Roy the Zebra

I have used some of the reading games from Roy the Zebra with one of my students that has problems with blends.

It's a simple activity, but used with some hands on activities and sounds work, one simple game can last a 30 minute lesson.

Many of the games on the site are ideal for IWB and emergent readers.



Activities on the site include blends, double consonnants, rhyming words, alphabetical order, high frequency words and long vowel phonemes

Starfall

The online books that my students love most are, of course, those that are interactive.

Starfall is one of their favourites. Even the students who are a little older, but need extra practise, don't mind working on activities on the site because it's colourful and has funny little activities along the way.

All About Me is one of their favourites on the site. You get to create a character, then read sentences about that character and a little sing along song!

Perfect for K-2 students, but also useful for ESL students when learning about the names of items around the house, school or the parts of their bodies.

I have one student who has a lot of letter/sound problems and finds it difficult to blend. He is in Grade 5, but we've used the letter blocks and ONLY the first page of the booklet to click on the letter so he can hear the sound. We then use the Learning to Read activities to look closely at letter/sounds and even use things like the pictures of where your lips and tounge are to help make the sounds. He will click the letter himself, listen and then repeat. After a while he makes the sound at the same time and knows he's doing well when he can't tell the difference.

When I had a younger class I used the site as part of our guided reading lessons. It replaced the listening post, and the kids knew which book they'd read and which was next and during the course of the year they worked through the different levels. Their Scope & Sequence is useful and I used it in my programming.

The site has a lot of useful downloads including picture/word sheets that can be used for pre/post reading activities.

Games to Teach Mutliples/Factors

See the review below for Number Cop.

While searching for other games for my students to try out I also found the following

Pumpkin Multiples Simple game where you can chose a multiple then you have to move a cute little ghost to "catch" the numbers it is a factor of. At the end of the game it tells you your score and reminds you of the numbers that are multiples of your target number.

Product Game A little more challenging, but a 2 person game, suitable for an IWB. Students use their knowledge of timestables and a little strategy to win a "Connect 4" type game.

Grid Game A simple grid game where students have to find the factors of a given number OR find the odd or even numbers.

A smartboard resource can also be downloaded here and a bubble popping game (no download needed) here.

A trial version of Prime Time Maths, which is a tetris style game, can be downloaded. Even the first level is enough to reinforce factor trees. The only way to get rid of 8 is to click 2x2x2 and 18 3x3x3 (so cubed numbers as well!!!).

Number Cop

Number Cop I have to confess I spent way too much time playing this game this morning.

I was looking for a game that could be used by my students to reinforce prime/composite numbers. Part of the learning cycle is to learn about factors & multiples.

The game has 3 levels of difficulties and you can chose to "chase down" prime numbers, rational numbers, fractions in their lowest forms, or square numbers. You can also just leave the selection blank and click one of the numbers on the number pad to play a multiples game.

The graphics are fun and it sends out enough numbers to make even the lowest level fun and challenging.

As an added bonus there is feedback both during the game and at the end of the game to tell the students which numbers were wrong and why.

Interactive Whiteboard Maths

The following are just a list of links to maths games that are good for groups on the IWB. They do not require keyboard input to answer questions.

ADDITION

Maths Baseball - Addition Game that caters for different abilities in a class.

Numbers - Addition game that moves very fast! Can be downloaded or played online.

SUBTRACTION
Snowball Fight - Solve subtraction problems correctly and you get to throw the snowball, make a mistake and it splatters right on the screen!



MULTIPLICATION

Egg Static Drop - Multiplication Game where you have to catch eggs for multiples of a chosen number.

Pizza Pizzazz - Solve a multiplication question and deliver a pizza to the table with the number that matches the answer.

Disco Dino - Another mutliplication solving game, but at the end you get to create a dinosaur dance!

Fish - Similar to Pizza & Disco but these fish are fast!

NUMBERS
Splat Square is a simple 100's chart but with sound effects and colours. Play games like "What Number Comes Before?" Other ways of intergrating the grid into lessons can be found here and here.

Gamebone is another fun way of using a 100s chart to learn.

Arcademic Skill Builders

Arcademic Skill Builders promise the following:

Arcademic Skill Builders are research-based and standards-aligned educational games that offer an innovative approach to teaching basic academic skills. We incorporate features of arcade games and educational practices into fun online games that will engage, motivate, and teach your students.

Play games for free right here on our site! Click a button below to play. We have multi-player and single player games. In the future we'll add features enabling you to save records, tailor content for differentiated instruction, and pinpoint student problem areas!

