Jigsaw planet

It is the last day of the school holidays for me. I have been looking after my niece and nephews (7 yrs and younger). We have been lucky and have enjoyed great weather these holidays but I tried to make sure I had some other ideas if the weather turned and outside activities needed to be curtailed.

Aidan and Ruby both like doing jigsaw puzzles and have a quite a few at home as well as borrowing them from the children’s toy library at home. Aside from being fun, they are a great way to spend some time practising spatial awareness, problem solving, hand-eye co-ordination and concentration.

I came across this program that I thought the kids would like. It offers an alternative to a physical jigsaw puzzle in that it offers an online one for a change.  Jigsaw Planet is free and easy to use. You don’t need to register to have access to puzzle creation.

You can see other puzzles that have been made to try out but I prefer the idea of creating you own.

1. Upload your own photo/image
2. Choose to how many pieces to make it. (Between a 4 and 300 piece puzzle)
3. You can also select the shape of the pieces, with a very simple shape suitable for pre-schoolers.
4. Put in some tags for later location
5. Click on create

I found that is was easier/quicker to upload if I made my image smaller (eg. jpeg file 300 -400 KB) but the quality was still good.

To complete the jigsaw puzzle you simply drag the piece across the screen. There are a few options you can use to assist you:

• ask to have a small picture available to look at whilst doing the puzzle
• choose to have a ghost image to fit your pieces over
• choose the colour of the background to make it easier to see the image

I also liked:  

• the ”click” sound when pieces slotted together
• that you can embed the puzzle, as I did below, and click to play it at the site
• or you can send the URL to others

I thought that Jigsaw Planet might be useful to use in the classroom in a few ways.

The jigsaws could be used in new classes (or in a PD class) because, as each puzzle is timed as you put it together, you could have groups of students try to can complete the puzzle in the fastest time as a team building exercise. 

A teacher could create puzzles that teach students facts or images that would create discussion. Students could then put them together and then read and/or the facts/images once the puzzle has been completed.  The students could also create their own puzzles for other students to do.

198 Camperdown Gardens_2007 029I

Useful sites

  by  Colette Cassinelli 

• From the Library of Congress: “Finding E-books: A Guide” « INFOdocket

• 
  http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/databases/ict-in-education-database/item/article/unesco-ict-competency-framework-for-teachers-version-20
   An updated publication designed to help training teachers on ways to optimize the use of information and communication technologies in the classroom has been launched early November 2011 by UNESCO in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Learning, Intel and Microsoft. The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.

• Wix.com fairytalenews created by ICTmagic based on blank-website An English resource designed to be act as stimulus for writing news reports about fairy tales for english lessons.   

• Jo Fool or Jo Cool | For Kids This interactive online game takes students through a series of mock sites that test their savvy surfing skills.     

• Safe Online Surfing Internet Challenge – USA-SOS.ORG Teaches about internet safety using some a fun activities. For various year levels   

• Web Wise Kids ”The site is concerned about empowering today’s youth to make wise choices online. Through state-of–the-art Internet Safety computer games (that are based on real-life scenarios) as well as Internet Safety tips for kids, teens and parents, Web Wise Kids creates a safer, friendlier internet experience. These, coupled with involvement of community, youth leaders and parents, provides an environment where your child’s Internet Safety becomes their first line of defense while navigating through cyberspace.”   

• 10 ways schools are teaching internet safety | eSchool News Article by Meris Stansbury “Using third-party resources and having students act as investigators are some of the many ways educators are teaching about online safety and responsibility”   

• Read Beyond the Lines: Transmedia has changed the very notion of books and reading — The Digital Shift An article by Patrick Carman where he discusses how to get kids reading again - we should be creating books for every kind of reader—traditional, ultra-wired, and everything in between. “I’ve heard the same statement in one form or another from hundreds of different teachers and librarians when they talk about the emergence of multimedia books: kids who weren’t reading are reading again. They’re coming back.”    

• Why Aren’t Students Using E-Books? | MindShift Article discussing the research: “The library e-book provider eBrary released some of the preliminary results from its 2011 Global Student E-Book Survey last week. Among its findings: that students’ e-book usage has not increased significantly in the past 3 years.”   

• 10 reasons the shift may happen faster than you think | Getting Smart While it’s no secret that there seems to be more use and reliance on digital and blended learning with each passing semester, a transition may be happening faster than you think writes Tom Vander Ark. At a conference he talked about a dozen of the factors accelerating the shift to digital learning:  

• 14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging This blog post explains, in easy steps, how to teach students to be successful bloggers in the classroom.    

