Reflection #7 – Games

ABC Mouse!

I really liked the took ABC Mouse and I definitely see myself using it in my classroom in the future. The site has an assessment center that includes more than 20 differentiated assessments available on computers and tablets, detailed performance reporting on each skill assessed, trend reporting on how your child progresses over time, custom lessons built to specifically address the areas where your child needs more practice and unlimited assessments for every child on your account.

Another benefit of the site is that, when you register your account, there is a child, parent and teacher portion. These relationships are really good to build around the games and work so the child can see that people are paying attention to their learning. The registration process is also really fun and students are able to design and create their own personal avatar as well as pets. I think that students would be very engaged by this and it would pull them right into the site.

Once registered and officially in the site, there are so many games and activities with all different subjects/themes including the classroom, the zoo, the farm, as well as a variety of other uncategorized activities. The bright colors and engaging pictures are a huge advantage for engaging students in the site and its features.

In the classroom I would use this site as a center rotation. There are games for every subject in school so I would chose one at the beginning of the day that coincides with the topic we are on. Students would then have the opportunity to rotate through the computer time and play these games as a means of reinforcement of the current topic. I would also use it as “after you finish” work. When students are done with their class work I would have them play these games silently with headphones in while they wait for their classmates to finish the activity or test they are working on.

There is a free trial but after 30 days you have to pay $7.95 per month but I think that this price is worth it. Overall, I really enjoyed ABC Mouse!

Brain Pop…

Of the other sites we looked at, I would not use Brain Pop in my classroom. Most of the quizzes require users to subscribe to the site for either $89, $99, or $115. So there are very few quizzes that can be used for free. The quizzes are also not branching so there is not adjustment based on he students’ levels. There also is no option to create your own quizzes through the site. Overall, I just was not very impressed with the site and found myself to be very confused more often than not. I am not sure if the site is better if you do subscribe but there is no trial or anything to test it out before. I also do not know that this high of a price is worth it for the subscription because it is a fairly high fee all at once. I think this site would be more of a waste of time than anything else.