Assignment+2

__**Assignment #2 - Personal Apps**__
 * [|The Weather Channnel]**
 * This app allows me to be appraised of weather conditions throughout southeastern Wisconsin and others areas of the country. As I'm putting on my morning pot of coffee, I often glance at the huge thermometer on my deck outside my kitchen window. This alerts me to what I should wear for the day. (I'm never up late enough to catch the evening news.) Now with my iPad Weather Channel app, I can get a better picture of the weather for the entire day and plan accordingly. I really like the video capabilities of the weather channel app. While I am getting ready for work in the morning, I can turn it on and watch and listen to a mini- weather newscast. I can then be prepared for any type of weather if I have recess duty on a particular day. I especially like the news videos that are also part of the Weather Channel app. After I get updated on the weather, I can choose top news stories to watch and listen to as I have my morning oatmeal and coffee. ( Got to keep that blood pressure down.)**
 * As far as classroom use is concerned, I would use this app to create real world math situations for my students to research and solve.**


 * [|Foodmeter]**
 * This app allows me to monitor healthy eating choices at restaurants and when shopping for groceries. All you have to do is choose a food category, brand name, restaurant or type in an actual food name. The foodmeter has a red, blue or green category. If the foodmeter registers on on red, this indicates a vey unhealthy choice. If the foodmeter registers on blue, this indicates a food item that won't be injurious to your health, but don't over indulge. If the foodmeter registers on green, this indicates a very healthy choice. The foodmeter also lists the nutritional value of any item you seek, including calories, fat content, calories from fat etc. You can also fill in the Food Name/Barcode or UPC to search for it's nutritional value. At this point in my life, I need to begin to be more careful about my food choices and the Foodmeter is a friendly, at my fingertip app that will help me in my pursuit to make healthier choices. (Especially when eating out!) The free version of the Foodmeter only allows 5 resultive searches per day. I may even look to purchase the full version at a later date. This app could also be used in the classroom during a healthy lifestyles curriculum strand. I think many students and their families would be surprised by to discover that many of the options for eating out are not very healthy ones.**

[|Pandora]

Pandora is an internet radio app that I can hardly believe is free. When we were on vacation in South Carolina visitng my son he saw my iPad and said,"Mom you've got to download Pandora. You'll love it. As soon as I arrived home to internet accessI did just as he suggested. I have been so pleased with this app. You can enter an artist, song or composer and it will play a mix of your favorities. It will also create a quick mix of related artists. Awesome! To my surprise, the sound quality is very crisp and clear. As songs are playing you can even access a short bio about the artist. The album cover also appears which brings familiarity if you wish to purchase it at a store. This app could also be used in a classroom to choose and play appropriate background music during specific times of the day. I have always been an avid radio fan and I truly enjoy the diversity this app offers.

[|Dragon Dictation] Dragon Dictation allows you to easily speak and see your text or e-mail messages. It's faster than typing on a keyboard and you can post status messages and notes to social networking applications. Notes and reminders in your own voice can also be sent and you can dictate short text messages or longer e-mail messages on the go. I see myself using this app at work to keep track of anecdotal notes for my intervention students. These notes can be used at conference time and for individual IEP meetings. I often forget to jot down notes and can't regain my thoughts. This app will allow me the flexibility to just dictate a few notes and quickly place them into a student's file. It will save me a tremendous amount of time and allow me to keep track of my student's progress in a more organized fashion.

[|SoundHound]

SoundHound is an easy to use app that allows you to instantly ID songs, see lyrics and browse music all by singing or humming a few bars of a song. It can also name tunes playing from a speaker. SoundHound is a fun edition to our empty-nester home. My husband and I often play "Name That Tune" especially with 60s, 70s and 80s songs. This app will add to the competitive nature of this crazy activity! It can't wait to use it at larger family gatherings too.



[|ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard] ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. It's simple. Just write a problem o the whiteboard and press record. Your explanation of the solution to the problem will be recorded immediately. You can make your ShowMe as long or as short as you'd like and can easily switch between drawing and erasing. You can create as many ShowMe's as you'd like and will find fantastic tutorials already created at ShowMeApp.com. This app will come in handy for reviewing math concepts with my intervention students. I foresee creating 3-4 tutorial problems, having my students watch them and then try the problems on their own. I will have students solve problems themselves and create tutorials. This will allow for free exchange of mathematical ideas known as "Math Talk". I look forward to the math conversations I will have with my students while using ShowMe.



[|Piggy Count] This is one of my favorite apps. It allows students to count money in a fun way by using fingers to touch the coins on the screen. Simply drag the coins to the piggy bank and drop them in. There are real, live sound effects too. As the coins are placed into the bank, the amount shows up. This is especially helpful for students who are just beginning to learn the value of coins in our monetary system. This app ranges from simple to difficult which allows for differentiation for my students. It is also a fast way to teach kids about saving money. I will use this app often in my intervention lessons as many of my students struggle with counting by 10s and 5s starting with different numbers. The fact that the amounts show up as coins are dropped in the bank will be very helpful for them.



