Kia ora my name is Dani Logan and I teach at Ahipara School. The purpose of this site is to share the digital tools & resources I use to compliment my blended classroom programme with students of Year 1-8. I have taught in both 1:1 iPad environments and 1:1 Chromebook environments. This is a site I will continue to add to as I find more useful digital material.

(All visuals are screen shots from websites you can access by clicking on the image - I did not create any of the images myself).

Reading

Readworks is a fantastic site that I use as an activity for my reading rotations. You can set up a class and select articles based on different curriculum topics and reading ages. It has vocabulary and comprehension questions and an audio feature which is great for students who struggle with reading.

Kiwi kids news is great for a lot of New Zealand based news articles written for children. At times I use the articles for guided reading depending on what students are learning about as well as an independent reading resource.

Get Epic is a great site offering a vast amount of e-books for students. It is free to use for schools during school hours and requires teachers to sign up and set up a class. The e-books have excellent visuals and are very engaging for students of all reading ages. My students are obsessed with this digital reading resource.

Wonderopolis is a sight filled with many high interest articles for kids. They can type in something they are wondering about the world and the site generates a number of articles to answer students questions.

This site has different celebrities reading their favourite picture books to children. It's a good alternative to reading posts where students can listen to expressive reading and see role modelling of someone read for enjoyment (that is not the teacher).

Writing

Pobble365 is a resource I use for quick writes and inspiration for free writing in my class. It provides a different image every day with accompanying prompts/lesson ideas for teachers and students to use.

Power Thesaurus is a digital thesaurus my students use to look up synonyms to make their writing more interesting.

Note.ly is a site I have used for students to brainstorm writing ideas and creating poetry such as cinquain poems and anagrams.

Typing.com provides students with structures typing lessons to improve their speed and touch typing skills. Teachers sign up and create a class which tracks progress.

Coggle is a tool I use with my students to create digital mindmaps to plan their writing ideas.

Maths

Hit the button is great for practising basic facts and instant recall maths equations. No sign up is required and students often try to beat their highest score each time - taking a screenshot as evidence of their improvement.

Extra maths is another sight which is good for practising basic facts but is monitored. It requires the teacher to set up a class account and has various features giving the teacher control to make equations easier or harder and track student progress. It provides students with feedback using a traffic light system and smiley faces so they know how they performed.

Prodigy is a game based maths site where the teacher sets up a class account and can set various maths foci. It poses multiple choice maths questions for students to answer in order to complete different missions and quests. My students highly rate this digital tool.

Science

Science Hub is a New Zealand Science site that provides information and resources for teachers and students to use when teaching various scientific topics. It has articles, videos and interactive material.

Cross-Curricular

This site I use occasionally depending on what students are learning about. I link specific games to our class site as another way for students to practise learning skills in a game based way.

Studyladder is full of all sorts of learning content aligned with the Australian Curriculum. I've used it at times to compliment different aspects of my classroom programme mainly as an independent activity that I can track progress on. It requires teachers to sign up and set up a class with individual students accounts.

Kahoot is a fun and engaging site where teachers can create quizzes or access those made by others. My students go crazy for this sight and its a good way to check for understanding and/or engage learners in a given topic.

Digital Technologies - Coding

CodeSpark has been useful for introducing coding to younger students when I have run a 1:1 iPad class. I used this before scratch junior was available.

Scratch has been an excellent programme used to teach coding in an integrated curriculum - enabling students to code characters to retell stories/animations mainly. I've also had some of my students create basic games for their peers to play.

Creation & Presentation Tools

Blogging is a massive schoolwide focus. We use it as a platform where our students reflect on their learning, share their creations and communicate with students from other schools around New Zealand. It has enabled us to teach our students cybersmart values which prepare them for the world of social media in a monitored and supported online environment.

Google draw is a great creation tool for both students and teachers. My students have used this a lot to create their own png images to use for different assignments and infographics.

Google slides is a favourite in terms of presentation tools for my students. They use it to create various presentations for projects and animations which align with different curriculum tasks.

Google docs is mainly used by my students for writing and publishing. It is great for reluctant writers as is provides a speech to text tool.

Sites is the platform I use to set up an online classroom. I have added a link to my class site from last year. I really like sites as they are easy to use and are compatible with the other google apps.

Online Classroom Management

For use with Chromebooks - not iPad compatible.

Hapara is an excellent management tool which allows the teacher access to and control of student devices - to ensure off task behaviour is minimal. There is a cost per student for this tool but it is so essential for ensuring students are safe and teachers have easy access student work, that it is totally worth every school utilising.

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