December 2013 archive

NYC blazes trails to prepare students for success with new social media guidelines

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2013/12/nyc-blazes-trails-to-prepare-students.html?m=1

While some school districts have banned the use of social media because of fears of inappropriate use and distracting students, in an unprecedented move, the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) has reached out to students, teachers, and parents as partners to create guidelines for the appropriate use of social media for personal and academic purposes.

The social media guidelines for employees were released nearly two years ago and include updates that incorporate feedback received from educators.

information for faculty who use the D2L QA server: The D2L QA environment will be refreshed

This email is aimed to faculty who actively use QA.  

Per MnSCU System Office:

The D2L QA environment will be refreshed on Thursday, January 2, 2014.  Any work that has been performed in QA since the last refresh (November 6, 2013) will be overwritten by the course data and files that exist in D2L Production as of January 2.

If any course materials have been created in QA, and users would like to retain them, the items can be exported from QA and imported to Production, to the extent of the D2L tools and items that are exportable.

D2L QA will be unavailable during the refresh process, starting Thursday, January 2 at approximately 7:00 AM and continuing until mid afternoon.

Status will be posted at http://status.mnscu.edu/desire2learn/

 

Further questions and inquiries? Please address to:

d2L@stcloudstate.edu

Follow us on Twitter: @scsutechinstruc #d2l

Do Digital Natives Really Exist?

Do Digital Natives Really Exist?

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/12/do-digital-natives-really-exist/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

it’s an accurate depiction of the current generation of students? No one is born with knowledge. Everything is learned through environment and practice, so maybe it’s time to reexamine long held assumptions about students’ relationships to technology.

Social Teaching by Design: 6 Assignment Ideas

Social Teaching by Design: 6 Assignment Ideas

http://www.slideshare.net/SidneyEve/6-ideas-for-social-and-mobile-assignments

http://www.flipbook.tv/

mind/concept mapping:

http://www.mind-mapping.org/blog/2013/11/mindmup-browser-based-free-easy-and-open-source/

http://coggle.it/

http://www.mindmup.com/#m:new

online photo editor

http://pixlr.com/

infographics

http://piktochart.com/

digital posters

http://www.coveritlive.com/

Google Hangout +

flashcards

http://quizlet.com/

http://www.studyblue.com/

social bookmarking

https://www.diigo.com/

https://storify.com/

booklist

Amazon Listmania

Pinterest: pinboard annotated bibliography

 

24 Good iPad Math Apps for Elementary Students

24 Good iPad Math Apps for Elementary Students

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/12/24-good-ipad-math-apps-for-elementary.html
1- Motion Math

Feed your fish and play with numbers! Practice mental addition and subtraction with Motion Math: Hungry Fish, a delightful learning game that’s fun for children and grownups.

2- Geoboard

The Geoboard is a tool for exploring a variety of mathematical topics introduced in the elementary and middle grades. Learners stretch bands around pegs to form line segments and polygons and make discoveries about perimeter, area, angles, congruence, fractions, and more.

3- Math Vs Zombies

The world is overrun with zombies. You are a part of a squad of highly trained scientists who can save us. Using your math skills and special powers you can treat infected zombies to contain the threat.

4- Mystery Math Town

It’s part math drills, part seek and find game and totally engaging. Kids ages five and up should find this both fun and challenging. Parents should rejoice that finally there is a way to get kids to want to do more math. – Smart Apps for Kids

5- Montessori Numbers

Montessori Numbers offers a sequence of guided activities that gradually help children reinforce their skills. Each activity offers several levels of increasing complexity

6- Free Kids Counting Game

FREE and fun picture math games for kids designed by the iKidsPad team. This free iPad math app dynamically generates thousand of beginning counting games with different themes and number levels. Great interactive and challenging games helps young children build up basic counting skills and number recognition.

