Links

Here are some more links for Numeracy and Literacy:

Maths Website Links
1 Link Rainforest maths
Lots of great interactive activities by year level. Activities are in areas of number system, strategies and processes, patterns, measurement, space, chance & probability and data. This program needs flash player to run. It can be downloaded on the site. Have found this very easy to use and a great resource.

2 Link Internet 4 classrooms
This website contains links to various websites that contain activities related to the concept being covered. Concepts looked at include counting, place value, adding, subtractions, fractions, subtraction, time, measurement patterns etc. The link shown is for grade 2, if you use the arrow you can go to the level below or above.

3 Link Daisy maths
This is an Australian website for students from 3 to 13. The activities have been designed by a professor. To access the site, you need to download the activities. They cover a number of maths concepts.

4 Link A plus maths
Site contains games. It also contains flash cards and worksheet templates which can be generated and printed.

5 Link BBC – maths
Maths activities related to number, data, shape and space & maths mentals. Students complete an online activity. Do a test and complete a worksheet if they want to. The activities are for 4 to 11 year olds.
The activities offer good extension.

6 Link Math playground
This website has some great worded problems for all year levels. It has word problems related to addition and subtraction with
extension for regrouping. They have a wide variety of games which would be repetition for those kids wanting extension activities.

7 Link Primary resources
This website has number of maths activities for students to complete. The areas covered on the website are the number system; solve problems, measure, space and shape. To play the activities you click on the ‘f’ symbol.

8 Link Shockwave Download
To complete the activities you need to download Macromedia flash
player.
9 Link Primary resources – numberboard
Number board. Students make numbers using the board. They use a number expander to make a pull apart number expander. Excellent activity to support place value understanding to 4 digits
10 Link Primary resources – numbersquare
Number square. Students use Number Square to fill in blank numbers to a 100 or make their own 100 chart. They can then complete number patterns such as the 2’s 5’s etc. Great activity to support number knowledge to 100.
11 Link Webmath
This site will demonstrate how to solve maths concepts such as adding and rounding.

12 Link Gamequarium
Some good activities related to time and shape under Gamequarium Junior section.

13 Link Mathsphere
Good worksheet activities and fun games to do online to encourage thinking.

14 Link Woodlands Maths Zone
This website has been created by a Primary school and has some great links which are easy to use. The activities are sorted according to number, measure and shape & space. You then click on the sub- link
for example division and it will show you all the interactive activities for that link.

Literacy Website Links
1 Link Funbrain – grammar gorillas
This is a good activity for teaching nouns, verbs and other parts of speech.
2 Link Funhouse – read and publish writing
This is the place where students can read other kids stories and poems and even get a chance to publish their own.
3 Link Create a comic
Students can create their own comic. They use characters and create speech bubbles.
4 Link Department of Education website – web links
This is the new department website which has links for parents and students.
5 Link Game goo
Great fun activities of various types for various levels.
6 Link Internet 4 classrooms
This website has links to various websites with a variety of excellent online activities. The concepts being looked at include: phonics, sight words, sentence structure, comprehension, capitals, punctuation, opposite and, synonym/homonyms.
7 Link Read On – Stories to read online
These activities have been compiled by Cheryl Kerr, Beenleigh State School, Queensland, Australia.
8 Link Read On – Audio stories to read online
These activities have been compiled by Cheryl Kerr, Beenleigh State School, Queensland, Australia.

Taryn

Online websites.

Here are some of the online websites available that the local schools are using.  Our local schools post these links for the children to use at home.  They are a great tool to reinforcing what they are working on in the school.  The teachers I have spoken to are always pushed for time in their literacy and numeracy blocks.  By offering these sites on their website, children are able to catch up or reinforce their understanding of topics cover for that week.  The best part about these sites is generally they are also all free giving opportunity to those schools or individuals that cant buy expensive software.  The sites that cost money, such as Mathletics, the school buys a yearly membership where children can log on from home.  For students that dont have computers, the schools offer opportunities in lunch times to access the computer lab.

