosity rover, Voyager, Mars Exploration Rover, and a handful of other spacecraft. Spacecraft AR includes information about each spacecraft's development and use. With Spacecraft AR installed and open on their iPads or phones, students can select a spacecraft or mission then point their iPads or phones at a flat floor or wall see the spacecraft appear. Once the spacecraft appears on screen students can move to see other angles of the spacecraft and move the spacecraft. Students can also pinch and zoom to change the size of spacecraft they're looking at.

A Fun Augmented Reality App for Spelling Practice

My daughters really enjoy the PBS Kids show called Word World. In each episode of the show the characters build a new word. As I was recently watching Word World with them I was reminded of a fun augmented reality app called Catchy Words AR.

Catchy Words AR is an augmented reality app that provides a fun and active way for students to practice their spelling skills. The app is available for iPad/ iPhone and it is available in an Android version. The app works the same way in both versions. 

In Catchy Words AR students will see letters "floating" on the screen. Students have to catch the letters by moving their tablets or phones. The movement often requires students to get up and move out of their seats. When they catch a letter students then have to bring it back to place it into one of a sequence of floating boxes. The object is to spell a word by catching the letters and putting them into the boxes. Take a look at my screenshot below to see how a completed word appears on a phone or tablet screen (please excuse my messy desk in the background). 

Applications for Education
Catchy Words AR can be a fun way for some students to practice their spelling skills while getting up and out of their seats. The app doesn't require any kind of registration or login which makes it good for classrooms in which students share iPads. The shortcoming of Catchy Words AR is that you can't assign a word list to your students nor can you see which words they've spelled unless you look at their tablets or phones while they're using the app.

Apps and Sites for Learning About Fresh Water

Earlier this week I was looking through a list of augmented reality apps that I've tried over the years when I was reminded of the World Wildlife Fund's Free Rivers app. Playing with that app again prompted me to look for some similar resources. Here's a few fun apps and sites that students can use to learn about the importance of fresh water in the ecosystem. 

WWF Free Rivers

WWF Free Rivers is a free augmented reality iPad app produced by the World Wildlife Foundation. The app uses augmented reality to present a story about rivers. In the app students learn about the importance of free-flowing rivers in world. The app offers a series of sections or experiences through which students can learn about how free flowing rivers support wildlife, agriculture, and people.

WWF Free Rivers tells students stories about the implications of changes in weather patterns, damming rivers, and pollution on river ecosystems. Students interact with these stories by moving their iPads and or by pinching and zooming on elements in the stories. Unlike some other AR apps the animations within WWF Free Rivers can be experienced by students from a variety of angles. A great example of this is found early in the app when students can see what a dam does to a river. During that experience students can see the dam from above, from below, and from the sides.

Aquation

Aquation is a free iOS, Android, and web game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to explore its current water supplies. Based on the information provided students take action in the form of building desalination plants, conducting further research, reacting to natural events, and attempting to move water between regions.

River Runner

River Runner is a neat website that shows you how a drop of water travels from anywhere in the United States to the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. To use River Runner simply go to the site and click on any location in the United States. As soon as you click on the map, River Runner will generate and play an animation of the path that a drop of water would travel from that location to get to the ocean. You can stop the animation, rewind it, and fast forward it if you like. The animation is based on data collected from the USGS. The code for the site can be found here on GitHub. 

How to Start Using Plickers in Your Classroom

Last week I led a workshop for a group of special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and consultants. One of the elements of the workshop was about creating and conducting fun formative assessments. To that end, I introduced the group to Plickers. It was a hit! 

Plickers has been around for almost a decade. It's still a great tool because of its simplicity combined with its effectiveness. The way that it works is students hold up QR codes (I have mine laminated) to respond to your prompts. You use your iOS or Android device to scan the students' cards and see their answers on your screen. This method allows you to have all students respond to your questions without their classmates knowing their answers because all they see are their classmates holding cards that look nearly identical. Watch my new video that is embedded below to see a demonstration of how Plickers works. 

Video - How to Start Using Plickers in Your Classroom.

There were a couple of things that I didn't include in the video above. First, when scanning a whole class you will see little dots appear on your screen to indicate that you've scanned a card. Second, in your online Plickers account you can view all of your students' responses to all of the questions you've asked that day and on prior days.

