Speed Up Your iPhone
The iPhone 7 was just released, and chatter is picking up about the anticipated features for Apple's iPhone 8 release next year, but a lot of us are still using our old iPhones. And they're getting slow. iDrop News recently posted five tips for speeding up your iPhone. Embedded in the post are also tips for freeing up memory in your phone, which may come in handy as the holidays approach and you need more memory for all those awesome family pics. (Caution: iDrop's site does include ads.)
Hour of Code Is Coming
December 5-11, 2016
The annual Hour of Code celebration during Computer Science Week is just around the corner. With over 200 tutorials and lesson plans, there's a coding activity for everyone...literally. Last year my twenty-something daughter and my seventy-something dad battled it out around the holiday table to see who could finish the Angry Birds code activity fastest! In the words of the old Life cereal commercial, "Try it, you'll like it!"
At BMS last year, every student participated in Hour of Code through the ELA classes. After reading Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, students compared the importance of punctuation in English and in JavaScript while participating in the Code.org activities. Plans are already underway at BMS to take advantage of this year's Code.org activities including building a galaxy with Star Wars, making music with Scratch, and helping Alex or Steve adventure through the Minecraft world. If you're looking to add a little spice to the classroom between Thanksgiving and Christmas, think about offering a coding activity to boost your students' problem-solving skills, expose them to a new language, and engage their minds in computer science.
Virtual Reality in the Classroom
Last week, after I read a post on Google+ by SA MakerSpaces for Education, I signed up for a free account for CoSpaces, a platform that enables the user to create in 3D and explore the creations in virtual reality using a VR headset like Google Cardboard. The Educators page on the website offers some amazing ideas for using VR in the classroom including storytelling, virtual exhibitions, modeling, literature interpretation, and infographics. Talk about equipping your students with College and Career Readiness skills while offering them an immersive experience that boosts creative thinking and visual learning and fosters engagement and information retention! CoSpaces has an extensive how-to playlist on YouTube to get users started. Right now CoSpaces does not have classroom management tools available, but according to their Google group, they are in the process of working on classroom management tools and a possible Google Classroom integration, and they are seeking teacher input for features. Click on the link below for a 40 second intro to CoSpaces.
