I am jumping the gun a little…Dr. Juan Carlos Olabe-Basogain from Christian Brothers University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is coming to do a Scratch workshop with my after-school computer club students in about a month.  Currently, they are in the throes of a major music video project (GarageBand meets art project meets PhotoBooth meets iMovie and Tennessee eTales winner here we come!), but we will pause for Scratch.  And yes, currently there is a major movie set light kit in my storage closet thanks to a very generous community member who lent it to us for filming on Thursday…but I digress!

The plan was, these Scratch-versed students were going to be available to their classmates to help with Scratch when I later started it in general fifth and sixth grade classes; however, our scheduling got a bit off, so I am starting with some basic Scratch projects in classes before the big workshop.  Creating a “Pong” game is a little far off…so I’ve created a fairly straightforward lesson.  Currently, I plan to have students working in pairs instead of individually.  We’ll see how that goes…

Scratch, Lesson One

Objective: Make an animated dot that flashes between three colors: red, yellow, and green.  It will flash 12 times when the green flag is clicked.

Step-by-Step Guide for Students: scratchlessonone

Lesson add-ons:

–Have students add a sound between each flash

–Make the dot move along the X axis as it flashes, bouncing if it hits the wall

More to come later about the computer club video project…it’s just too much to deal with right now without blogging about the CHAOS!  Just kidding.  Or am I?…

My Kerpoof lesson plan is up!

It’s here on the Kerpoof Scholastics page, retitled Fairy Tales with a Twist.

Discovered something new, and in a spur of the moment change of lesson plans decided to spend two lessons with Tutpup.  I’m sending home notes afterwards, so students can continue the program at home.

So, what is Tutpup?

It’s a drill-the-skills sort of site with a twist: students practice math and spelling skills by competing with other players that can be anywhere in the world.  So, in essence, you also have the potential for some social studies.

As a teacher, you sign up and create classes.  Assigning the classes a code, students then sign up using the given class codes and in that way, student accounts are kept neatly by classes.  To save time and tears (yes, tears…”I wanted PinkPony8 and it’s taken! waaaah!”) I went ahead and made accounts for students.  Yeah, the number gets staggering, and it does take time on my part, but when a class time is 30 minutes, you can waste it all on setting up accounts.  Plus…tears.  Best to be avoided.

Student accounts are made by selecting a color, animal, and number–eg. PinkPony8 or BlueCrab246.  Student names are not used.

Despite the competitive purpose of the site in which students are in essence “interacting,” there is no chat feature or any other way for students to communicate.  This is simply a place to practice skills while competing against someone else.

Pros:

–Students get timed tests in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, times tables, algebraic equations, and spelling.

–Range of difficulty allows for ages 5-14.

–Good graphics and sound, plus no ads.

–Keeps track of wins, special awards, and worldwide and country wide high scores.

–Kids have a blast playing it.

–It’s FREE!

Cons:

–Slow load times midday because I’m sure a lot of kids are using it.

–Spelling is difficult for American kids due to the accent of the word caller.

Other than that, it seems to be an overall attractive site for students.  Besides the practice of skills, every player is marked with a country flag.  When students challenge one another, they see the flag and country name of their opponent.  Opportunities abound for including this in social studies–learning about the countries, keeping a map with opponent countries marked, discussing languages used in opponent countries, learning international flags, etc.  Tutpup is in beta right now, but it is already top notch.  Great for kids to play at school, Tutpup is an equally great game for home.

Wow!  A revamp of the site!  They’ve added a new feature, Doodle Pad, which will be a hit with kindergarten for sure.  It’s got a new navigation system, a new way of organizing stuff in your “bag,” and it might just be me, but the graphics seem more animated and vibrant.  It makes me wish I was a software designer.  Kerpoof’s technical team must really have fun making such cool-looking features with the notion that kids (and even us big kids) will get so much enjoyment from it.

Anyone who has been checking out Kerpoof, go and have a look.  They’ve even decorated for Valentine’s Day.

Yes, I know I sort of slipped into netspeak there, but I am just quoting one of my third grade students who exclaimed this in class today.  It seemed like a netspeak moment.

What was the website he was on?  Wonderville.

Now, it is not an interactive world to be confused with Whyville, but it is a highly interactive science website created by the Alberta Science Foundation in Canada.  Yes, we’ve been borrowing a cup of sugar from the upstairs neighbors.

Wonderville has all four of my top four qualifications for a website to be used in the lab, and this really boils down to keeping everyone engaged and having fun, while competing with the quality of video games and websites students entertain themselves with outside of school.  It has:

• Excellent graphics (flash environment)
• Music, sound effects, and characters that speak in interaction with the user
• Challenging and stimulating activities
• Overall, busy and interactive

Students have many different options, including science games, interactive activities, science videos, and more.  The site also includes a wealth of teacher resources.  The most popular game by far is Operation Light and Shadow, which is not wholly dissimilar to Valve Corporation’s puzzle game Portal.  Students find themselves in a secret underground facility where an AI voice greets them with an air of menace: “Intruder alert!  Access to this facility is for authorized personnel only!  Ah, another child.  Lost are we?  I believe a friend of yours is here, too.  If you want to escape this facility, you will have to face my security systems.  I hope you know a lot about light and shadow.  Good luck…you will need it.”

Ooo!  Goosebumps!  The objective is to continue through rooms, opening doors by defeating said security system, which entails redirecting beams of light to the right portals using a system of mirrors.  It gets more complicated than that.  Hints and notes left behind by the friend Marie give students clues when they are stuck.  It’s very challenging and requires some major problem solving.  We might spend another week just talking about strategy and light and shadow, focusing on this game and Wonderville (even though we really need to move on to Netsmartz).  The past two weeks, we have spent some time on science websites to keep up the science fair hype, sneaking in some information fluency while we’re at it.

If you haven’t checked out Wonderville in the classroom or at home, it’s a fantastic science resource from the Alberta Science Foundation.