For the second game from http://games.eduxtive.com/ I have chosen "Stickman Typing 3". Something I get on a regular basis from my kids is “How do you type so fast without looking at the keys?”. This is largely in part to the decline of a class that simply teaches them how to type at lower levels. The “search and peck” method is in full force in todays tech laden world. The existence of auto correct also eliminates the need to be able to approach any type of passable keyboarding skills.
The game is an addicting speed based game that has the student in the role of a martial arts master stick man. Enemies are dropped from the sky in waves. Each wave contains an increasing number of bad guys that match the level. Meaning level 1 has one at a time, level 2 has two and so on. The bad guys each have a word above their head that you have to type correctly before he gets knocked out. If you mess up, the word resets and you have to start over. These dudes run around the "street" and eventually make their way to your character (which you can’t move) and begin to hit him. Each hit takes your health bar down a tic. I lost intentionally, out of curiosity, and it took quite a few hits before I died.
The general strategy is to type the word closest to your character. Something I noticed though is that if they wander to the edge, part of the word can be off screen. The trick, if you can’t tell what the word is or aren’t sure how to spell it, is to look in the upper right hand corner, where it appears after you begin typing. This can also happen when you have multiple enemies and they stand in front of each other, although in that case you can just go for the one you can see. The main problem that I ran into, however, was when there were more than one word that began with the same letter. The game doesn’t wait for you to type the second letter before choosing an enemy. I twas typing a "G" word one time and kept starting over and began to have a slight case of gamer rage, until I saw that the game was attempting a different word that I had not even noticed yet. There’s no trick to this headache, you just have to pay attention.
None the less, all of these things that can slow you down only encourage you to look at the screen instead of the keys (as I was doing when I typed this sentence). I very well may play this game on my own time. Both because of its innate tendency to improve my keymanship (Is that a word? It is now!), and the fact that its just plain fun! I find myself really trying to speed through words to protect my little kung fu man, although this only hurts my accuracy. This game comes even more highly recommended than the last one! Click the link above or play it here: http://games.eduxtive.com/keyboarding/stickman-typing-3. While you’re there check out the crazy amounts of other games that they have for various content areas! I'm happy that I found this site, even if none of the 3 people who read this, play it!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Excellent Educational Games
I will be reviewing a couple of games this week. They both come from the site http://games.eduxtive.com/. They have loads of educational games over a variety of topics. Difficulty ranges from simple matching for lower elementary to stuff so hard that I couldn’t finish it. So no matter which grade level or content area you teach, this site has something for you.
The first game I’m going to review for you is “Protein Synthesis Race”. This game takes the player from the production of mRNA all the way to protein synthesis. It starts by describing the process of DNA unzipping and having the player separate it into its two strands. On the screen there are several icons that represent nucleotides bouncing around. The players job is to click on the nucleotide that matches and then guide it to its partner using the arrow keys. You get the hang of this pretty quick, and right before it gets too repetitive and old the strand ends and you move on. This part is timed and contributes to the score at the end. A quiz over the vocabulary and process follows and the player gets to try answers until they get it right.
Continuing on the quest to protein synthesis, you see a overview of the entire cell with your newly created mRNA strand floating in the nucleus. The player is asked to click on it and use the arrow keys to move it out of the nucleus and to the ribosome where protein synthesis occurs. The next mini game is a bit more complicated. After some explanatory reading the goal is to read the codon and identify its anticodon on tRNA at the top of the screen. Using an on screen key the player then uses the arrows to move the tRNA and grab the appropriate amino acid floating around on the screen. Put it in place and move on. Again you get the hang of this fairly quickly and are finished before it gets boring. This portion is also timed for your final score. One more set of questions follow and a final player score is given.
I teach middle school science and only touch on cellular division, so this is a little high for what I am doing. However I will be using this game in the future to give my students a visual on some of the processes we talk about. My kids always love anything they can compete on, I imagine we will replay it at least once to see who can get the highest score. Here are some tips to help that happen, if you would like to share with students: (or not if you want to impress them with your own score)
- Use WASD as arrow keys if you have a touchpad so that you don’t have to move your hands back and forth and look down, this saves time which improves scores.
- The faster you can match your nucleotides on the fly without having to think too much the better your score will be, the phrase GCAT helps me. (GC/AT)
- Time is everything, so click wisely even during the quiz portions of this game to minimize wasted time.
To find the game click on the link in the article or go to http://games.eduxtive.com/science/protein-synthesis-race!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
The first game I’m going to review for you is “Protein Synthesis Race”. This game takes the player from the production of mRNA all the way to protein synthesis. It starts by describing the process of DNA unzipping and having the player separate it into its two strands. On the screen there are several icons that represent nucleotides bouncing around. The players job is to click on the nucleotide that matches and then guide it to its partner using the arrow keys. You get the hang of this pretty quick, and right before it gets too repetitive and old the strand ends and you move on. This part is timed and contributes to the score at the end. A quiz over the vocabulary and process follows and the player gets to try answers until they get it right.
