Excerpt from an interview with an anonymous elementary teacher:
“So, recently the school administration went all out with technology revolution, bringing digital pads, BYOD for students, projectors etc. for the kids. We were definitely having mixed feelings.
Most of us didn’t know exactly, how to get the best out of these tools.”
This is a common problem for many teachers all around the world. So, here is a list of such online resources. Each of these links have their own niche and depending upon the need of the instructor and the class response, these can give great results.
Activity Based
Puppet Pals, an app for tablets, lets students experiment/play with pictures, cartoons, audio, and videos. Until now only the basic format is free. It is one of the most widely used apps used by parents and teachers.
A free app (good for K-12) that lets the teacher put together interactive displays and allows students to submit feedback, offering a real-time way to assess their performance.
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has a variety of activities that help students work on basic skills like counting, forming sentences, recognizing different shapes, objects, etc. It stands out in its proper organization and quality.
TheColor
This is a great activity based resource. Students can help enhance their creativity with the beautiful use of colours, edit available templates and share them.
Language Learning
Starfall
This website is a free resource for young students to practice letters and sounds. Its phonics-based approach is perfect for very new users like kindergarten, first grade or second grade.
A tested app created by PBS KIDS designed to help kids expand their vocabulary.
“According to a 2010 PBS KIDS-sponsored study of 90 children between the ages of three and seven who played with it for about two and a half hours over two weeks, the app was able to enrich vocabulary by as much as 31 percent.”
Free Rice
This website enhances English vocabulary and grammar at varying levels of difficulty. For each correct answer, the website will donate one grain of rice. Thus keep track of how much rice your students have contributed and hence their performance.
FunFonix
The pronunciation says it all. It has a variety of early elementary phonics worksheets and online phonics games.
Mathematics and Analytical Reasoning
Another app with a lot of buzz. According to a 2011 study by GameDesk, commissioned by Motion Math, “this game for the iPad improved the understanding of fractions in 120 children by an average of 15 percent.”
SmartyGames
Free games for learning how to use money, tell time, count and read. Also, one can find brain puzzlers, mazes, memory games, Sudoku, etc.
Math-Play
Math-play is the online platform for competitions and real-time assessments globally. The respective math games are organized by grade level, content and game type. There is good collection of resources on basic mathematics, integers, fractions and more.
Math Pickle
Aside from a great user-interface, the greatest benefit of this website are the splendid explainer videos for the trickier math concepts.
Multipurpose
Turtle Diary
Contains numerous educational activities, games, animated lessons, printable worksheets, interactive storybooks and more. The key feature of this website are the storybooks.
FueltheBrain
Basically concentrated on Elementary students, who can practice their math, science and language proficiency with games and interactive activities.
Miscellaneous
askkids.com
This is the customized search engine especially for kids.
TeacherTube
It is exactly what it sounds like—YouTube for teachers. The design of the website is getting a little outdated, but otherwise there are many educational videos to choose from and one can also make a channel specifically for a class or subject, etc.
Animal Planet
What better way can be than to watch preview videos for some of Animal Planet’s renowned programming on the Earth’s natural resources, wildlife and more, for understanding the concepts of biodiversity and wildlife.
There are numerous other apps, websites and links for the help of teachers and elementary students. The above list can be actually enhanced many-folds. Although each and every website has its own benefits and customization, there are obviously some glitches and critics. But, as the education sector is evolving, one can hope for many better and customized options in the near future.
You may also refer few of our articles on elementary education published earlier this year.
Professional Insight: Use of Technology in Early Childhood
[Tool for Kids] Excite Your Kids to Read with Tales2Go
Using Technology in Elementary Education
Impact of Technology in Elementary Classrooms
Tips for Teachers Who Wish to Use Twitter in Their Elementary Classrooms