• The Myth of the Tech-Savvy Student – Online Learning – The Chronicle of Higher Education Op-ed by writing professor Ron Tanner: “Why wouldn’t we educate students in sophisticated uses of the Internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world’s time and attention? I’m not talking about a course on “How to Understand the Internet” or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (although that is useful, obviously). I’m talking about the need for students to understand and produce texts online—essential skills for life beyond college.”    

• Free Puzzlemaker | Discovery Education Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more-using your own word lists.  

• Protecting Your Online Reputation: 4 Things You Need to Know This infographic was shared on Mashable on e-reputation management.   

• How to Get Started with Google+ Pages and WordPress   

• Amazon Launching E-Book Lending Library – WSJ.com  

• Amazon Starts Lending Ebooks, but Head of ALA Says Libraries Still Offer Best Value — The Digital Shift   

• Is Gaming the New Essential Literacy? | MindShift “When people learn to play video games,” said James Paul Gee, “they are learning a new literacy.” This is one of the reason kids love playing them: They are learning a new interactive language that grants them access to virtual worlds that are filled with intrigue, engagement and meaningful challenges. And one that feels more congruent with the nature and trajectory of today’s world. As our commerce and culture migrates further into this emerging digital ecosystem it becomes more critical that we develop digital literacy, of which video games inhabit a large portion.   

• Google kills its other Plus, and how to bring it back (Wired UK)  Google+ is the fastest-growing social network in history. To help them focus, Google’s shuttered a number of products, and in doing so killed off one of its oldest, most useful tools Google and the AND or the OR or the Plus Search changes were useful and impt to me but I must be in a minority as Google has gone with a majority who did not think this option was impt.   

• An outdated approach to school accountability – The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)   

• The case for piracy – Blog – ABC Technology and Games (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) ”When it comes to copyright theft and piracy, many people assume there’s just one side – the side of truth, justice and copyright owners. Beyond that there are parasitical thieves. When most governments come to legislate on the matter, their response is usually one of listening to what big corporations and lobby groups say and nodding in agreement. For the general public, years of being bombarded by cross platform marketing campaigns have ingrained people with various “Piracy bad. Copyright good” slogans”   

• Eric Scott Pfeiffer: When we let images be images. ”Do we read images in the same way we read words on a page? While they can both easily transcribe the same idea onto paper I do not believe we follow the same rules while viewing them. This is something that has bothered me for some time when applied to the traditional rules of how we are meant to read comics.”  

• ALA | Graphic novels for youth – core collection ”In 2011, the ALSC BofD directed the Quicklists Consulting Committee to create a list of core titles than can be used when starting or maintaining a children’s graphic novel collection. The intended audience is librarians selecting books for inclusion in public libraries serving elementary school-age children. We attempted to create a list of core titles that can be used when starting or maintaining a children’s graphic novel collection. The c’tee defined graphic novel as a full-length story told in paneled, sequential, graphic format. The Ctee identified the best books that are currently available, and will update the list at least annually”   

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful sites (weekly)

   

 

 

   

 

 

Social media edge july2010 – Helene Blowers, posted with vodpod

    I liked the above presentation, especially the E words.

This weeks interesting links are:

MyPaint MyPaint is a fast and easy graphics application for digital painters. You work on your canvas with minimum distractions, bringing up the interface only when you need it. Comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate real media.  

CriticalPast.com: Search over 57000 videos and 7 million photos  CriticalPast provides thousands of hours of video and millions of still photos drawn largely from U.S. government agency sources. Clips from 1890 to 1990 included.  

WeGame, a free Fraps alternative – Record Games, Capture Games, Game Record, and much more!  WeGame lets you record your own video games and capture screen shots. You can even start making your own machinima. 

Java island gaming, tropical flash games paradise – Mario games – Sonic games  Java Island Gaming provides many java and flash games. Puzzles and strategy games included.

Welcome to ABookandAHug.com  ABookAndAHug.com is a resource for finding the right book for a child. The site provides reviews and categorisation of many popular book and series titles, organised by genre and by reading levels, starting with babies, young listeners, picture books, early readers and independent and higher level readers. browse by category, age, reading level, gender… Special section on books for boys and the Books Alive is a selection of author interviews.  