Applications for Education
1. Quickly taking the pulse of the class. Ask your students, "do you get this?" (or a similar question) and have them hold up their cards to indicate yes or no. You can do this with a saved class or a demo class in the app.

2. Hosting a review game. Create a series of questions in your saved Plickers class. To conduct the review have students hold up their cards to respond to each question. Every student gets to respond at the same time and you get to see how each student responded. This is an advantage over many review games in which only the first student to respond has his or her voice heard.

3. Take attendance. In a saved Plickers class each student has a card assigned to him or her. At the start of class just have them hold up their cards to check-in.

How to Play GeoGeek AR

Last week I wrote a brief overview of a fun geography app called GeoGeek AR. The "AR" in the app's name stands for augmented reality. The use of AR makes it possible to put a digital globe right into your classroom or anywhere else that your students are standing when holding an iPad or Android tablet. Yesterday, a reader emailed me for an explanation of how to use the app. Like most things, it's easier to show it in a screencast than it is to write out directions. So I made this short demo video. Watch it to the end for a special guest appearance by one of my dogs. 

Applications for Education

As I wrote last week, GeoGeek AR doesn't require you to register in order to play. That can make it a good option for use on shared classroom iPads. Overall, it's a fun little game for practicing place identification. 

GeoGeek AR - An Augmented Reality Geography Game

GeoGeek AR is a fun app for testing and developing your knowledge of world geography. As its name and icon imply, the app uses augmented reality to put a virtual globe in any space that you choose. You can spin the globe with your fingers or simply move around the room to see different parts of the globe. 

GeoGeek AR is basically a quiz game. Players have to identify places by tapping on the globe. Questions are presented in two ways. The first is simply the name of a place appearing on screen followed by the prompt to tap on the globe to identify where you think that place is. The second way questions are presented is with a place being highlighted on the globe and then a list of four multiple choice options from which to pick. 

Applications for Education

GeoGeek AR doesn't require you to register in order to play. That can make it a good option for use on shared classroom iPads. Overall, it's a fun little game for practicing place identification. 

Five Fun Science Games for Kids

I'm taking my daughters to a science museum today. Thinking about the museum and the interactive displays that they have got me thinking about some of the science games that I've reviewed over the years. I went into my archives and pulled out five fun science games for elementary school students. 

Peep and the Big Wide World, produced by WGBH, offers a great collection of online games, videos, and offline activities designed to help students learn and practice skills in math and science. One emphasis of the games that I tried is recognizing patterns. In all there are twenty-one online games available through Peep and the Big Wide World.

Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp is an educational game produced by the Smithsonian. The purpose of the game is to help children recognize the movements of animals. In the game children move through a virtual zoo with a zoo keeper. As they go through the virtual zoo the zoo keeper will ask students to take pictures of animals who are demonstrating running, jumping, stomping, and other movements. Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp can be played online.  

Habitats is a fun little game from the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The online game challenges elementary school to match animals to their habitats. The game shows students images representative of four habitats; desert, coral reef, jungle, and marsh. Students drag pictures of animals from a list to their corresponding habitats. Students receive instant feedback on each move they make in the game. Once an animal has been placed in the correct habitat students can click on it to learn more about it in the Encyclopedia of Life.

Aquation is a free game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to explore its current water supplies. Based on the information provided students take action in the form of building desalination plants, conducting further research, reacting to natural events, and attempting to move water between regions. Aquation can be played in a web browser. It is also available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app.

Feed the Dingo is a fun game that teaches students about the importance of maintaining balanced ecosystems. In the game students have to build and maintain a desert ecosystem. The game begins with a blank slate to which students have to add plants and animals. The game plays out over twelve virtual days. Each day students have to add more elements in order to maintain balance in the ecosystem. At the end of each day students are given feedback as to which plants and animals are healthy, which are in danger, and which have died.

Create TinyTap Educational Games With Houdini Effects, Videos, and More

Disclosure: TinyTap is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com 

TinyTap is an educational game creation tool that I've been using and writing about since its launch as a free iPad app many years ago. In my recent series about creating games with TinyTap I’ve focused on using the web-based game creation tools. Today, I’m going to highlight some of the cool features available when you create games with TinyTap’s free iPad app along with a neat feature available in the web-based version of TinyTap.