The few games I played were fun, in that competitive way. The number facts questions would suit lower levels, but the ratio questions are definitely for higher level students (I felt very challenged!!).

The mutliplayer games mean that students can play against others in their class or against others in the world. There are also single player games for the less competitive.

The games are a chance to reinforce internet safety rules as well, as children have the opportunity to use their own user name or a randomly generated one. While it gives their name, there are no other identifiers (eg country, age).

Categories include addition & subtraction games, multiplication & division games, fraction & ratio games, language art games (eg verbs, vowels, capitals).

While not printable, there is feedback about percentage correct and the questions that were wrong. A teacher could take a screen dump for each child's game if a record was needed.

Read Write Think

Read Write Think has a lot of useful tools for making writing fun in the classroom. The visuals are the sort that would usually appeal to children and teachers will like that each tool also includes a list of ways for using the tools in class activities. Each of the links below will take you to the activities pages which then contain the links for the teaching tool.

The Letter Generator

The Letter Generator is a useful tool for students to learn the parts of a business or friendly letter and then compose and print letters containing all the essential elements needed for both styles of correspondence.

Animal Inquiry

Supporting inquiry-based research projects, the Animal Inquiry interactive invites elementary students to explore animal facts and habitats using writing prompts to guide and record their findings. This is a good introductory activity for students before writing information reports. It would work well as an IWB activity when working on a joint construction.

Comic Creator

The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). This would be perfect for introductory cartooning or simple conversation writing for younger grades.

There are many other useful tools at the site, and a list of the rest of them can be found HERE

Interactive Phonics for IWB

Here are a list of useful resources for phonics activities (please note that this list will continually be added to, so call back again!):







Middle Vowel Sounds



This IWB resource gives students a 99 second challenge to use a common vowel combination to make the longest word they can from the variety of letters shown on the given tiles. Non-scoring words such as those that do not contain the given vowels or are incorrect will result in points being taken away. A four letter word will score 1, a five letter word 2, 6 letters will score 3 and more than 6 will score 5. Each game is timed with the time available be set by the teacher. There will always be at least a 4 letter word that is possible for each selection.

Maths Games with Feedback

Tutpup is one of my favourite ways of getting the students drilling their maths facts and it also gives feedback.

Anything that ranks them or gives them instant feedback seems to be the students favourites.

Here are a few more useful maths games which also provide feedback for both student & teacher

Math Magician
This is great because it gives students feedback on their speed & accuracy. If they complete the activity in under a minute and get 100% correct, it also gives them a certificate with their results that they can print. This is a good way of keeping track of their results and rewarding them at the same time! A little bit of competition amongst themselves always goes a long way. It drills addition & subtraction facts to 20 and division & multiplication based on the times tables.

Multiflyer
This game has a built in "cheat sheet" for kids who need extra help with their multiplication facts. If they don't know the answer they can use a grid system for calculating the answer. The faster they can answer though the more points they get. When the student choses to "end the mission" they are given the option to print a "printable report". Great for keeping track of their own improvements.

Alien Addition
Part of the Arcademic Skill Builders site (a review to come) this single player game allows students to set their level of play (eg number facts from 1-20 or 10 to 20) and speed to drill addition number facts up to and including 20. At the end of the game a report of success can be printed. Students who get through all levels are able to print out trophies. One teacher has all of these on a trophy wall!

Arithmetic Four
A basic looking game based on "Connect Four" and played by two players. Each player must answer maths questions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) to earn a piece to place on the board. Parameters: time limit, difficulty level, types of questions. At the end the teacher can review and record the scores - but making a printed copy requires a screen dump!

Another simple game/drill site is Harcourt's That's A Fact Students can drill basic number facts in the four operations. It also allows them to chose vertical or horizontal algorithms to suit individual preference. Drills are timed, although there is an untimed option. At the end it tells you which facts were not complete and which were wrong. This page can be printed (answers not given) or students could copy the algorithm and correct answer into their books!

Place Value Activities for IWB

Here are a few IWB activities I've found useful for my Learning Difficulties students. They can of course be used with younger classes.

There are hundreds and hundreds of online resources for IWB, especially from the UK so it's worth doing your own search. Once again, I'd love for you to share any links that you have.

Shark Numbers - Place Value
Kids get given worksheet after worksheet by their of Dienes blocks activities to answer. Instead of doing the worksheets we do this activity from ICTgames.com on the whiteboard. They have so much more fun. It looks at place value for numbers from 9 to 9999.