MAKING A BOOK TRAILER | Gabrielle Wang A blog post about Making a Book Trailer by Gabrielle Wang (Aust YA Author)  

Free Online Favicon Generator Tool  This lets you generate a favicon to go in the address bar of your website.  

A Bloggers’ Code of Ethics – CyberJournalist.net – Online News Association – Ethics and Credibility  Some great guidelines for bloggers. Useful ideas in relation to the ethical issues with technology. Voluntary but important from the cyber journalist Web site. This site posts a blogging code of ethics, which has become a huge ethical issue since the invention of blogging technology.  

iLearn Technology » Blog Archive » iPads in Education  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.     

Useful Links (weekly)

• ToonsTunes – Making music fun for kids! A site aimed to attract kids that allows kids to create music, using loops of their own voice or anything that comes through their pc microphone. A wonderful site to send your kids where they can explore creating their own music. 

• Musipedia: Musipedia Melody Search Engine Welcome to Musipedia! Inspired by, but not affiliated with Wikipedia, we are building a searchable, editable, and expandable collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes. Every entry can be edited by anybody. An entry can contain a bit of sheet music, a MIDI file, textual information about the work and the composer, and last but not least the Parsons Code, a rough description of the melodic contour.

• placeSpotting.com | The online map game | solve Place Spotting – Challenging Geographic Riddles: a fun way to teach or reinforce geography lessons Place Spotting is a website of geographic riddles. It is based on the Google Earth platform. Users can create their own geographic riddles or try to solve riddles created by others. The search feature on the site lets users search for riddles based on level of difficulty, language, region, or creation date.

• Online Teaching Tips Tips and tricks for designing course content, facilitating and teaching online, developing learning objectives, assessment ideas, and tutorials for Blackboard. Online Teaching Tips was designed and developed, and is maintained by the Dallas Baptist University Online Education department.

• 5 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do With An Online School Calendar | School Calendars Made Simple 

• Vocab Quiz Maker | Scholastic Word Wizard | Scholastic.com A simple, but useful application – develop students understanding of vocabulary and grammar. It allows a teacher to generate a “mini-quiz” for any level.

• ‘Word up’ with fun, free and engaging vocabulary games – Digital Play 

• TrueTube Offers lots of resources to promote debate. Truetube explains itself as: “a free, website which uses real-life stories and issues to encourage teenagers to explore and debate the world of morality, ethics, politics and religion. TrueTube brings to life the Secondary Education subjects with short-form web-based video and multimedia technology. The site encourages teenagers to find their voice as they explore their own value systems and those of their peers around the corner and across the world.”

• Interactive Timelines 

• Top 10 Web Collaboration Tools (That Aren’t Google Wave) – Collaboration – Lifehacker This is a useful list of collaboration tools online (and not part of the Google Wave) Have a look at some great ways to work collaboratively and each option has its own strengths. This post will get you started thinking about may be possible.

• Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching The Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching (CIMT) was established in 1986. The centre is a focus for research and curriculum development in Mathematics teaching and learning. By clicking into ‘Teacher Resources’ you can find some interesting activities and resource materials. There are also exercises with automatic correction.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Free Rice campaign: new range of topics

Last year I read about the Free Rice site and then a member of our RE staff also sent it around. Since then it has occasionally come up again. When I looked at the site again I saw some changes on the website that I thought I would let you know about. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the deal. The site that asks you questions and each time you get an answer right, 20 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program. (There is a lot of information on this UN site that would be useful as well).  The money comes from the displayed ads and the advertisers are solid brands, as you can see on the site.

The Free Rice site has been updated to offer a wider range of topics. The questions do ‘learn’ as you progress through the quiz and become harder but they aren’t too taxing but there are 50 levels you can strive to acheive.  As the school year starts to draw to a close, and some students may finish work earlier than others, they might like to have a go at this site and do some good at the same time. You can have a go as many times as you like and it can be addictive. I know one person that tries it everyday.

I don’t know when the change occurred but you can now choose to do your bit to help fight poverty while answering questions on the following subjects:

• Art
  Famous Paintings
• Chemistry
  Chemical Symbols (Basic)
  Chemical Symbols (Full List)
• English
  English Grammar
  English Vocabulary
• Geography
  Identify Countries on the Map
  World Capitals
• LOTE 
  French
  German
  Italian
  Spanish
• Maths
  Multiplication Table