[|Pop Math]

Pop Math wo the "iPhone FootPrint Excellence Award in Education. Kids just love it! It is a fun game to practice basic math facts and is very interactive. Pairs of bubbles float on the screen and the object is to pop each pair. For example, one bubble would say "7" and another would say"5+2". Pop both bubbles at the same time and you receive a certain amount of points. Depending on your score at the end of the round, you will move up a level. Pop Math rewards kids with fun sounds and end-of-level animations to make learning fun. This app will certainly be useful in my classroom. I often spend the first 10 minutes of a session working on math facts and having my iPad on the table ready for them to practice will engage them at a much higher level than flash cards ever could. Hooray for Pop Math!

[|KG Math]

KG Math is an app that helps kids practice adding, subtracting, counting, shapes, telling time, patterns and measurement in a very interactive, visual way. The adding strand helps kids to be able to count-on from a given number. Subtracting shows just the opposite by crossing out some of the parts of a number. I like the fact that this app offers a strand on measurement and telling time. This app also has a component that works on on-to-one correspondence. Not all practice apps of this nature include these ancillary concepts. Use of this app in my classroom will be heavy as it is extremely interactive and comes complete with background music. I imagine pairs of students working together to strengthen the seven concepts included in this app.



[|My Math App]

My Math App is another app geared specifically for practicing basic addition,subtraction,multiplication and division facts. It consists of very interactive flash cards that have simple sound effects to provide feedback to students. This app can be customized to focus on a particular fact like adding two or subtracting 2 as well as providing randomly generated flash cards. I spend the first ten minutes of mosst intervention sessions working on basic fact practice with students and My Math App can provide focused practice for my students as they can become overwhelmed with large sheets of mixed practice fact. I envision possibly borrowing Lindsay's iPad to be able to create two "practice Pairs for the first ten minutes of our intervention sessions.

[|Math Regrouping]

This app will help my students solve regrouping problems in a very interactive way. Regrouping with addition and subtraction are very difficult concepts for my students. It takes a great deal of time and practice for them to consolidate this mathematical process. This app is perfect because it lets students perform the regrouping and ungrouping task and then look to the bottom of the screen to choose the correct answer. If they don't find there answer they can look specifically at their work to find their mistake. This will allow them to gain confidence as they check their own work with success. Great App! Just not sure about the background music...



[|Telling Time Game]

This app allows students to learn how to tell time rapidly through sight, sound and touch. The hour and half-hour are practiced with clear indicators that are easy to recognize. There are a total of 144 clock images for students to practice. You can also add your own items to this app such as pictures of your home clocks or your child's clock. I tried this app earlier in the week with one of my very lowest students. He couldn't tell the hour hand from the minute hand earlier in the year but for some reason he was getting every time correct. I wonder if the clocks we use at school are to cluttered and he just couldn't focus on the clock hands. Very interesting! I'm excited to try this app out with more of my intervention students.



[|Math Drills Lite] This app allows students to learn and practice the basic math skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The cool thing is that it helps students explore solutions by providing visuals like number lines, wooden blocks, facts and hunts. When reaching the end of an activity, this app gives a signal as to which problems were not answered correctly. Students can then go back and correct missed problems. Teachers and parents can set the number of problems for reviews, practices and tests. Mixed operation practices can also be set up to challenge students at a higher level. This app will be terrific for my intervention students who haven't yet mastered their basic facts. I have one student in particular that will benefit from the nin-fingers visual for multiplication Can't wait to star using this app!

[|Kids Math]

Mathematics for kids includes 18 strands ranging from recognizing numbers in the 1-100 range to addition/subtraction. The first 4 strands are free and the others can be purchased. Strand 1 will prove very helpful when teaching the early skill of numerosity to my kindergarten students. It's amazing how many children come to school without the ability to count items with one-to-one correspondence. This strand will be an engaging way for them to practice this very important skill. Strand 2 asks children to count the fruit and tap the number. This strand will help my students practice numerosity and number recognition at a slightly higher level than Strand 1 thus scaffolding their learning. In Strand 3 a certain number of fruit appear. Students must tap the correct number to go with the fruit. Again, great reinforcement for number identification. Strand 4 requires students to touch two numbers that are then placed on a balance/scale. This shows students the size of the number as they begin to learn the quantitative quality of numbers. I love this app for the purpose of enhancing early numeracy development and will consider purchasing strands 5-16 as they will fit nicely into the scheme of our math curriculum. Strands 17-18 use different math language with regard to double-digit addition and subtraction therefore, I will not purchase them.