"Listen & Learn" Feature of National Geographic's Young Explorer! magazine #edtech #spedtech #elemchat #IWB

Do you teach preschool or lower elementary grades?  If so, be sure to check out the "Listen & Read" of National Geographic's Young Explorer! magazine.  This feature include audio narration as well as word-by-word highlighting!  This feature is available for issues from September 2009 to present.  There is also a printable Teacher's Guide available for each issue with lesson plans, discussion questions, and student printables.  Young Explorer! would be a great whole class activity using an interactive whiteboard!

-  Jeremy

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#AppMondayTAS - The Knowledge Castle apps by @ununbox #edapp #IEAR

Knowledge Castle by Ununbox is an interactive encyclopedia designed exclusively for kids.  The Knowledge Castle apps provide children with a broad variety of knowledge, easy to read information, interest-oriented content, and most importantly, interactive games that keep them engaged.

There are currently three Knowledge Castle apps available:

              

1.  TRANSPORTATION - The Train  (iTunes App Store | $1.99)

This app tells children the history of the train from the 18th Century to the present in story format.

     

2.  NATURAL SCIENCE - Lightning and thunder  (iTunes App Store | $1.99)

This app helps children learn about the natural phenomena of lightning and thunder, as well as electricity.

        

3.  ASTRONOMY The Sun and the Earth  (iTunes App Store | $1.99).

This story starts from the birth of the earth to humans never-ending exploration of the earth, then tells the shape and size of planets, as well as the distribution of four oceans and seven continents.  Moreover, this story tells more about the Sun and the Earth, they are the most important two planets for human beings, such as the relation between the Sun and the Earth, rotation and revolution, the day and night caused by the Earth’s rotation.

        

Features of The Knowledge Castle apps:

• Educational facts are presented in a story format
• Pictures and layout are highly interactive
• Each story is followed by creative games, the purpose being to get children involved in learning
• Easy to play, as interface similar to video games
• Children can choose to be different characters
• Progress is saved before quitting the app and reloaded the next time
• Built-in reward system to encourage growth
  
• Sound effects and background music can be adjusted through "Options"

FREE app (for limited time)!!
For a limited time (until 09/05), the developer has reduced The Train app to FREE!!  Download The Train app via the iTunes App Store.


Promo Codes Giveaway:

The developer has also given us 3 promo codes for The Sun and the Earth and 2 promo codes for Lightning and thunder  to giveaway.  To win a promo code for either of these Knowledge Castle apps:

1. Follow @Ununbox and tweet about this promo code giveaway "I just entered promo code giveaway for Knowledge Castle apps by @ununbox. You should too! #B2SAppSpecials #TeachingAll "

2. Like Ununbox on Facebook and mention this #B2SAppSpecials promo code giveaway on the Teaching All blog.

3. Comment below and suggest another topic for Ununbox to consider for a future Knowledge Castle app.

Winners be announced later this week in a comment below.  Good luck!!

 -  Jeremy

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Google Map Skills

Google maps has a few great features that help in teaching map skills to students of all disabilities.  Google still is the best (in my opinion) for getting directions, but they have a great feature called My Maps, which you can use to create your own customized maps.

Head to http://maps.google.com and log into your Google account.  You'll see a link on the left side for "My Places", click and then select create new map.  You can then find the area you'd like to work in and start placing pins on the map.  A great feature is that you can change the look of any push pin after you place it.  Just click on the pin in the edit screen and you have a large assortment of map type symbols.  Many of these symbols are perfect for teaching how to read a map, and use a legend.  Once you've placed them all you can print the map and the legend will print too.

As you can see from the map above I customized mine to include places in our downtown, and we used the map to take a walking trip.  It was a great way to familiarize ourself with the area!  I even added a compass rose to the map after printing so that we could talk about directions while walking.  Really adds to the community experience.


- Patrick

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MapTrot

Robert Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers shared a great site for maps, Maptrot.  It uses Google Maps, and allows you to input multiple points of interest.  For me, I can see using this with students to see where multiple points of a community based trip are located in relation to each other.   It can also be used as part of social science lessons. It's a very easy to use site.  Most maps can be created in less than 5 min.



Patrick


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News-2-You

I was reading a post recently about News-2-You and thought it would be something interesting to post about too. News-2-You is a newspaper designed for students with disabilities. It started several years ago as just a once weekly format, and has expanded greatly. It is still published once a week but now comes in 4 levels (simplified, regular, higher and advanced). This newspaper is published with pictures (like symbolate) above the words. It usually has 2-3 articles, some jokes, a recipe, and worksheets to supplement it. There is a spanish edition, all the pictures used are downloadable, and also includes activities for Cliker 5 and Classroom Suite.

Here's a link to the specific items you membership includes:
News-2-You What You get

One feature that many people I've talked to like is Joey's Locker. The activities available in this area relate to state standards, and are great to use with alternate assessments.

There is a membership fee for this site. You can check out the prices for yourself at News-2-You. There are discounts for schools and multiple licenses so talk to your school about them.

I hope everyone is staying dry, here in the Midwest we're getting the last of Ike, but I can't even imagine what is happening down in Texas and Louisiana. My heart goes out to all affected, and we will be thinking of you as you recover!


Patrick