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What fun! This blog post by Laura Ketcham briefly reviews some free, online creativity tools, along with links to the sites. I could immediately see where students would find these sites appealing, and I could see many classroom applications as well. For example, using Digi-Color at Crayola's website, a student can choose from a variety of tools (paintbrush, crayon, marker, etc) to create a piece of artwork on an online page. Using the page with a marker reminded me of writing on a whiteboard, which made me think of having students use this site to work out math problems. They could do this an individual computers with the teacher checking for accuracy, or on a computer hooked up to a projector in the front of the class. There are many other activities at the Crayola site as well.
Another site mentioned by Ketcham was Lego's website, which also had a variety of activities available. These are fun games that can be used to develop problem-solving skills with students. The games are in categories such as action, strategy, adventure, and so on. I was hoping to find a game that simply allowed the user to build using online lego blocks, but was unable to locate anything that simple. I was thinking that a tool like that could be helpful in math class, teaching volume of solids. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
The complete article, "Spurring Creativity Online," by Laura Ketcham, posted on July 26, 2011, can be viewed at : http://blog.learningtoday.com/blog/bid/63702/Spurring-Creativity-Online
Great minds think alike. I found this article as well and came to many of the same conclusions. My problem with the Lego site is the games are like video games with guns and weapons: not school appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe sand art site was hard to figure out, lots of trial and error.
Check out http://www.coolmath4kids.com/ for tons of math games. Let me know how it goes.
Anne
The Crayola website sounds like it has some pretty intuitive applications for people learning to create art on a computer. It's probably a nice advantage that kids could do these activities at home on their computer. Last year I used something similar to what you describe on the Crayola website with my student as a sort of Pictionary activity on a projector. It was good practice for students learning to use the new tool, however, it did get a little competitive.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my teaching career, I've had a trying relationship with using the Lego website. I don't know who in my school district keeps having it blocked, but every time I request access to it, I find that it becomes blocked again within a month or so. I've used it in the past to download design schematics for use with my class set of Lego blocks. Nothing beats good 'ol physical Lego blocks.