Today, I’m going to use TinyTap to create a little game that answers some of the questions that my preschool-age daughters have asked me over the last year (I keep a list in my phone) then asks them to answer questions that I ask. To do this I’m going to use TinyTap’s free iPad app and incorporate videos, audio, voice input, and a neat feature called Houdini mode. The game that I’m building is based on the model used in this TinyTap activity about learning sign language.

Creating a Game With TinyTap’s Free iPad App
Starting the process of building a game is the same on the iPad app as it is in the web-based game creation tool (click here for details on using the web-based version). The first step after signing into my account is to tap “Create” and design a cover slide.

The cover slide design tools include creation packs in which you’ll find styles, layouts, and thematic artwork to apply to your cover slide and subsequent slides in your game. After choosing the style and layout I added some text. In this case, “Questions from my Daughters” and then used the drawing tools available in the app to draw some stick figures representing me and my daughters. By the way, those drawing tools are currently only available in the iPad app.

After adding my cover slide I recorded a short video to introduce what the game was all about and how it would work. That was really easy to do in TinyTap’s iPad app. All I had to do was add a new slide then tap “Set Activity” and pick “Play Video.” When “Play Video” is chosen you can then tap “Add Video” followed by “Capture” to record a video with your iPad’s camera and instantly insert it into your TinyTap activity. You can even trim the video if you need to (I did). The GIF below shows all of the steps to record and insert a video into a TinyTap game.

After adding my video the next step was to create a slide that taught a little lesson. To that slide I added a picture of a snowflake because the lesson is about why snow is white. Adding a picture can be done by uploading an image or by using the integrated image search. I used the integrated image search to find a royalty-free image of a snowflake. Then with the image added to the slide I set a new activity type of “Say Something” to record a short audio lesson about snowflakes. A GIF of that process is included below.

With my video introduction and my audio lesson completed it was time to add a game element. To do this I created a new slide and with another picture of a snowflake. Then I chose the activity type of “Talk or Type.” By using that activity type I could then block out the snowflake itself and ask the question “how many points does a snowflake have?” Players have to answer the question by typing the answer or by speaking the answer.

Another question that my daughters have asked me is “why do the leaves turn red in the fall?” To add that question into my game I repeated the step of adding a picture and recording a little audio lesson by using the “Say Something” activity type.

Then to add a game element to my lesson about leaves I decided to use something called Houdini mode for the pictures on my slide. By using Houdini mode I could set pictures to disappear when they were tapped on. I then just recorded myself saying “tap the pictures of leaves seen in summer.” The pictures for which I had activated Houdini mode then disappeared when tapped. The setting for Houdini mode is found when you insert a picture and tap on it for additional options. See my GIF below for details. Another example of Houdini mode in use is found in this TinyTap activity about forms of transportation.

Creating my game addressing questions from my daughters incorporated one other feature that is only available when using TinyTap’s iPad app. That feature is adding background music to the whole game. Doing that was a simple matter of opening the game editor then tapping on the music icon. TinyTap offers a selection of royalty free music that you can choose to play in the background. I chose a track titled Sun and No Clouds.

One last difference between a game created with the iPad version of TinyTap and the web version is that on the iPad you can have seamless transitions so that the game automatically advances without needing to tap on a “next” button. In fact, it’s so seamless that TinyTap refers to it as not having a transition. When implemented correctly it could even be used to create a stop-motion animation as is the case when this game is viewed on an iPad and as is demonstrated in the video clip below.

More Video Options in TinyTap 

In my game I used the built-in option to record a video with the camera on my iPad and insert it into the game. It is also possible to search for a YouTube video and insert it into your game. You can also simply add the URL of a YouTube video into your TinyTap activity by using the “Play Video” activity type. It should be noted that the search function is only available in the iPad version of TinyTap but the URL option is available in the web and in the iPad versions of TinyTap.

More Ways to Use Videos and Houdini in TinyTap
Thanks to Lior at TinyTap I learned about some other good implementations of the video and Houdini tools.

• This game about musical instruments alternates between short videos and questions.
• This activity uses Houdini mode to create digital coloring pages.
• This game about shapes uses video followed by a puzzle that utilizes Houdini mode.
• This game about opposites uses videos followed by questions.

