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Summertime Learning for Young Children

* App to Grow a Plant

Wouldn’t it be fun to grow a plant from a seed and then create a time-lapse movie of it?

Seedling’s Grow is a free iOS app that will excite students to grow a plant by themselves. The interactive platform walks them through each step of the germination process, from planting seeds to sprouting leaves. Once their plant has grown, students can create and share time-lapse videos with family and friends. 

The app also provides gardening tips and facts to educate children about plants and inspire them to become ecologically aware.

* APP to explore nature with image recognition

Seek by iNaturalist is a free iOS app that encourages outdoor exploration and learning by harnessing image recognition technology to help users identify plants and animals from their photos.

Students can choose from a list of nearby plants, animals, and fungi and collect photographs of as many species as they can find. They can earn badges as they photograph new species, become more engaged with the wildlife around them, and learn cool facts about the critters and plants that live in the outdoors of their neighborhood. Registered users can pin their finds to their personal collections, provided the app’s recognition technology produces a match.

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Browse Passages From Books

Google has a new way to find answers and assemble information on the internet on a range of topics.

What is fun about computer programming? Would you advise young people to pursue a career as a musician? How can I stop thinking and fall asleep?Students simply type a question or passage into Talk to Books and the AI-powered tool will scan every sentence in more than 100,000 volumes in Google Books and generate a list of likely responses with the pertinent passage in bold. Talk to Books will tackle any query users have.

The Al tool draws on the ability to understand natural human language. For example, if students try out any of Talk to Books’ generated queries, such as “Who are the smartest characters in Harry Potter?”, they won’t get a list of books they could use to find an answer to their question. Instead, they’ll get the actual passages from books most likely to provide a natural response to their query.

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STEAM Solve for Tomorrow Contest

Samsung ContestDesigned to boost interest and proficiency in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM), the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest challenges public school teachers and students in grades 6–12 to create solutions using STEAM skills that can be applied to help improve their community. All you have to do now is start thinking about a local or relevant issue that impacts your school. Once the next school year begins, Samsung will remind you to brainstorm a solution with your students for a chance to win a share of $2 million in Samsung technology for your school. Sign up now to receive Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest emails and updates to be the first to know when the contest officially starts.

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Force a Copy vs. Make a Copy

Have you ever shared a Google file (doc, sheet, or slide) with others and then had your master file ruined with edits made to your original shared file?

If this happens to you, then read further for a tip that will force shared users to make a copy of their own to edit.  Sometimes users aren’t familiar enough with Google to know how to Make a Copy of a file or may not have the proper permissions to copy.  With Force a Copy, you don’t have to worry about any of that.

When you share a file, you are given a URL link.  That link ends with the word “edit”.  By simply changing “edit” to “copy” you are forcing users to make a copy of that file to their Drive. WaLah! that copy now becomes their own.

Check out my link below to see how you will be forced to make a copy of your own.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_agU5AyzQfZkK-7TECWC7Hz1O3asQanuvHR3bi3rDq4/copy

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Wizer for Blended Worksheets

Think of Wizer Worksheets as digital hyperdocs or online blended worksheets and you will provide a new way to assign students an assignment using a learning management system.

Create engaging, interactive worksheets that includes video, audio, images and a variety of question types that includes technology enhanced items (TEI). Audio features allow you to record your voice for differentiation.  Easily assign to students in any learning management system like Schoology, Google Classroom, or Edmodo.  You can also share your activity by embedding or providing a link or PIN.

Don’t have time to create your own Wizer?  Explore the collection of free resources created by other educators.  Use as-is or copy and edit them to suit your needs.

The free-forever Wizer Lite account gives you the worksheet creator, ability to assign worksheets via URL or LMS, access to thousands of worksheets in the collection, and one classroom roster.

The Moon Phases worksheet below is something I created on the fly in 30-40 minutes. Give it try.  It’s only a sampling of what you get with Wizer.