I'm looking for a way to allow my students access to the computer for free time when they are finished with their work, but keeping it school related.
Last year, I had a hard time keeping students off of social networking sites (that they found access to around our school's firewall). This created several negative social situations within my classroom as well as the building. They also played games that were ongoing and had no educational purpose.
This year, I have created a list of approved websites based on the links found on teacher pages within my building. They cross the content areas and allow students to choose a subject to content area, but I'm already learning that my students strongly dislike my list :)
Science News
Free Rice
Student News
Sheppard Software
Arcademic Skill Builders
School Tube - Just added to my list after I was told this is accessible to my students as an alternative to YouTube.
Does anyone have any suggestions to add to my list for middle school students?
It is difficult to find applications for students to use during free time in the classroom. If you have i pads available, I would suggest looking through the apps store to find applications at the middle school level, as well as, specific subjects! I hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteKidBlog, Animoto (get free educators account that you can add students to), iMovie or MovieMaker (or PhotoStory 3), -- use tools students use for creation, not for drill and practice--if you get them blogging, they can blog with another class.. Also, do you have access to using Skype? Are you using iPads? Create another blog post to tell us more. KidBlog really works well for this grade level, but you need do some planning to make it work well for your students. They can also create book trailers with a moviemaking program or Animoto. We're starting a wiki next week, which will be a good place for us to share successful tools that motivate students while promoting literacy skills.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great list of websites. I especially liked the free rice one. I'm going to share that with one of my co-teachers and maybe we can use it during language arts. I like the website http://www.free-training-tutorial.com/math-games.html for math games. There are a variety of different topics covered on the website and the games are also differentiated (they will tell you whether they are good for special education students or not-this is mainly based on the speed of the game). Thanks for the list!
ReplyDelete