Hyper Docing with Wide Open School
This week I continued with using a HyperDoc for the students during the school closure. I incorporated a lot of hyper links from Wide Open School. I first saw this sight when it was announce on the Today Show in March.
I chose the educator option and then the Grades Prek-5. The other options are 6-12 grades and a parent (We are a family)side.
Once you open, there is a choice board of subjects. Everything is organized in a colorful grid, with picture images so it can be easily used by children on their own. I chose a task from Social Studies, Science and Get Moving.
When looking through the choices, I had to make sure it was an activity that was free and the family had access to the materials or device. WideOpenSchool offers a guide to getting started with a collection of virtual field trips, a collection with resources for art and music and one with resources for emotional well-being — the latter especially critical at a time when anxiety levels are high among parents and kids alike. Many notable websites that are linked to WideOpenSchool are Khan Academy, Scholastic, National Geographic, Noggin, and PBS. The options change because the links update so it might not be there if you go to it the next day.
This site is like a Hyper Doc in the sense that everything is right there in one bundle. This website is very valuable; a lot of parents don't have time to look up websites and having options at their finger tips is a big help. I shared the site with my high schooler and he loves all the reading material. He is able to find a lot of free literature to complete his English assignments.
Hyper Docs
I revisited Hyper Docs this week because I am taking over a self-contained classroom for the next 4 weeks due to the teacher going on maternity leave.
The family opted out of using Google Classroom. They like the Hyper Doc platform and I explained how it works in the video. The family likes how everything is on one page and she prints everything out ahead of time.
Using the Screencastify worked for this activity. If it was longer than 5 minutes, it would have been in sections. It was real easy to add the extention. I watched the video and followed the instructions. It took me 4 tries to get some worth watching due to laughing, dogs barking and phone ringing. Screecastify gave me the option to share the video with Google and I did that. It saved in my drive.
I think having the video showing them what to do will help the younger students. The older students can work their way around ZOOM, Google Meets or Hangouts and in between screens. I go on YouTube all the time to see how things work. The video can show you how to work in real time or you can stop it and watch it again if you missed something.
The Hyper Doc is not very flashy due to extra stimuli for the students. There can not be a lot on the page or they will rip it up or not do it. I constructed the Hyper Doc to show one weeks worth and the family receives it every Friday from me for the following week. I included links from You Tube for stories, letter and number recognition, education.com for printed pages to work on handwriting and coloring, Starfall for extra interactive material, and google docs for letter and number hunts. The activities are engaging and videos do not last longer than 5:30 mins. I have also included independent activities that the students can go on after the parents log them in.
Week of 15-17 -has video
Work for April 20-24, 2020
1. http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/index.htm
Study Jams is part of Scholastic.com. They offer support to the teacher by supplying a lesson plan with pre, during, and post instructions along with key vocabulary. I used this site when I was teaching middle school math, a lot! It is great for introducing Math and Science content in a whole group setting. Study Jams is geared toward 3-8th grades. The videos last for 3-5 mins and are cartoons to keep the attentions. On the bottom of the page, they put related videos you can view.
At the end of the video, you can take the quiz, most have 7-10 questions and some have songs that go along to remember a concept.
Math example:
http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/data-analysis/mean-average.htm
Science example:
http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/plants/photosynthesis.htm
2. Prodigy- math
This is a FREE program that the student can do independently on a tablet, phone or PC. It focuses on math skills for grades 1-8. Parents/teachers can set up a account for access to a dashboard. Use the dashboard to customize skills covered in the game, create assignments, and view a child's activity, progress, and standards coverage.When you sign in, you can use google sign in. It will save your progress in the game. The student will select their grade level.
When you enter the game, you pick your wizard character and characteristics. You then can pick a world to play in, they are all the same but you can pick a world that your friend is in. A character named Noot helps you through the Academy (wizard school) as well as a guided hand. The students will battle monsters by solving math problems at their level that casts spells on the them. As you move through the land, you collect coins to purchase items and level up.
***A paid subscription offers more gaming features, such as mini-game power-ups and access to the infamous Dark Tower.
This is Brainzy by Education.com. It is free and you can sign in by using your Google account or email with a password. I found this through Education.com because I am a paid subscriber. I use a lot of their material so I just invested in it. Education.com will allow so many free materials.
Brainzy is a nice collection of activities that address very typical early learning themes to higher elementary. It is a good review/practice for students to do on their own. Kids need to have good mouse skills, which may be hard for those who are beginning mouse users. Kids also get a nice package of different ways to interact with the learning material, which makes the site easy to use. While the free version does not offer extra material, kids can still get simple, but fun, practice with common early learning topics.
It would be nice if the teachers could suggest particular topics for kids to explore -- this could be especially useful in a classroom setting.
