Techie Homeschoolers

My daughter enjoys her Didj.

A Didj is just a little handheld made by LeapFrog.

There aren’t too many game modules that I approve of (Hannah Montana, etc.), but she only has one game that she plays and it helps her with spelling skills:  Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Woodland Hills.

There is also the CD ROM that goes with it, which allows you to access the game downloads for extras and connect to the LeapFrog Learning Path.  You can customize your learning for each game and create your own Didji characters.

Mostly, my daughter uses the handheld without the software, just for the Nancy Drew spelling game.

I like that the Didj comes with a port for headsets (because the music can be a bit loud).  I don’t like, though, that the battery life of this system doesn’t last long.  The Didj eats through batteries FAST!  It requires I think four AA batteries, and when she plays it for about 45 minutes to an hour, four days straight, the batteries are depleted.  It can get pretty expensive replacing batteries once a week.  That’s why we love the Dollar Store (and probably also why our batteries don’t last as long anymore!)

Anyway, check out the Didj system here at their website, and for educational purposes, look underneath the “Skills” option to choose between Math, Science, Language and Literacy and Learning For Life.

I found a resource that will be valuable to our home school this next upcoming school year:

ClickSchooling.com

I love that they embrace the idea of using so many of the FREE educational resources online.  I am surprised I haven’t found this site sooner.  If I had known about this site, I would have signed up years ago and may have happily homeschooled with these suggested resources alone.

It’s never too late.  Thankfully, I’ve signed up and well on my way to having an abundance of online resources for educating my 3rd grader right at my fingertips.

Here is what they have to say about the services they provide on their site:

Get 1 FREE, Web-Based Curriculum Idea Every Day — Monday Through Saturday!

ClickSchooling brings you daily recommendations by email for entertaining websites that help your kids learn.

This leads me to another topic for another post…

So you don’t know what to do with all those digital pics?
We have that problem in our home…and for school it’s a huge deal for us.
Since we love to digitally snap anything in sight and archive what we are doing at the spur of any moment, having a way to archive all those digital pics (besides blogging) would be a real plus.

So, here is a free online tool anyone can use to create video montages of your photos and pics. Simply upload pictures, add music and effects, and voila. You have code to embed in your blog and share with family and friends.

Check out One True Media on creating these videos.

Here is an example of one I created:

Read/write web is making a lot of progress.  As Google is becoming a prominent leader in the web 2.0 industry, we see them taking over our typical productivity tasks- such as spreadsheets and word docs.

No longer can we just say to our students, “Go ahead and open up Microsoft Word to type up your report…”   At least not when there are so many FREE applications available on the web- like the headway Google is making with Writely.

It’s the epitome of the read/write web phenomenon (web 2.0).  It’s not just about creating content, but being an active participant and developer of content along with a team of other like minded individuals.  It is virtual team building.

Take a look at this google video which shows a scenario of a teen that has a VERY important question to ask someone he really likes.  He needs a little help from his peers, using the Google doc which they all share and collaborate on together.

View Google Writely Video

iprompts, a handheld adaptive for iphones and the ipod touch, is a handy little tool that allows kids with special needs to use the pictures (or visual prompting) to help them transition from one activity to the next.

According to the official site, this tool allows a caregiver of special needs children (autistic, ADHD, Down Syndrome,  or autism) to offer the following:

PICTURE SCHEDULES: Allows caregivers to create sequences of pictures, guiding those they care for through activities of any sort. Captions can be edited for each image, allowing users to create SOCIAL STORIES. Caregivers can also create simple FIRST THIS, THEN THAT picture prompts using only two images. Choose from hundreds of stock photos and illustrations provided by iPrompts®, or take pictures “on the fly” using the iPhone’s built-in camera.

VISUAL COUNTDOWN TIMER: Displays an image of the caregiver’s choice along with a graphical countdown timer (set to any duration). Useful for demonstrating how much time is left before the next pictured activity begins.

CHOICE PROMPTS: Lets caregivers select any two images which may be offered as a choice, empowering those who cannot vocalize their preferences. When rotated horizontally, the Choice Prompt and Picture Schedule features enlarge and orient images for display to individuals needing visual support.
IMAGE LIBRARY: Includes hundreds of useful illustrations and digital pictures across numerous categories. Additional categories and pictures can be created and supplied by users.

It’s $49.99. http://www.handholdadaptive.com/