Hats off to ICT.

Taryn

1. http://www.copacabana-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/Get_Smart_Pages/Get_Smart.htm
2. http://www.mathcats.com/#contents
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/longvow/index.shtml
4. http://www.storylineonline.net/
5. http://www.sebastianswan.org.uk/index.html
6. http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/Games/Game.html?GameName=MadLibsOnceUponA&Brain=reading&GameNumber=2&colour=FFFFFF
7. http://planningwithkids.com/2008/05/20/10-online-learning-games-for-preschoolers/
8. http://ww.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=floppy
9. http://www.bookpop.com/colorpop.htm
10. http://www.firstschoolyears.com/literacy/word/phonics/digraphs/digraphs.htm
11. http://duplo.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx
12. http://www.boardman.k12.oh.us/bdms/golubic/onlineliteracy.htm
13. http://www.homework-help-secrets.com/phonics-activities-p2.html
14. http://www.richardgalbraith.com.au/
15. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/
16. http://www.smartkiddies.com.au/
17. http://readingeggs.com/
18. http://www.starfall.com.
19. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bll/nina/index.htm
20. http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/
21. http://www.iknowthat.com/com
22. http://www.funwithspot.com/
23. http://sh012.k12.sd.us/2005/primaryactivities.htm
24. http://www.roythezebra.com/
25. http://www.bbc.co.uk/children/
26. http://www.mathletics.com.au/
27. http://www.topmarks.co.uk/
28. http://www.magickeys.com/books/
29. http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/SplatSquares/splatsq100.html
30. http://www.nickjr.co.uk/play/index.aspx
31. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/kplus_phonics.htm

There are so many more but this gives you an idea.

Taryn

The School Portal

Researching the uses of the school portal has proven to be very interesting. The Portal is a very convenient tool used by Teachers, Students and Parents and contains a lot of useful  tools and  information. I find the school portal to be a practical and very time efficient tool for all parties. I am surprised by the diversity and uses of the portal and I am confident that I will not come close to covering all of these.

The Community portal which is generally used by the student’s parents can contain student information, Results, Reports, Timetables, Calendars, Events, Absences, Finance, Important Documents, Contact details, Friendship lists, Co-curricular activities, News, Newsletters, School policy, Email and Allows parents to update their details. 

 The students have access to the above  information however some schools also upload the Textbooks, Project criteria, Curriculum, Achievements, Exhibitions and links to useful websites. 

Teachers can do their reporting and mark the role via the portal. Some other uses of the portal for teachers include access  to; Timetables, Communication,Outlook/Email, Calendar, Staff Directory, Student Details, Meetings, Curriculum Policies & Information, Year level Planners, Maintenance, Hazard alert register, Operations and protocols, Professional development, Book resources, Staff association and Staff policies.

While I was recently discussing the uses of the school portal with a family member who works at Kardinia International College; she spoke about 2 additional features that they have incorporated into their portal. The Cashless canteen using My Student Account and Clickview.

My Student Account (www.mystudentaccount.com.au) creates a cashless canteen. The students use their existing student card to purchase food from the canteen and their student card acts as a debit card. This enables parents to top up credit via the portal but also allows parents to view purchases, set spending limits, set dietary requirements & allergy alerts and ban items.

Clickview (www.clickview.com) allows the simple use of digital video and digital media to assist in classroom learning by storing this media on the network. This media can be accessed from any computer within the network and can be viewed by hundreds of teachers and students at the same time. Clickview has a digital library but also has the 24-7 feature which records up to 6 digital channels free-to-air 24 hours per day. All recording is achieved for 14 days and can store more than 2000 hours of recording. Teachers and Students have access to Clickview via the portal.

Extraordinary!