Getting Started!
To summarize, TinyTap offers a free iPad app and a free web-based game creation tool. Both are easy to use. The iPad version currently has a few more features than the web version. Those additional features are recording a video, drawing tools, and Houdini mode.

To get started creating a game with either version of TinyTap just sign-up for a free account and hit the Create button. You can follow my tutorial in this blog post or use some of the tutorials built into TinyTap to create an educational game customized for your students.



Other posts in this series:

• Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap
• How to Create Your Own Educational Games With TinyTap - Getting Started
• Making Your Educational Games Look Good With TinyTap
• Create an Educational Puzzle Game With TinyTap
• Say Something - A Fun and Easy TinyTap Activity
• Use TinyTap to Create Interactive Lessons and Games With Soundboards

Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap

Disclosure: TinyTap is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com

Throughout January I wrote about creating your own educational games with TinyTap’s web-based game creation tool. I’ve covered creating a basic identification game, making your games look good, and making puzzle games. To end the month, I’m going to dive into making a game that doesn’t rely on students tapping objects or dragging objects.

Talk or Type is a TinyTap game format that you can use to create educational games in which students provide input by typing or speaking in response to game prompts. This can be a great way to develop a game that involves cloze activities (AKA fill-in-the-blank), spelling games, and identification games. In fact, I’ll do all three of those things in the game that I’m creating today.

Creating a Talk or Type Game
The first thing that you need to know about creating a Talk or Type game is that in the web-based version of TinyTap’s game creator you can only use the Type mode. The Talk mode is supported on the iPad version. With that caveat out of the way, let’s start creating a game with TinyTap’s web-based game creator.

Like any other TinyTap game, the first step is to choose a topic for the game then build a title slide (watch this video or read this post for an overview of those steps). My game is going to be about woodland animals of North America. In the game I’ll have students spell some words, complete some sentences, and identify some animals.

For the first activity in my game about woodland animals of North America I’m going to have students write a response to the prompt, “what is the plural form of moose?” To create this activity I built a slide that has a picture of a moose on it (that’s easy to do thanks to the built-in image search in TinyTap). After adding the moose picture to the slide I then clicked on “Set Activity” and chose “Talk or Type.” Once I chose the activity type I was able to use the tracing tool to draw a text box next to the moose. It’s in that box that students will type their responses to my prompt.

After drawing the text box I then used the edit button (pencil icon on the tracing tool) to record an audio hint and enter the correct response. Finally, I recorded an audio prompt with my question, “what is the plural form of moose?” It is critically important to add an audio prompt because without it students won’t know what you want them to type. The audio recording tool is found when you click on the options (gear icon) on the Talk or Type editor. That’s where I recorded myself saying, “what is the plural form of moose?” See my screenshot below for clarification on where to find the audio recording tools for hints and prompts.

At this point it is a good idea to preview the game as students would see it. In the preview mode we’ll hear the recorded prompt and see the text box appear. We’ll also be able to enter an answer in the text box. Simply click the play icon to preview any game that you’re editing.

The first activity in my game asked students to simply type a response to my question. In the next activity I’m going to have students fill in the blank in a sentence that I’ve written on a slide. To do that I’ll use the same process as before but instead of drawing a text box next to the moose, I’ll draw a text box in the gap in a sentence that I type. Once the text box was drawn I simply repeated the steps I used in making the previous slide. I found that it was important to choose a font size and spacing that allows you to draw a text box without covering other parts of the sentence. Using the game preview is helpful in making sure the text box doesn’t cover any other parts of the sentence.

For the third activity in my game about woodland creatures of North America I’m going to ask students which of the animals pictured on a slide hibernate in the winter. The identification will be done by typing their answers into a text box at the top of the slide. To make this slide I’ll simply use the same style as my previous slides and utilize the integrated image search to find an image of a bear to go along with the image of the moose. Then I’ll select Talk or Type as my activity and draw a text box. Finally, I’ll record myself asking the question, “which of these animals hibernates in the winter?” Because students might type “bear” or “the bear” I’ll include both of those options in my answer key. That is done by putting a comma between the acceptable correct answers. In this case my answer key is written as bear, the bear. See my screenshot below for clarification.

