Do you Have Game?

We all know and recognize that the students in our classrooms are wired (literally) differently than us. They want to engage and interact with the content that they are learning. They also multi-task and absorb information through a myriad of devices and inputs at the same time.

If we know this is our modern day student, what can we use to play off of these skill sets and engage them? Well, my friends, how about using games?

In his book, “How Computer Games Help Children Learn,” David Williamson Shaffer states “The books, video games, and movies of children’s culture today demand strategic thinking, technical language, and sophisticated problem-solving skills.” (Shaffer, 6).

Enter Discovery Education. Within Discovery Education you and your students have access to a whole host of interactive manipulatives. They include:

• 286 Explorations

• 211 Skill Builders

• 165 games

• 44 Virtual Labs

• 26 Science Sleuths

• 20 Integrated Science Simulations

• 19 Fun-damentals,

• An Interactive Atlas, Calendar, and Periodic Table of Elements (Science Tool)

In the pages that follow I will highlight a few of my favorite games.

Matt’s Media Tips 10-22Take Teaching to the Next Level Where Microscope and Mouse Meet

Connecting to a Global Community of Educators

Out of all of the games that you can access, Math Dojo has to be the staff favorite. When you enter Leon the Chameleon’s Math Dojo you are challenged to develop your calculation skills and channel your inner mental math energy. You have to choose which punching bag Leon must punch or kick. When you choose correctly your score goes up and Leon stays on his feet. An incorrect answer whacks poor Leon in the back of his head - which is almost even more fun! Each one-minute round tests your math skills, speed and knowledge.

I also am a fan of the Whaddaya Know? Quiz Show! seriesThis series combines video and a very interactive quiz show together to make an immersive, fast paced learning center. Its topics range from the Water Cycle, to the Skeletal System, to Figures of Speech, to Space Trivia and a whole lot more! Students can compete against the computer and/or their classmates. This game is a great tool to use in a center and/or whole class. And I think it works great as both a bell ringer to introduce a topic or exit ticket to assess your students at the end of the class.

And when it comes to learning grammar the hands-down favorite for me has to be the Pendemonium series. You and your crew are tasked with battling the great Dark Marker and his team of sarcastic minions. A correct answer will garner you points and notoriety. A wrong answer will cover you in the Dark Marker’s ink. The Pendemonium gang have many battles over things like roots, prefixes, suffixes, adjectives, spelling errors, periods, commas and more.

There is also a fantastic video series that complements the games. Each video weaves in interdisciplinary topics. Take Pendemonium: The Great African Surfari where students learn about verbs, as well as geography, language, cultures, and animals when they follow the fast-paced adventures of a "pentastic" foursome in Africa. Seemingly ordinary writing implements named Florentina, Arturo, Buzz, and Penny come to life and try to stop smelly Dark Marker from taking over the world by solving clues based on good grammar.

Another great series found within Discovery Education Science is the Science Sleuths series. Students work with and interview the resident Science Sleuth, Watson a special robotic fish, and a host of characters that come to life during different parts of the game. Students have to use the Scientific process and log their progress to help solve the case and win the day.

The last piece that I want to highlight for you today is not so much a game but is highly interactive and, I think, a great tool for learning. The Discovery Education Interactive Atlas is found inside the Teacher Center - right underneath the Calendar. Students can go to any country in the world and learn about its culture, government, history, and elements of the natural world. My favorite example of its use comes from Fairfax County, VA. And the story goes a little something like this. A middle school teacher was teaching a unit on Africa. She wanted to convey that Africa was not a country but a continent and that many different cultures, histories, and governments contribute to its fabric. She challenged her students to go to the Atlas, pick a country and learn about it. Then the students were challenged to become Ministers of Tourism, use their newly found information, and create a travel commercial that would attract people from other countries to visit. What a great creative idea!

In addition to a great number of interactive elements within Discovery Education we’re also going to be highlighting a Student led webinar on

Gaming!As I stated earlier, games are a powerful way to engage students in the learning process and develop a well-rounded set of literacy skills. In this webinar, students will hear from 10th grade game designer Robert Nay, named one of the top kid entrepreneurs to watch. Robert's Bubble Ball game ousted Angry Birds in 2011 as the top free game in the App Store. Join us as he shares his story and his insights into the game design process. Additionally, learn how to use free tools like Gamestar Mechanic, Game Salad, and Scratch to explore game design so you can ultimately build and share original games. Teachers in attendance will be exposed to a variety of resources including the Games as Learning Tools resource guide provided for free on the Curiosity in the Classroom website. Register early to lock in your seat.