Melanie Fletcher

Online Teaching Resources

I have been looking into the different ways that ICT is used in education and discovered some excellent online resources available to teachers. In particular ‘The learning Federation’  (www.thelearningfederation.edu.au) is an Australian Government Initiative which provides digital curriculum resources for teachers. ‘The Learning Federation’ is managed by the curriculum corporation and allows teachers to search relevant resources by State. Teachers can access information in an array of subjects suitable for Primary and Secondary students.

This resource contains different types of learning including Learning Objects, Images, Audio, Video, Assessment, Maps and other collections. Topics can be searched by Advanced Search, A to Z, By Timeline or By Map; covering just about every topic taught in primary and secondary schools. Arts, Business & Enterprise, Health, History, Language, Mathematics, Science, Society and Technology are subjects with an enormous amount of resources available. Searches can be narrowed down to very pacific tasks.

Teachers can also set up a Learning Path; A ‘Learning Path’ allows the teacher to select relevant learning tasks for their students. The student can then access these learning paths by entering a pin. Students can use and view the content and complete online activities. ‘A learning Path’ could be  used as worksheet or a checklist. 

I believe that ‘The Learning Federation’ is a great resource available! The ‘Learning Federation’ website is very user friendly and presents very effective.

Melanie Fletcher

More on Interactive Whiteboards

Following from my earlier blog, Interactive whiteboards appear to be the major ICT tool being used in our classrooms.  As demonstrated on the below links, there are some appealable benefits to using these Interactive Whiteboards or Smart boards.  The one thing that is very apparent to me is how much I don’t know about what my kids are doing in the classroom. LOL.  Take a look and tell me your thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JdG5U8Uwhg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8P-sv9dOu8&feature=related

As you can see the boards are very engaging with students. 

Signing off for now.

Taryn

My School

The’ My School’ website (http://www.myschool.edu.au/) is another way ICT is being used.  It can be seen as a great tool for parents who want to start gathering information about potential schools for their children. 

Even before they start at school, ICT has had an impact on their child’s education.  I know that when we picked a school for our eldest, we based the choice of school on a few basic prerequisites

1. Location to our home – close by
2. It had to be catholic – because that was what our parents did.

We didn’t know anyone in the area who had older children, as we had not long moved in to the area.  Unfortunately for us, we did not know anything about the school, as we have since changed our children to a public school that can offer what we need for our children.

I think this website would have made us ask a few more questions and rethink our basic prerequisites.

Lisa

WHAT AN EYE OPENER!

Recently, I took the liberty of checking out a few local schools.  One from Frankston and one from Cranbourne.  I chose two very different schools with regard to socio economic standards mainly to know if there was any difference.  I was astounded at my results.  ICT is used for everything in education.  GONE ARE BOOKS, LOOK OUT WORLD!  Ok yes they still have a library and yes they still go to it but as far as in the working in the classroom everything is on interactive whiteboards and comes direct from the net.  Wether its working in small groups on the computer or the whole grade on the interactive whiteboards, it’s all at the click of a finger.

The Cranbourne school I chose to use was from a lower socio economic area.  They utilise as may free sites as possible but pay some subscriptions such as Mathletics.  They are expected to use as much ICT as possible in all lessons eg. according to the ePotential surveys they do annually).  One of the bonuses of using educational sites is they can access a variety of sites and the good ones are constantly updated.  Keeping them at the forefront of education and technology.

I’m about to research some more information they have given me so stay tuned for more very soon.

Signing out.    Taryn

Premier’s Reading Challenge Victorian Website

The Premier’s Reading challenge is one of the Websites that I am going to use for our Presentation, as it focuses on literacy skills for p-10 students.

Once the kids are set up on the site by the teachers, they can go online at school or at home to update the books they have read.   Easy Peasy!!!  (Am I showing my age?)

Lisa

Our Question

After many hours of deliberation we have formulated the question on all our minds.

The question is: WHAT IS ICT BEING USED FOR IN PRIMARY EDUCATION,?

Tomorrows workshop

Hi guys, I thought id break the ice and start blogging. I will see you in class tomorrow.

Taryn