More Ways to Use Talk or Type Games
In the game that I made today students entered one or two word answers, but you could create a game in which they have to write longer responses. For example, you could create a Jeopardy-style game in which they have to phrase their responses in the form of a question.

You can use TinyTap to create a game in which students simply listen to you say a word and they have to then spell it correctly. That’s easy to do because by default spelling counts in TinyTap Talk or Type games.

Even though I focused on games in which students write words, that doesn’t mean you can’t use TinyTap Talk or Type to create math games. Just take a look at this Christmas math game or this Count and Type game to see how the Talk or Type format can be used to develop fun math games for kids.

Try making a Talk or Type game on TinyTap today. It’s free to get started. And speaking of getting started, I created this new tutorial video to demonstrate everything that’s in this blog post.

NBA Math Hoops - An App for Practicing Math Facts

NBA Math Hoops is a free iPad and Android app for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. The app can be used by students who don't have email addresses. There is also an option to create an account to save games in progress. 

NBA Math Hoops pits players against NBA and WNBA players in a contest of math skills. Players score points by correctly answering a series of arithmetic questions. Incorrect answers result in a turnover and the other team getting the ball. The ball is also turned over to the other team if questions aren't answered before the shot clock expires. Players can try to steal the ball by identifying the incorrect answer to a question.

Applications for Education
NBA Math Hoops could be a fun way for elementary school students to practice their math skills while competing against their favorite NBA and WNBA players. This is the kind of app that I'd install on classroom iPads or Android tablets for students to use for independent practice when they have a little unscheduled time in class. 

TinyTap - Create Your Own Educational Games in Your Browser

TinyTap is a company that is best known for its iPad app that lets teachers create educational games to share with their students. I've used it and written about it for almost a decade. Recently, TinyTap made a fantastic update. You can now use TinyTap to create your own educational games in the web browser on your computer.

To create your own educational game on TinyTap simply head to TinyTap.com and click "create." From there you'll see a menu of six game types to create. (There is an intermediate prompt tosign-in or sign-up if you haven't already done so). You can then watch tutorials on game design or simply jump into creating a game. All games are created in a slide-by-slide basis. Within each slide you can add pictures, text, and audio prompts. You can choose how your students interact with questions and prompts in your game. They can interact by tapping, clicking, circling objects, matching objects, typing, or speaking. Here's a short tutorial on making a shape puzzle game on TinyTap.  

If you'd like some inspiration for creating your own TinyTap games, browse through the public gallery of teacher-created games. The gallery is organized according to age, topic, and skill. When you find a game that you like you can use it as is or copy it and customize it in your account.

Applications for Education
One of the things that I've always appreciated about TinyTap is that you can make games that are perfectly tailored to your students' needs.

TinyTap games can be shared with your students via Google Classroom and through the TinyTap platform. Additionally, you can link to the games in any LMS. Games can also be embedded into blog posts and websites as I've done with this fun dinosaur game.

The Freshwater Access Game

Aquation is a free iOS, Android, and web game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to explore its current water supplies. Based on the information provided students take action in the form of building desalination plants, conducting further research, reacting to natural events, and attempting to move water between regions.

As mentioned above, Aquation is available to play on Android devices, on iOS devices, and in your web browser. If you try to play it in your web browser, be patient as it takes a while to load. 

Applications for Education
Aquation isn't a fast-paced game so it probably won't grab your students' attention when they open it. But if you can push through the initial "blah" reaction from your students, the game contains some valuable lessons about the global distribution of freshwater resources and the challenges that face the regions that have less than others.

GitMind - A Collaborative Mind Mapping and Outlining Tool

GitMind is a mind mapping tool that offers some excellent features for teachers and students. GitMind offers more than one hundred templates for teachers and students to use and modify. Some of the templates you'll find in the gallery include essay structure, timelines, book reviews, and study plans. GitMind also lets you create your mind maps and flowcharts from scratch. 

GitMind is a collaborative mind mapping tool. You can invite people to work on your mind maps with you by sending them an email or by sharing a link and private access code. 

My favorite design aspect of GitMind is the option to quickly turn your mind map into a linear, bullet point outline. The best thing is that you can toggle back and forth between the mind map view and the outline view as much as you like without affecting any elements of your mind map's design. 