Discovery Education Webinar ScheduleDiscovery Education Webinar ScheduleDiscovery Education Webinar Schedule

Dates Time (EST) Link

10/22 7pm - 8pm

Discovery Education Builders 101: This webinar provides an introduction to our unique services for building assignments, writing prompts, quizzes, and science assessments. Learn to select from provided content and add your own to create exactly the assignments your students need. Put the power of Discovery Education to work for you to create engaging, relevant, and rigorous experiences.

10/23 4pm - 5pm

Techbook Admin Webinar: Learn to use the tools and features of My Admin to support successful integration of Discovery Education Science Techbook. This training will cover: Navigation of the My Admin Site Managing User Accounts (students and teachers) Managing Student Access Running Usage Reports

10/23 7pm - 8pm

High School Science Techbook: What Does it Look Like in My Classroom? During this session we will answer the million dollar question - What does the High School Techbook look like in my classroom? We’ll walk through the model lessons that are an essential and powerful component of the techbook, discuss strategies for using the 5E concept view for lesson planning, and highlight professional development resources like the 5 Minute Preps. We will also discuss different classroom implementation models based on varying levels of technology access.

10/25 7pm - 8pm

10 Tips for Spakring Curiosity - A Webinar for Teachers Starting with the free resources provided through the Curiosity in the Classroom website, we’ll explore ten tips for sparking curiosity in the classroom. Educators will learn how to use free resources like agoogleaday to refine students' information literacy skills and Guess the Wordle to find the answers to challenging questions.

This past Friday I was participating in the Rapides Parish School Board Community night. Throughout the night educators and students shared their expertise, projects, and demonstrated their classroom work to parents, community members, and more.

One of the most interesting and cool demonstrations that I got to witness was a lesson plan that incorporated augmented reality in the classroom. Susanna Rowlett, an elementary school educator, was using Aurasma (a free augmented reality platform) to engage her students and bring static images, text, and more to life.

For example, when Susanna hovered over an image of an Egyptian pyramid, a Discovery Education video replaced the image and began to play on her device

Aurasma can be accessed both online or with your smart phones (Droid and IOS).

Click here for the free IOS app downloadClick her for the free Droid app download

Aurasma LiteByAurasma

The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is a global community of educators passionate about teaching with digital media, sharing resources, collaborating,

and networking. With over 100,000 members providing professional development to over 600,000 educators worldwide, the DEN connects teachers

both on-line and in-person. Discovery Educators have exclusive access to a wide range of resources, professional development activities, networking

opportunities, exclusive Discovery Educator events and more. Find out how you can be part of this dynamic and supportive community.

Become a DEN Star today!

What is a DEN Star Member?

Questions/Comments? I’d love to hear from you

email me at matt_monjan@discovery.com

or Tweet me at

@monjan

10/15/2012

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9/24/2012

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9/10/2012

9/4/2012

8/27/2012

Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2012-2013 School Year Archives

Opening up Closed Captions. Check out all of the new and enhanced ways to stream captioned content. We’ll also continue to explore the back-to-school webinars and play with EasyBib, an Android and iPad app that makes citing reference material a breeze.

Back to School Review. Check out some of the major enhancements made to Discovery Education over the summer. We'll give you a chance to weigh in, showcase a new back to school webinar series and highlight Nearpod, a very cool classroom mobile app.

The Digital Decoder Part two of two explores how to use Discovery Education and six other digital resources to help students predict, re-state, and make connections to the text that they are reading. We'll also explore a free mobile app called Fotobabble that lets add narration to your pictures.

The Digital Decoder. Part one of a two part series that explores how to use digital resources to assist struggling readers. We’ll also explore Audioboo, a free mobile app that turns your mobile device into a roaming podcasting machine

Getting Quizzy With It. Everything you ever wanted to know about creating a Discovery Education Quiz and more - including an easy step-by-step guide for embedding Web 2.0 content into a Quiz! We’ll explore a unique mobile app called Stack the States as well.

Five free tools from DE plus one that’s too cool for school. We’ll also explore links to even more free resources and then play with a free mobile app, Sketch Nation Studio, that provides a simple game design/creation platform.

Downloading Closed Captions Explore how to download closed captioned files and manipulate their text on both a PC and Mac. We'll also examine the TechChef4U app that links to many education apps! Finally, in this edition, I provide links to the Best of Matt's Tips and Tricks webinar resources.

In-the-know about Infographics. This edition highlights the new 2012 election material within DE. It also dives into different ways that you and your students can evaluate and explain data by examining three different sites that create infographics. Sock Puppets, an iPad app that is animated by your voice, is also explored.