Place Value Abbacus
This game is another useful place value tool. Students move beads onto the place value abbacus to make the given number. Very hands on learning! It is from atschool.co.uk which requires registration (and costs money!) but it does have a couple of sample activities, including this one.



Decimal Place Value
My students aren't up to decimal place value yet, but I've got this stored away in favourites for when we need it. Basically it's a pull apart activity from TopicBox.net to show what (eg) 3.1 means (ie 3 plus 0.1)



Number Place Value Playground
A reading/writing number place value game from LearningClip.com. It doesn't have too many to solve at one time (a plus for Learning Difficulty students) but moves them on to reading and writing numbers! This website requires registration, but it's free and the website has HEAPS AND HEAPS of useful resources. More to be mentioned over time.

Partitioning Numbers

From the same website as the one above. Students partition numbers (eg 528 into chunks of 500, 20 and 8). Another from the site which helps with partitioning numbers in a simpler (quicker) form is Archery Bullseye other great activities on place value and partitioning from this Learning Clip can be found HERE

Maths Moves U

Maths Moves U is an online game for 12-15 year olds. This is more of an extention game than a remedial maths game.

The game moves you through different areas of math practice! Children choose an animal character and customize the colour of the collar, fur, and tail. The can choose their grade range prior to play. Other options include saving your character to begin or registering to create a locker for extra benefits, including access to new characters and monitoring of your progress.

From there, students can choose to go to several screens, where they can work on flash cards, play math games, take a quiz, take a poll, or work on facts.Tutorial help is available with the quizzes. Background music which is lively can also be turned off for better concentration.

Enter Math Moves University for worksheet practice on many math topics downloaded as a pdf document. A math dictionary is also available.

Clicking on the navigation along the top can also take you to various areas. Opportunities to register pop up during play but are not required at this site. This site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat.

Tutpup.com

Tutpup is an online game site that allows students to compete against students from all over the world in math or spelling contests.

You are able to use the site without registration, but joining does allow you to save student accomplishments. Note that spelling is pronounced with a British accent (sometimes a little thick for my students to understand), and spellings will be British! Teachers sign up and can create a class identity; only teachers have to put in their real names.

Check out the Help for Parents link for additional information about registration and how to use the site. You can choose to allow students to compete with students outside their classroom, outside their school, or just within their own class. Teachers can also lock the class list to prevent anyone else from joining. Students must wait for an opponent to appear to participate in the activities.. As soon as a competitor appears, each student sees the same game and tries to answer each question faster than his opponent. Players can see their progress throughout the game, as well as the time remaining. Be aware: this site is still in Beta and requires Flash.

My remedial maths students love this site! I logged in the other day to see if any of my classes were playing outside of school time. One of my lowest ability students had played a number of games and was actually ranked 1st in Australia and 2nd in the World (for the past 24 hours). I was able to share the screen dump I took of his ranking with him and his teacher and let all the other students know how well he'd done. This had such a positive effect on his self esteeme and I was able to share it with his father who was very proud of him. It also encouraged my other remedial students that they too had a chance to be first in Australia (if not the world!) and their game playing outside of school also increased.

Students can, like my remedial champion, play games at levels they are comfortable with, however we have included this as part of a weekly timestable program and they are only allowed to play games inclass time based on their timestable of the week. It is amazing to hear them say "oh I know that one now". I love their motivation while they're playing and it's one of the highlights of my week.

Computers Make Special Education Fun

Way back when computers first came into schools someone wrote the following article focusing on computers and special eduation.

I'd like to say that using computers with my special education students has proved to me that they ARE capable of using technology, and learning it quickly.

It has also helped teachers think differently about the capabilities of their students.

Most importantly though it has improved the self esteeme of my special education students. Instead of hating attending special withdrawal classes and feeling "special" means "dumb" the students love coming to class and feel that they have "special" lessons that others don't have because they have more access to computers. These students have become highly motivated and have begun taking charge of their own learning (evident by students using the programs/games from classes at home, when previously it was difficult to encourage them to do extra homework practise). A lovely "side effect" is that I have very few behaviour problems with these students! What a shame that they are still being labelled "thick" and "naughty" by their own teachers who cannot see their students potential (which will continue while they provide unmotivating lessons that are too difficult for their students).

During the next few weeks I will post links to websites or programs I use for Special Education lessons and outline how they have helped the students. I have used the computers for maths, talking & listening, reading & writing activities.

