Every grade
from Kindergarten through sixth grade has an objective related to animals. These objectives range from identifying the
parent and their offspring to classifying their type or identifying their role
in a habitat. Today’s focus is on
different technologies that can be used with any unit related to animals.
1.
Live Cams: There are quite a few
live cams available. You view animals in
their natural habitat or in a zoo enclosure.
Some of my favorites are Africam, San Diego Zoo, and Wild Earth. Please note that most of these are unedited
LIVE videos. Sometimes wild animals do
what they do. You may see them fighting,
mating or killing each other. Most of
these sites do offer a limited amount of edited video on their sites.
2.
Prezi: Prezi is a great tool for
students to use to showcase their research.
Prezi is a virtual
whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations:
enabling people to see, understand, and remember ideas. With the ability to
import pictures and video, Prezi makes amazing presentation.
3.
Animoto: If you need a video to
include in your Prezi, animoto provides an easy solution. Today, Animoto is a video
creation service (online and mobile) that makes it easy and fun for anyone to
create and share extraordinary videos using their own pictures, video clips,
words and music. Simply upload your
pictures and video clips, choose your style, add words and music, and click the
"produce video" button. Then, Animoto’s cinematic technology does its
magic and in minutes brings it all to life with a beautifully orchestrated
production you can share with family and friends. Prezi and animoto combined
can create a fun and exciting way for students to present their research.
4.
Voicethread and Design a Habitat:
Using your favorite habitat maker such as kidpix, Habitat Maker, or Design a Habitat Have students create a
Habitat and save it as a picture. Import
the picture to a voicethread page.
Student scan then record themselves explaining their animal or
habitat. Other students can comment or
ask questions about the expert’s research. http://www.arkive.org/education/games/design-a-habitat
5.
Oldies but Goldies: Recently, I
have featured three websites and apps that would make a great addition to an
animal unit. Switchzoo, Build Your Wild
Self, and Animal Mask Jumble. All three
of these are entertaining but valuable information can be gained from this play
time.
Enjoy
your safari.
Have
a great weekend!
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