Scratch.mit.edu, Popplet.com and EduTechr mobile app explored.

4/2/2012 Mi Content es Su Content. Book- marking and sharing your Discovery Education content across your school and district, two great contests, and two text-to-sign mobile apps

3/26/2012 Can You Picture it? Learn how to create a six-word story using iPiccy.com and Discovery Education. Digital Story Challenge! MeeGenius Audiobook app for mobile devices.

3/19/2012 Audio Book ‘em Dano. Eight simple steps for creating an audiobook using iTunes and any computer (Mac/PC). Molecules mobile apps.

3/12/2012 It’s All About The Sharing. Uploading, sharing and accessing your own content within Discovery Discovery Education. Cel.Ly app polling device via any device.

2/27/2012 Teacher Center Treasure Trove of Resources. Interactive Calendar Atlas, STEM Connect explored. Socrative App (student response).

2/13/2012 Special Valentines Issue - Things I love about Discovery Education. Five Minute Preps, Images,Coaches Eye App

2/6/2012 What did you say? Closed Captioning on an iPad? Getting Closed Captions to play on your iPad, GreenScreens on iPhone/iPad with GreenScreen FX app

1/30/2012 Let’s Give Them Something To Sing About Differentiated Instruction Using Songs, First Student Media Contest of the Year, ShowMe and Educreations whiteboard apps

1/23/2012 Meet the Faces of Discovery Education Get up close and personal with the Discovery Education on-air talent, special student webinar series, Story Kit app

Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2011-2012 Archives

7/19/2012 Sneak peek at the back to school enhancements. Roadshow app.

6/11/2012 Fun things to do over the summer with technology and media. Mustacheme app is featured.

5/21/2012 The ins and outs of Digital Storytelling. Digital Storytelling Web 2.0 presentation and apps

5/14/2012 Who Knew We Had News? Find an additional set of free Discovery News videos, the Video Yearbook, video almanac, and great webinar information. Roadshow App for playing back videos on-demand is reviewed.

5/7/2012 My Five Favorite Summer Resources. We explore five free interactive sites that parents, students, and teachers can use over the summer. We’ll also explore a free translation app for mobile devices.

4/30/2012 Getting Your Game On. Finding great games, simulations and more within Discovery Education. Back-to- School Sneak Peek Webinars announced. Futaba Classroom Games for Kids iPad app explored.

4/23/2012 Getting the Point with PowerPoint and Keynote. Learn how to trim audio & video in PPT and save both PPT & Keynote presentations as images to embed in Web 2.0 sites. 2 Screens and Joinme mobile presentation apps explored.

4/16/2012 It’s all about the Theme. We’ll explore several different ways to find unique thematic content. Three most voted upon stories revealed. Studyblue mobile flashcard app highlighted

4/9/2012 Scratch and Pop. Six-Word Story finalists revealed. Links between Discovery Education and

1/18/2012 In a Class of Their Own Setting up Discovery Education Classrooms, Discovery Education Live Webinars, Quizlet App.

1/9/2012 Building out the New Year Five of my favorite things you can do with the Discovery Education Builders, Rover App for DE Students

12/19/2011 Special Holiday Edition 13 Tips from Educators around the US and Canada, Videolicious App

12/12/2011 50 Ways to Use Discovery Education Tips and tricks galore iSwifter - Flash for iPads

11/28/2011 What I am Thankful for Building out your PLN Wordspree and Math Acorn Apps

11/14/2011 Things I Stole From the Community DEN Tips, Four really cool tips you can do with Google. TED and Animoto apps

11/7/2011 First Six Weeks Aggregated

11/4/2011 Creating an “iCenter" How to create an ePub using DE videos. Spirit of Innovation Challenge

10/24/2011 Spooky Edition Digital Storytelling, Web 2.0 Piqua City Community Night, Crazy Pumpkin and Halloween Card Creator Apps

10/17/2011 Stick it to IT Collaborative Note Taking Site Educator Spotlight - Jennifer Everett, ToonTastic and PuppetPals Apps

10/3/2011 Opening Up Closed-Captions Closed-Captions for Macs and PCs, 10 FAQs Customer Service Receives

9/26/2011 Common Core, Web 2.0 and DE Three cool sites that integrate nicely with Discovery Education. Administrator Spotlight - Molly Hay!

9/13/2011 Can you Hear what I’m Writing? Embedding an eReader into your Writing Prompts, Getting to know Discovery Education SCIENCE