As this is my first adventure into Special Education & computers I am still developing my skills and knowledge. What most impresses me though, is that 25 years ago, when computers were new, someone else found that they could be used with special education students and have similar positive results.

What saddens me however, is that we have such resources available to us, yet as educators we have stuck with the "old ways" and that using computers in Special Education is still seen as "game playing" and not "really learning" by many of my fellow teachers.

Enough rabbiting on .. here is the article:
SOURCE: CLICK HERE

Computers make special education more effective and fun. Glenn M. Kleiman; Mary M. Humphrey.

We have often encountered teachers, parents, and administrators who believe that special education students should not use computers. They present negative arguments like the following:

Negative Argument #1: Special education students won't be able to use computers. They are too complex and students will only become frustrated trying to make them work.

Negative Argument #2:They can't do math or read; how are they going to operate a computer?

Negative Argument #3: Their social skills are poor enough now. If you put them on machines they will become even worse at communicating with other students and teachers.

Negative Argument #4: There is too much for the special education teachers to do already. When will they find time to learn to use the computers themselves, teach the kids, and then make sure the computers are used properly and not damaged?

In this article, we describe the experiences of teachers and students in two special education classes into which computers were successfully introduced. Their experiences convinced us that computers can be especially valuable for students with learning problems. Background

We introduced computers into these classrooms as part of a project that involved developing and testing software designed for spelling drill-and-practice. Twenty-nine children, from 7 to 13 years of age, participated in the project. All the children had learning problems which required special remedial instruction. Eighteen of the children came to a resource room from their regular classrooms for one hour each day. The other eleven children had more severe learning problems and spent the entire school day in a special education classroom. Each child used the computer individually three or four times a week, for 15 to 20 minutes each time. The project lasted ten weeks.

All the students had histories of serious problems with their school work. Their books and papers were quite messy, and their interactions with other students and teachers were poor. These children required a great deal of individual attention from teachers, whose time and patience were often strained.

The four negative arguments we have described claim that computers would increase these problems. However, we found that computers helped alleviate them.

The spelling program successfully increased the rate at which the children learned their words. More importantly, we found that the use of computers led to improvements in the children's self-esteem, their interactions with others, and their feelings about school and learning. These benefits are of far more general significance than the learning of spelling words, and so we will focus upon them in this article. Computers Are Easy to Use

Many educators believe that computers are too complex for students with learning problems, and therefore will lead to frustration. This fear may be based on misconceptions about the difficulties of using computers or it may stem from experiences with poorly designed software.

Most children, even those with learning difficulties, quickly become confortable with computers. Some children in our project took only one practice session to learn to operate the computer. These students were then able to serve as tutors for the others.

All the children mastered the procedures for using the computer in a few sessions. They were not at all intimidated by the computer and were quite willing to experiment, pressing different keys to see what could happen. The children seldom encountered problems in operating the computer. When a problem did occur, they re-entered answers, pressed RETURN, repeated LOAD or RUN commands, and so on--they did not become frustrated or give up.

An important factor in the success of our project was that the software was easy for children to use. The difficulty of the drills could be adjusted to an appropriate level for each child. The computer prompted the children at each step and the procedures were simple and consistent. The program waited for the children to signal that they were ready, and it provided feedback that they could understand easily. Computers Don't Wear Out

Educators and parents also express concern that since special education students often produce messy work, wear out their books, and break crayons and pencils, they are likely to damage computers. A closer look at the type of wear and tear in these classrooms did not show evidence of any deliberate abuse, but rather the results of problems common among special education students. Many of these children have difficulty with the fine motor coordination required to fold papers, draw within lines, write legibly, and erase mistakes neatly. Consequently, one of the best liked features of the computer was that it did not require any of these skills and did not break, tear, or wrinkle.

Even when children had to "hunt and peck" to enter answers, they found it much easier to type than to write with a pen or pencil. For these children, pressing a key to delete an answer meant that they were able to erase a mistake "without making a hole in the screen." Computers Encourage Social Interaction

Another negative argument is based on the view that special education students are withdrawn or socially isolated children who need to be encouraged to initiate interactions. Our experience leads us to believe that this is not the case. Most of the children we worked with demanded a great deal of attention, particularly from the teachers. The amount of time they spent seeking directions and approval from the teacher had been both annoying for the teacher and disrupting for the class as a whole.