As you would expect of any good mind mapping tool, GitMind offers plenty of tools for customizing the organization and color scheme of your mind maps. You can make wholesale changes to your mind map's color scheme by choosing a predefined theme. Minor color scheme changes can be made by selecting individual nodes and lines then choosing a different color, line thickness, font type, font color, and font size. 

GitMind can be used in your web browser. Free GitMind Android and iOS apps are also available. 

Applications for Education
GitMind's best feature for teachers and students is the option to quickly switch between mind map views and linear outline views. I've always liked having that option in a mind mapping tool because while some students like seeing the mapped connections between ideas other students prefer to have them listed in bullet points. GitMind satisfies the needs of both types of students.

Here's my video demo of how GitMind works. 

Math Learning Center Apps Now Include Sharing Options

Math Learning Center offers twelve free apps that are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. All of the apps are available in versions as free iPad apps and as web apps. Last week I visited the Math Learning Center for the first time in a while and noticed that the apps now have a sharing function. 

The sharing function in the Math Learning Center apps allow you to send to your students the specific virtual manipulatives that you have designed in the apps. For example, when using the fractions app you can design a virtual manipulative for students to practice identifying and writing fractions. You can then share your virtual manipulative with your students by giving them a direct link to it or by having them use an activity code that is automatically generated for you. In either case, your students don't need to sign into any kind of account to access the virtual manipulative that you share with them. 

With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. Geoboard is a good example of how all of the apps are intended to be used. Geoboard is a free app on which students stretch virtual rubber bands over pegboards to create lines and shapes to learn about perimeter, area, and angles. Another app features US currency to help students learn to add and subtract money. The Pattern Shapes app is designed to help students recognize and develop patterns by moving colorful shapes into place.

Applications for Education
It is important to note that except for the flashcard app all of the Math Learning Center apps are virtual manipulatives designed to be used as a part of lesson plan not as stand-alone practice apps. You will need to provide your students with feedback when they are using these apps. The new sharing option makes it easier for you to share with your students and for your students to share their work with you. They can provide a link to their work for you to see what they've done. 

ChatterPix Kids - Create Talking Pictures for an Educational Purpose

ChatterPix Kids is one of my favorite digital storytelling apps for elementary school students. 

ChatterPix Kids is a free app that students can use to create talking pictures. To use the app students simply open it on their iPads or Android devices and then take a picture. Once they've taken a picture students draw a mouth on their pictures. With the mouth in place students then record themselves talking for up to thirty seconds. The recording is then added to the picture and saved as a video on the students' iPads or Android devices. Watch my tutorial videos below to learn how to use ChatterPix Kids on Android devices and on iPads.



Applications for Education
My all-time favorite example of students using ChatterPix Kids is found in this Next Vista for Learning video titled A Healthy Meal. To create the video students recording a series of ChatterPix Kids talking pictures and then the talking pictures were combined in a sequence in iMovie.

A couple of years ago I worked with a Kindergarten class in which the students used ChatterPix Kids to create talking pictures of characters from their favorite books including Curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

The first time I ever saw ChatterPix Kids in use was five or six years ago when an elementary school teacher (I'm sorry, I don't remember her name) gave a poster presentation at ISTE in which she shared examples of her students recording short audio biographies of presidents. 

Nine Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers - Updated

Years ago I published a list of nine neat NASA resources for students and teachers. At the time the list was current. Over the weekend someone emailed me to point out that few of them were no longer available due to the deprecation of Flash. Here's my updated list of neat NASA resources for students and teachers.

NASA Artifacts

A couple of years ago Steve Dembo introduced me to a U.S. General Services Administration program that lets schools acquire artifacts from NASA's space program. The program has two parts. One part lets schools, museums, and similar organizations borrow artifacts. The other program lets schools acquire artifacts for no cost other than shipping fees.

The NASA Special Items program lets schools acquire things like old shuttle tiles, meteor strike test plates, shuttle thermal blankets, and food packets from the space program. The Special Items program seems to be the easier of the two programs to navigate as it does have an itemized list of what is available and what it costs to ship the items to schools. The steps required to acquire items through the Special Items program are outlined in this PDF.