7- Math Puppy

Math Puppy will take you on a journey of educational fun like never before!
From toddlers to grade school, for Children of all ages – Math Puppy is the perfect way to build up your math skills. Your child will be able to enjoy a constructive, supportive, interactive fun filled environment while mastering the arts of basic math.

8- Mathmateer

While your rocket is floating weightlessly in space, the real fun begins! Play one of the many fun math missions. Each mission has touchable objects floating in space, including stars, coins, 3D shapes and more! Earn a bronze, silver or gold medal and also try to beat your high score. Missions range in difficulty from even/odd numbers all the way to square roots, so kids and their parents will enjoy hours of fun while learning math.

9- Math Ninja

Use your math skills to defend your treehouse against a hungry tomato and his robotic army in this fun action packed game! Choose between ninja stars, smoke bombs, or ninja magic – and choose your upgrades wisely!

10- Everyday Mathematics

The Equivalent Fractions game by McGraw Hill offers a quick and easy way to practice and reinforce fraction concepts and relationships. This game runs on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

11- Elementary School Math

Based on the classroom hit Middle School Math HD, Elementary School Math HD is a stunningly beautiful and powerfully engaging application built for today’s technology-driven elementary school classroom. Emphasizing game-playing and skill development, the eight modules in Elementary School Math HD have been carefully designed by classroom teachers to provide the perfect balance between fun and the practice of fundamental skills

12- Math Tappers

MathTappers: Multiples is a simple game designed first to help learners to make sense of multiplication and division with whole numbers, and then to support them in developing fluency while maintaining
accuracy.

13- Ordered Fractions

Two Player Bluetooth Math Game! You can use two devices and play competitively or cooperatively with your classmates or parents. Ordered Fractions provides a comprehensive tool that offers an innovative method of learning about comparing and ordering fractions.

14- SlateMath

SlateMath is an iPad app that develops mathematical intuition and skills through playful interaction. The app’s 38 activities prepare children for kindergarten and first grade math.  SlateMath forms the foundation of numbers, digit writing, counting, addition, order relation, patterns, parity and problem solving.

15- NumberStax

Number Stax is a puzzle game to test your number skills! Drop numbers and operators in the correct places to match the number or expression shown at the top of the screen to score. You can’t remove tiles but you can swap them around. You can freeze the game at any time, but remember to watch the clock! Eliminate tiles, score points, and earn bonuses and achievements for as long as possible until your grid is full! Remember, the longer you play the faster it gets. Share with your family and friends to see who can get the highest score.

16- Grid Drawing

With a sheet of paper, a grid and a template, your children will be able to draw 32 drawings on iPad, 16 on the iPhone in the Lite version, more than 120 (60 on iPhone) in the full version.

17- Motion Math

Developed at the Stanford School of Education, Motion Math HD follows a star that has fallen from space, and must bound back up, up, up to its home in the stars. Moving fractions to their correct place on the number line is the only way to return. By playing Motion Math, learners improve their ability to perceive and estimate fractions in multiple forms.

18- 5th Grade Math

Splash Math is a fun and innovative way to practice math. With 9 chapters covering an endless supply of problems, it is by far the most comprehensive math workbook in the app store.

19- Sushi Monster

Meet Sushi Monster! Scholastic’s new game to practice, reinforce, and extend math fact fluency is completely engaging and appropriately challenging.

20- Math Monsters

Math Monsters Bingo is a new, fun way to master math on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The game lets you practice math anytime and anywhere using a fun Bingo styled game play.

21- Grid Lines

Grid Lines is a Battleship-style math game used to teach students the coordinate plane by plotting points in all four quadrants.

22- Marble Math

D2L gradebook response issue

Significant number of faculty have reported issues with the D2L gradebook over the past several days.  In response to these incidents and also based on the advice of the MnSCU D2L Team, the grade book status icon has temporarily been turned off. This has improved the gradebook response time for all D2L users. The status icon will be turned on again after December 27th, 2013. If you are still experiencing slow gradebook response times, please email d2l@stcloudstate.edu. Thank you for your patience and understanding

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