Continuing on the quest to protein synthesis, you see a overview of the entire cell with your newly created mRNA strand floating in the nucleus. The player is asked to click on it and use the arrow keys to move it out of the nucleus and to the ribosome where protein synthesis occurs. The next mini game is a bit more complicated. After some explanatory reading the goal is to read the codon and identify its anticodon on tRNA at the top of the screen. Using an on screen key the player then uses the arrows to move the tRNA and grab the appropriate amino acid floating around on the screen. Put it in place and move on. Again you get the hang of this fairly quickly and are finished before it gets boring. This portion is also timed for your final score. One more set of questions follow and a final player score is given.
I teach middle school science and only touch on cellular division, so this is a little high for what I am doing. However I will be using this game in the future to give my students a visual on some of the processes we talk about. My kids always love anything they can compete on, I imagine we will replay it at least once to see who can get the highest score. Here are some tips to help that happen, if you would like to share with students: (or not if you want to impress them with your own score)
- Use WASD as arrow keys if you have a touchpad so that you don’t have to move your hands back and forth and look down, this saves time which improves scores.
- The faster you can match your nucleotides on the fly without having to think too much the better your score will be, the phrase GCAT helps me. (GC/AT)
- Time is everything, so click wisely even during the quiz portions of this game to minimize wasted time.
To find the game click on the link in the article or go to http://games.eduxtive.com/science/protein-synthesis-race!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Ah, Summer Break!
I am finally on break! If you're a teacher you know the feeling. The first Sunday night is my favorite, laying down knowing you don't have to go to work in the morning, not much can beat that. I've had a particularly long year since I started to coach. There was a lot of new things for me and I quickly lost sight of what I was attempting to do here. This summer, if nothing else, my goal is to update this page once a week with tech that is relevant and engaging in todays classroom. Such an endeavor will benefit me as well. It allows me to reflect on things I've used in the past and find exciting new content for the future. After all, if you're not learning, you're not teaching.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Easily Turn PDFs into a Power Point!
It never fails, I find a resource that I really want to tweak and use in my class, only for it to be a PDF. Usually its the vocabulary slides that I get from our districts science resource. They often include waaaaay to many words, or words that aren't relevant to the unit. So I need them as a power point (ppt) but how do you get them there? I will explain the process for Windows and Mac OSX. But either way its a very simple process that will be a breeze if you have even a basic understanding of Microsoft Office.
1.) Start by opening the PDF you want to convert. Full screen isn't necessary, but you want to be able to see one entire slide at a time.
2.) Open a blank Power Point file.
3.) With the slide you want to copy visible and as large as possible, Grab a screen shot.
On Windows: Print Screen Key (copies screen to clip board)
On Mac: Command+Shift+3 (saves screen into file)
Command+Shift+Control+3 (copies screen to clip board)
*Note: If the screen is copied to a clip board you can only do one slide at a time. If it is saved to a file you may save all slides then add them to the power point.
4.) Go to the blank power point slide that you want to insert the screen shot onto. Paste the screen shot thats currently on the clip board.
On Windows: Control+V
On Mac: Command+V
*Note: If you have the screen shots saved to a file you need to Insert>File and select your screen.
5.) Open the picture toolbar and click on the "Crop" option.
Use the corners to narrow the screen shot down until only the slide remains.
Position and size the picture to fill the entire slide.
6.) Add whatever you want on top!
7.) Repeat as many times as needed!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Your a Jedi! Well, almost.
If you have an Ipad or Android tablet, or a phone with either one, you need to download a power point remote! There are a lot of free options that you can then upgrade to more features if you enjoy it. Most of these products show the slides on the top half of the screen and your notes in the bottom half. I can't count the times that I had a great comment to go with a slide but forgot it when I made it to school. Its handy to be able to walk around the room, control the presentation and still have your notes. I guess you could carry a note pad and clicker…... but why? Set up sounds frightening for the uninitiated, but if you follow the designers instructions exactly its not so bad. They do require the install of software on your computer as well. If you are a heavy power point user then downloading one of these apps will change your life! Plus, if your slick then your students will think you used the Force to change the slide. Just search "power point remote" in your devices app store and get the free one with the best reviews!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
FREE student response system! You already own it!
Check out the "hands on demo" (interactive) here: http://www.socrative.com/
Dont forget to share and subscribe on the right!
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
Friday, June 28, 2013
Tired of typing in websites for students? Not anymore!
Ever want your class to browse several web sites and can't do any instruction for cries of "Its not working!" echoing throughout your room? One of my colleagues recently made use of a fantastic online resource called Live Binders.com. We had a grand total of 34 questions that the students were to use 14 different web sites to answer. And I don't know about yours, but my kids can't seem to accurately type AOL much less a long .com with a thousand back slashes. In comes Live Binders. You give them one link, and when they click it it will open a page with all of the web sites that you specified on separate tabs. So they can just click through them! Its so much better and you can actually use your time to do some teaching instead of getting carpal tunnel from typing everything in for them. Here, better for me to show you! The blue tabs at the top of the page are all of the sites I decided to use. I love this resource and use it regularly in my own classroom.
Any other apps, devices or websites you need help incorporating into a certain objective? Or an objective you want to link to technology? Follow and let me know via twitter (@Techno4Teacher) or the contact form on the right!
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