01 Software Resources

Software Title: Brain Pop
Grade/Age level: 3rd-6th grade
Subject Area(s): Math, Reading, Arts, Science, Social Studies, Technology
Platform: Both Mac and Windows
Purpose: Let's say you're teaching a lesson and you have a couple of kids who finish their assignment before the rest of the class. What's a teacher to do? Don't pile them down with buy work like grading papers. Instead, allow them the opportunity to do independant research about a topic they are interested in. Brain Pop allows kids to research hundreds of different fields under many different topics. Kids can reasearch their interests, take the quiz at the end to test their knowledge. Brain Pop also provides kids room to do experiments (none of them are costly or time consuming). This site can also serve as a great introduction or attention getter at the beginning of a new unit. It will peak kids interests. The characters are funny and exciting to watch. The only downside to this site is that it does require subscription. If you want a taste of the website (to see if it's worth your money) there are a couple of topics that are free to look at.

Software Title: Starfall
Grade/Age level: Primary (K-2nd)
Subject Area(s): Reading
Platform: Both Mac and Windows
Purpose: I first learned about this website through my Literacy for Children class. This is a great website for primary children who are just beginning to understand that 'words have meaning'. The area that I will be focusing on in my presentation is "ABCS". This area discusses the different letters and the different sounds that the letters make. Many ABC websites I found were mainly about asking students to sequence the alphabet. To me, this has no meaning. This website actually teaches the kids that certain letters have certain sounds. It also focuses on the difference between capitol letters and lower case letters. It really hits home the point that even though an "A" and an "a" may look totally different from one another, they actually make the same noise. The website is bright, colorful, and easily accessible for a kid of a young age. Finding a website for kindergarten is no easy feat and I think that this website serves as a great introduction to computers.

Software Title: Comic Creator
Grade/Age level: 1st-6th
Subject Area(s): Writing
Platform: Both Mac and Windows
Purpose: Do you have kids in your class who hate writing? Are you looking for a way to spice up your writing prompts or are you looking for an innovative way to incoprorate a lesson about onomatopoea? If you answered yes, then this is the website for you. The comic creator allows kids the opportunity to express their writing ideas in the form of a comic strip. This website provides students with a comic creator simulator and a comic strip planning sheet. This invites kids to prewrite before they begin. In addition to this, this website provides teachers with lots of lesson plans that teachers can plug into this webpage. Here are some examples:
Book Report Alternative: Examining Story Elements Using Story Map Comic Strips
Buzz! Whiz! Bang! Using Comic Books to Teach Onomatopoeia
Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Genre Study
Overall, I think this is an idea that kids can really get excited about. It think it would do wonders for kids who dislike writing and I think that this tool can be used to teach innumerable concepts--not just one.