The NASA Artifacts program is the program that offers the more unique items from the space program for schools and museums to display. The documentation required for participation in this program is much more complex than the Special Items program. And applications appear to be reviewed in greater detail than the Special Items program. The requirements and procedures for the NASA Artifacts program are outlined in this document.

Explore the Moon & Mars in Google Earth

The desktop version of Google Earth includes a moon view and a Mars view. Select the moon view or the Mars view then click on some of the placemarks in the NASA layer. Your students could even create a narrated tour of the moon or Mars. 

Interactive Exploration of the Solar System

NASA's Solar System Exploration website contains interactive displays of the planets, dwarf planets, and moons of our solar system. To launch an interactive display just choose one of the planets, dwarf planets, or moons from the menu in the site's header. Each display includes little markers in it. Click one of the markers to open a side panel that contains information about that particular feature of the planet, dwarf planet, or moon. Below each interactive display you'll find additional facts and figures.

Spacecraft in Augmented Reality

Spacecraft AR is a free iPad and Android app offered by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The app enables students to learn about various NASA spacecraft including the Curiosity rover, Voyager, Mars Exploration Rover, and a handful of other spacecraft. Spacecraft AR includes information about each spacecraft's development and use.

With Spacecraft AR installed and open on their iPads or phones, students can select a spacecraft or mission then point their iPads or phones at a flat floor or wall see the spacecraft appear. Once the spacecraft appears on screen students can move to see other angles of the spacecraft and move the spacecraft. Students can also pinch and zoom to change the size of spacecraft they're looking at.

Spacecraft AR reminds me of NASA's previous AR app, Spacecraft 3D. The key difference between the two is that Spacecraft 3D required students to scan a printed target in order to make spacecraft appear on screen. Spacecraft AR does not have that requirement, but it does require that you have a fairly recent iPad or Android device that has either Apple's ARKit or Google Play Services for AR (formerly known as ARCore).

NASA Selfies

NASA Selfies is a fun and free app for "taking a selfie in space." What it really does is just put your face into the helmet of a space suit that is floating in space. You can pick the background for your space selfie. Backgrounds are provided from NASA's huge library of images. When you pick a background, you can tap on it to learn more about what is shown in the picture. For example, I chose the background of Pinwheel Galaxy then tapped on it to read about that infrared image captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Get NASA Selfies for iOS here and get the Android version here. 

NASA Kids Club

NASA Kids' Club is a collection games, interactive activities, and images for students in Kindergarten through fourth grade. At the center of the NASA Kids' Club is a set of games and interactive activities arranged on five skill levels. The activities range from simple things like coloring pages and pattern recognition games to more difficult tasks like identifying planets based on clues provided in written and video form. 

NASA Space Place

NASA Space Place is a sizable collection of fun projects, games, animations, and lessons about Earth, space, and technology. Before playing the games or attempting one of the projects, students should explore the animations and facts sections to gain some background information. The projects section of NASA Space Place provides teachers, parents, and students with directions for hands-on projects like building a balloon-powered rover, building relief maps, and building a moon habitat. The games section offers thirty games covering all of the subjects in the animations and facts sections.

NASA eClips

NASA's eClips videos are arranged by grade level; K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. There is also a section labeled for the general public. The videos are short clips designed to show students the work NASA is doing and how that work impacts space science as well as its potential impact on everyday life. All of the videos can be viewed online on the NASA eClips site, viewed on YouTube, or downloaded for use on your local computer.

What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday?

If you're curious about what the Hubble telescope saw on a particular day, What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday? is the site for you. Just enter the month and day of your birthday and you'll see an image that Hubble captured that day. 

Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom

Thanks to a recent article on The Verge I just learned about a new, free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay or Lightning Bolt cable. 

Here's an overview of how Overviewer works. 

Unfortunately, there isn't a similar Android app available right now that I'm aware of. However, I have been successful in sharing my Android screen through a USB cable with a free desktop program called Vysor. 

 
Applications for Education
This could be a great app for anyone who has an iPhone or iPad and needs a document camera for online instruction. I haven't had a chance to try it yet this morning, but my plan is to use the Zoom annotation tools to highlight while using the Overviewer app in a remote lesson.

