XtraMath in the Classroom

I have used Xtramath in my classroom for the last three years.  Students love seeing their fact grid.  Each time that students log-in, they can see how many facts they have mastered.  Students love the challenge of finishing their addition and subtraction to move onto their multiplication.  Each time they finish one of the operations, they receive a certificate.  I hang the certificates in the classroom on a wall for students to see.  

While I have used this program in my classroom for the last two years, it has improved students' math facts.  Overall, students enjoy using Xtramath.  Some can get discouraged if they work on the same operation for a longer time.  The students that are struggling, I bring back into a small group to work on strategies to help them memorize their facts. 

 

Xtramath

Xtramath is a program online that helps students learn their math facts.  I am a strong believer that students need to have a solid base in their math facts.  If students do not memorize their facts, they often struggle in later in math classes.  Now that common core is in effect all over the country, the standards say that by the end of third grade, students should be fluent in their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Here is a video about xtramath. 

Biteslide

Biteslide is really great for the elementary school aged classroom.  It helps students focus on their research and what important information they need to put into a report or presentation.  Since students can collect their "bites" and keep them all in one place, it helps them keep track of what they need and makes their presentation more interactive with images and videos.  Students can add text and slides as needed. 

For more information on how to sign up for Biteslide, click here.


Here is one of the slides that I made.  I created a scrapbook of out terrapin program.  I will be using this tool in my classroom next year!

Biteslide

Biteslide is an online website that allows teachers and students to create research projects.  Students can go online and do research using Biteslide.  They can then create a presentation using images, videos, and text.  Students can upload their pictures and videos and the website keeps their things organized on a side panel.  While students are researching and saving their images, they don’t need to worry about their presentation until they have finished their research. 

When they are finished their research, students can start their presentation.  They can choose backgrounds, colors, and add their images and things that they have saved.  They can add text and change things on their slides.  To see an example Biteslide presentation, click here.

There is a free teacher account that you can sign up for.  It gives you (one teacher) and up to 30 students on the free account, but only one project.   For $5 a month, you can have up to 300 students and unlimited projects. 

The great thing for teachers, is that once students finish their slides, they can download, save, and print their slides.  This is great for grading and sharing in the classroom. While this website is designed for a younger crowd, it can be used in all grades.

Class Marker

Class Marker is a great tool to help save teachers time.  With each student having their own log in, Class Marker keeps track of each of their scores for the teacher.  It can easily be input into the teacher's grade book.

I also love that the students get instant feedback on their quiz.  As soon as students finish their quiz, they can see which answers they got correct or incorrect. The teacher would have to input a score if there were essays to be graded, but for the rest of the types of questions, the grading is instantaneous.   There is also a space for teachers to leave their feedback.  Teachers can now spend more time on planning lessons and creating things that their students need.  

Introduction to Class Marker

 

Class Marker is an online testing tool for schools.  Teachers can log into Class Marker and create quizzes and tests for their students.  There are a lot of options available to teachers, such as multiple choice, short answer, true/false, or even punctuation quizzes.   There is a space for teachers to add feedback for the questions as well. 

The test questions are easy to make and the site will grade the quiz for you.  Teachers create a group for their class and then can assign a completed quiz for their students to take.   There is also a way to assign the test using a link.  When a teacher assigns a quiz using a link, the results do not get saved.

Here is a screen shot of one quiz that I made.

To get to the website, click here.

Teachers can get up to 50 accounts for their students.  They can break students into groups or assign a quiz to the whole class. 

There is a free account, which gives teachers 100 credits.  This means that they can have 100 students take a quiz and have it graded per month.  Teachers can buy more credits or sign up for a monthly subscription, which allows for more tests.  For up to 400 tests, it is $16.50 per month.  Teachers can also buy credits.  For 50 credits, it costs $25.00. 

Prezi in Education

There are many ways that teachers and students can use Prezi in the classroom.  Since it is a way to create presentations, both teachers and students can use it to present information.

Teachers can use it to present a lesson to a whole group or a small group.  There are many ways that teachers can create interesting and engaging presentations.  Teachers can create the presentation at home and then save them to a thumb drive to use at school.  They can also use the internet to pull up their presentation.  Prezi’s are a fun way to get information across to your students.

Students can also use prezi in the classroom.  When asked to show what they have learned, students could choose to create a prezi.  I would suggest teaching students the basics of prezi before allowing them to choose to create one about a new topic.  Prezi is very user friendly but it does take some getting used to. 

Some projects that can be created include book reports or science and social studies reports.  Students can create a prezi to show the characters, setting, and plot of the story.  For an example, click here.