While working on the computer, the children were kept busy entering answers, changing mistakes, or moving on to the next part of the lesson. They received frequent and immediate feed-back about their answers and continued working on each word until they spelled it correctly. They participated more actively in learning than they did in most of their other lessons.

Using the computer allowed the students to be more independent with their work. the teachers felt that this reduced the competition between students for their attention and improved the overall quality of teacher-student interactions.

An important feature of the lesson program was that it responded immediately to incorrect answers. Feelings of failure were lessened since the children did not accumulate a collection of errors beofre receiving feedback (as usually happens when working paper and pencil lessons that the teacher later checks).

The program also required the students to type each word correctly before going on to the next one. Rather than going on to the next one. Rather than cause frustration, this practice helped the children avoid making the same mistake repeatedly--a frequent problem for these students. The teachers felt that their students were better able to tolerate failures and showed more patience when working their lessons on the computer. Many times when they had trouble with one of their other lessons, the children asked to be allowed to "work it on the computer."

The computer project had dramatic effects upon the children's sefl-esteem and upon how they were regarded by the other children, teachers, and their parents. The children came to see themselves as more capable because they were able to operate a "real about computer." They became more confident and willing to take on challenges, and were less easily frustrated. The teachers began to expect the children to be capable of mastering more difficult lessons.

For the first time, other children in the school (who did not have computers in their classes) were envious of the special education children. The children's parents were interested in the project and expressed pride in their children's ability to use the computer. The number of parents who came to the school on parent-teacher meeting nights increased dramatically. Computers Help Teachers

Many teachers are concerned that introducing a computer to their classroom would be a drain upon their time and resources. The time devoted to learning how to use the computer and implementing it in the classroom is less than many teachers expect. The rewards can be well worth the time and effort.

In the classrooms participating in our project, the teachers quickly learned to use the computer. The use of peer-tutors to help other children was efficient for the teachers and contributed to positive interactions among the children. It also led to students helping each other with computer problems that occurred later.

After a schedule was developed, the children took their computer turns without teacher supervision. The teachers found the computer could replace them as monitors and drill-practice technicians, and thereby allowed them to devote more time and effort to teaching. Summary

After the ten weeks with computers in their classrooms, the teachers summarized their views as follows:

"In addition to the fun, the children enjoyed improved communication skills, an increased ability to handle frustration, an opportunity to progress in academic areas, and a growing independence within their learning environments. The success that the children experienced at the computer enhanced their self-esteem. Communications between parent and child, teacher and child, and teacher and teacher improved. All of these aspects helped establish a happy, friendly, and positive climate within the classroom."

We have not discussed the details of the software and other aspects of our project, since we believe comparable effects could be obtained with many different applications of computers in special education. However, using computers does not automatically lead to such benefits.

We regard three general factors as critical to the successful introduction of computers into any classroom, and we believe that these factors are even more important for special education classes. First, the computer learning experiences must be integrated into the overall program of instruction. That is, the computer must be treated as a tool for learning, not as a toy for playing games. Second, the teachers and children must be given sufficient training in how to operate the computer to become comfortable with it. Third, the software must be well designed and easy to use. Positive Arguments

After using computers with special education students, we are convinced that the arguments against doing so are invalid. With good software and proper implementation, computers can have very positive effects. We propose the following five arguments in favor of using computers in special education:

Positive Argument #1: Computers can individualize instruction. They can be programmed to present lessons or drills at a level of difficulty and speed appropriate for each child. They can provide immediate and informative feedback, which is particularly helpful for children with learning problems.

Positive Argument #2: Computers can help special education children become active learners. As they learn to control and interact with the computer, their work habits and study skills improve.

Positive Argument #3: Improved learning skills lead to remarkable changes in children's self-esteem. They have a chance to see learning as fun and easy, to see themselves as capable and in control. Their expectations for success in other school activities also improve.

Positive Argument #4: As the special education students become more capable and confident, other children, teachers, and parents begin to change their attitudes about these students' abilities.

Positive Argument #5: Special education teachers find their jobs more rewarding as they spend less time keeping records, coaxing and monitoring students, and more time actually teaching.

This Blog

While I'm a Special Education teacher I have an interest in ICT.

Before becoming a teacher I worked in ICT for an insurance company, I majored in Educational Computing at University and took over the role of Computer Coordinator at my school recently.

This blog is more my adventures into teaching ICT and also a database of links that I use in my teaching.

If you have stumbled upon this site and find it useful at all, please feel free to comment and also leave any other useful links that I may use in the future.