Sunday, November 8, 2009

BP9_2009112_Web2.0_KidsZone





http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/index.asp

My youngest son is in 5th grade. Given that his Mom is into technology and education, I encourage him to explore and use sites that help with his learning. And one of the main areas of interest for me are sites that extend learning outside of the school environment that are fun and engaging.

Simon found a site he enjoys but that is annoying is www.addictinggames.com. They are mindless games with no educational value and I want to find something else that will engage him without my prompting. I know he will play games that are educational because he has several Apps on his iTouch that he enjoys including MathDrills to practice math facts, WordWarp to develop word skills and Finger Physics, which is fun but is about solving puzzles involving all the fingers. Lately, I’ve found more Apps that are interesting than websites, which offer the same fun-factor with real learning. And few sites offer any collaboration.

While researching the website Lumifi (see blogpost BP8_20091102_Web2.0_Lumifi), I discovered a site on Web 2.0 websites for the classroom and one of these sites was run by the National Center for Education Statistics. This site is a wonderful mix of student polls, word of the day, quizzes on various subjects, data snapshots, probability games, graphing tool and more. Together, Simon and I checked out the stuff and he enjoyed participating in the poll (“Do you think homework is helpful?) and seeing the results and taking several quizzes on geography and mathematics. The quizzes are fun and offer levels for 4th, 8th or 10th grade. Even my 10th grader was interested in participating! While I’m not sure this will hold his attention quite as long as a video game, he asked me to send him the link to his email so he could do it himself. That is good. Check this one out!

Here is the site I found on Lumifi that led me to this great site!
http://www.solutionwatch.com/512/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-1/

1 comment:

  1. I will definitely be checking this one out. I have son in 4th grade. Great source and post!

    ReplyDelete