Prodigy Math Game

I'm so excited to have recently discovered Prodigy, a free math game.  It's been tested and approved by my own 5th grade daughter. In fact, I've never seen her so excited to do math problems. More importantly, it's easy for teachers to set up their classroom and it's content is aligned to the Texas Math TEKS.

Prodigy has content for grades 1-8 and helps to fill in gaps when students begin to struggle with certain concepts.  It offers differentiation automatically to ensure student success.  As a teacher, you will receive quick feedback and reports on students' progress.

So, what is Prodigy?Prodigy is an adaptive math-practice game set in a fantasy role-playing universe. Something most students today can relate to easily. Students can customize colorful avatars and send them off to the Wizard Academy to prepare for battle.  As students progress in their math skills, so do their characters by learning new spells to use against their enemies. In order to use these spells, students must answer questions that cover a lot of content and that adjust according to students' abilities. If a student struggles, there are hints available and if a student gets a question wrong, they can get a walkthrough of the solution.

Prodigy is focused on practicing skills, so it's best when used as a review tool.  Teachers, however, can take it a step further by providing their own extension activities that could focus on narrative writing. For example, students could write background stories for their characters.

There is also a handy planning calendar that allows you to set the objectives you are covering in Math.

So, how do you get started?  Go to the Prodigy site and set up your Teacher account for free. There are some great resources provided on their site to help you get started.  I encourage you to use them to take advantage of their reports, assignments and planning features.

There is one last item I must bring up about the fact that Prodigy is FREE.  I've always been a bit skeptical when it comes to programs that promote themselves as a free resource.  So after reviewing their site, this is what they state: 

Teachers never pay for Prodigy. All math, reporting, and access to the program is free, and free forever. The only way that we make money is through a completely optional parent upgrade, which only unlocks extra game content (e.g., new hairstyles for a student’s character), and has absolutely no impact on Prodigy's educational quality.

With that said, I hope you give it a try.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

~Rosie Fluegel

Start the School Year with Quizlet Live

Welcome back teachers to another new school year.  The beginning of a school year is always filled with excitement, new goals, new students and always new challenges.  By now everyone has decorated their rooms, prepared their lessons and are ready to greet those new faces.  One of the first items teachers will address will be to determine where their students have left off academically from the previous year.  Three months is an eternity to an elementary student and the summer months may have left a gap you need to fill.  

Enter Quizlet Live, a new collaborative learning game.  It helps reinforce foundational knowledge by allowing you to use your study sets to create an interactive, fun learning experience.  It also helps students to learn important life skills like teamwork and collaboration.

In order to play, every student will need a mobile device or computer.  You will then select Live, Study Mode and finally Create Game. Your teacher computer will then display a code your students will need to enter in order join your Quizlet Live Game.

Quizlet Live will randomly select groups of students which encourages collaboration between students who would not normally be working together.  At this point, students would move to their groups and work as a team to answer a set of questions from your study set.

The teacher computer will display a leaderboard.  If any team gets an answer incorrect, they will be reset to zero to start again. The first team that reaches 12 points wins. This is where the excitement happens!

At the end of the game, the teacher will have a snapshot of how well students know the material. Most importantly, teachers can easily determine what areas still need more attention.

If you haven't tried it yet, give it a try.  Learn more here: https://quizlet.com/features/live 

McAllen ISD Digital Badging

Thanks to McAllen ISD Instructional Technology Director, Ann Vega, teachers and librarians can now apply for their first McAllen ISD digital badges.  So, what are digital badges anyway? Essentially, digital badges are credentials that represent an individual's skills, interests and achievements.  They are intended to convey core academic knowledge and other moderncompetencies that can't be measured by traditional assessments.  According to the MacArthur Foundation "badges are designed to make visible and validate learning in both formal and informal settings, and hold the potential to help transform where and how learning is valued."

We, at the McAllen ISD Instructional Technology Department, are truly committed to helping teachers become the best they can be.  Digital Badges are a way to validate the wonderful work they already do and helps encourage everyone to try new tools.  It's about using technology as a tool for learning and not simply because it's the cool new thing.  Teachers can also earn technology rewards depending on the amount of badges they have accumulated.  It's a great incentive to show what they know or what they have learned.  To learn more, visit the McAllen ISD Digital Badging site.

Google Classroom Tip: Sharing Templates with students

When working in Google Classroom, it's easy to distribute documents to students.  Use the "Make a copy for each student" to give them a template without affecting your original document.  A document is created for each student using the document title and it appends the student's name to the title.


When students "Turn In" their assignment the ownership of the document is switched from student to teacher.

To avoid losing your original document among all of these student documents, I recommend that you star your document. You can easily do this by clicking on the star icon right next to the Document title of your open document.


Share your thoughts! I would love to hear your Google Classroom tips.

Get Started with Tackk

One of my favorite online tools is Tackk.  It's simple to start creating anything you need for your classroom, such as newsletters, book reports, promo flyers, presentations, class assignments, and a variety of other school projects.  

View full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

Try it for yourself today!  Sign up for free at https://tackk.com/r/Bq9d0.

Alternatives to the discontinued Clearly Google Chrome extension

Clearly has always been one of my favorite Chrome extensions, especially for cleaning up a cluttered and distracting web page. It's a great tool for students who are easily distracted with the additional content that shows up on many websites. Unfortunately, as of January 22, 2016, Evernote’s Clearly Google Chrome extension will no longer be supported or available for download.  If you already have the extension, you will still be able to use it until it is longer compatible with future Google updates.  You can read more on their site.

The good news is that there are a few alternatives to Clearly that will ease the transition.  Below are few you can consider for yourself and your students.

1. Readability



Readability is most similar to the Clearly Google Chrome extension and makes for an easy switch.  Once you are on any webpage you would like to read, simply click on the Readability icon on your Chrome toolbar and choose Read Now. It instantly declutters the page for easy reading.  It also allows you to change the font size, the width of your reading column, and has night/day options for the background.

Chrome Web Store


2. MagicScroll Web Reader

The MagicScroll Web Reader extension will open your web page in an ebook type of interface.  It gives you the option to switch pages by using a left and right arrow or you have an option to scroll up or down the page. As you move down the page the text is being revealed to you from the top to bottom.  It keeps a user from getting lost due to scrolling down a screen or even skipping a line of text.

Chrome Web Store


3. Beeline Reader

Not only will Beeline Reader clean up a webpage for easy reading, but it offers a color gradient font to guide your eyes from one line to the beginning of the next.  It's a good option for students who struggle with dyslexia.  The only caveat is that this extension will not work on pdf files.


Chrome Web Store


4. EasyReader

This extension is intended for extremely long webpages.  It does clean up a webpage, but you must select a section to clean up first.  You will also notice that pictures will be skewed in the new format.  It also doesn't offer any font options, but it does remove distracting items from the page.



Chrome Web Store

Between these 4 extension you should be able to find a suitable replacement for the Clearly Google Chrome extension.  Feel free to share with me some of your favorite extensions that make your online reading experience more pleasant.