Seven Apps and Sites to Encourage Healthy Diet and Exercise Habits

It's that time of year when many of us have healthy eating and exercise on our minds. Even if you're a regular exerciser like me, the December can be a tricky time to stick to good eating and exercise habits. The following apps and sites might help you get back on track. And if you or your students are making New Year's resolutions to move more and eat better, these apps and sites can help. 

MoveIt is a free Chrome extension that tries to help you avoid sitting in front of your computer for too long. At intervals of your choosing MoveIt will prompt you to get up and complete a short exercise. You can set the intervals to be as frequent as every five minutes or as infrequent as every hour. You can also disable MoveIt altogether for the times when you absolutely cannot be interrupted.

Sworkit Kids which I featured yesterday provides you with short exercise your students can do in your classroom or at home. Sworkit Kids simply features short video demonstrations of a movement like diagonal hopping accompanied by a countdown timer. There is also a Sworkit app for adults which provides full workouts to follow along with on your phone, tablet, or computer. 

GoNoodle is a popular service that has been around for five or six years. It's changed a little bit over the years but at its core it is still designed to promote physical fitness in a fun environment. GoNoodle features lots of free videos that lead students in short, 2-5 minutes, exercises. These are fun exercises like dancing that can be done in your classroom or at home with parents. Many of the videos are also available on GoNoodle's YouTube channel. 

One of the simple improvements that I made to my diet a six years ago was not using sugar in my morning coffee (I never used cream). The CDC's Rethink Your Drink helped me understand how many extra calories I was taking in by adding sugar to my coffee. Rethink Your Drink provides a chart of sugar content and calories found in popular beverages. The PDF also contains a chart of suggested alternatives to drinking sugary beverages. In addition to the charts Rethink Your Drink provides suggestions on ways to cut sugar calories safely while not sacrificing nutrients.

On a similar note to Rethink Your Drink, Sugar Stacks is a good website for understanding how much sugar is in the food and beverages that we consume. Sugar Stacks lists popular food and beverage items in ten categories. Every item is pictured with a stack of sugar cubes. Each sugar cube represents four grams of sugar. This is a great way to see just how much sugar you really consume in your favorite snack or beverage.

Space Chef is a free iPad app from the Lawrence Hall of Science. The purpose of the app is to introduce students to healthy foods and recipes that they may not have ever tried or even heard about. Space Chef features a fast-paced game in which students have to quickly grab the ingredients for a recipe. The ingredients scroll past them in three streams or flight paths. Students are shown a recipe at the top of the screen and they must grab the appropriate ingredients as they stream across the screen.

Walking, running, and biking are three simple ways to get regular exercise. I live in an area that doesn't have many sidewalks or even wide shoulders on the road so it can be hard to find safe places for those activities. If you live in a similar area, you might also hear the same complaint from students and parents. To help them find safe routes you could create walking, running, and biking routes in Google Maps. In this short video I demonstrate how to do that.

Twelve Free Apps for Math Instruction

Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only. 

Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.

Geoboard is one of the oldest and most popular apps offered by Math Learning Center. It is a good example of how all of the apps are intended to be used. Geoboard is a free app on which students stretch virtual rubber bands over pegboards to create lines and shapes to learn about perimeter, area, and angles. 

Applications for Education 
It is important to note that except for the flashcard app all of the Math Learning Center apps are really just virtual manipulatives designed to be used as a part of lesson plan not as stand-alone practice apps. You will need to provide your students with feedback when they are using these apps.

Create Talking Pictures of Famous People

This morning the power was out at my house so I sat on my porch drinking coffee (brewed before the power went out) and brainstormed a list of ways to use video tools in elementary school classrooms. One of the ideas that I came up with was using ChatterPix Kids to create talking pictures of famous people.

ChatterPix Kids is a free app (Android version here, iPad version here) that lets students take pictures or upload pictures, draw a smile, and then record themselves talking for up to thirty seconds. The finished product is saved as a video file on the students' iPads or Android tablets. That video file can then be shared in a variety of ways including in Google Classroom. The following videos demonstrate how to use the Android and iOS versions of ChatterPix Kids.



Applications for Education
A great way to use ChatterPix Kids is to have students use it to record themselves talking as if they were the person in the pictures they use in the app. Consider having students read a quote from that person. Or have students read a short biographical detail about the person while recording in ChatterPix Kids.