Brain Gym

Brain Gym is supposed to help students focus and improve performance in cognitive tasks.




Students love it!

Thing 9

I love YouTube. I have used it a lot before to watch music videos. I also have used it to look at people playing Rock Band, comedians, and celebrity interviews. It is quite addicting and one can spend hours on it:). For my classroom, this summer I also used YouTube to get some clarification on Brain Gym Exercises. I had the handbook, but some of the pages were missing and I knew if I saw it visually, I would be able to understand it more clearly, just as students would for various concepts, which is one way it could be useful in the classroom. Our school has a subscription to videostreaming, which I have used before to clarify concepts, which may have more appropriate content than YouTube. I also looked at SchoolTube and TeacherTube and think there is a lot of potential there to learn various teaching methodologies. The problem (besides the totally inappropriate comment I reported on Mr. Dewey's fractions video) would be posting images of children on the web. Some parents (myself included) may have a problem with it. If allowed, it would be great to post videos of students performing plays, so relatives could see them if they were unable to make the performance and for students to critique themselves. Students could also post PowerPoint presentations. 


I am not sure if YouTube is restricted at my building, since I am doing this at home on Christmas Vacation. I will have to check that out tomorrow!

Thing8

Wow! The possibilities are endless! I have tried to use various software programs to make things, but get frustrated at the limitations and the fact that you must have that software program to use it. The things to make are great personalized presents! It's all pretty time-consuming, but for a non-artistic person (as in drawing/crafts), I feel empowered to create! I tried all the links out, but didn't really like the last one - the website's appearance wasn't appealing. I shared the Spell with FlickR website with my step-mom, who immediately used it and put it on her website. I can envision myself spending way too much time doing this! Is there a way to professionally print what you make (to give as gifts or even sell at street festivals)? Never mind - just saw it on Big Huge Labs website.

Thing 7

Neat! It was so easy - I guess my other computer was a dinosaur when I tried to do it last year. I love using new technology! This will be used much in my life outside school. As for my classroom, I could search pictures for certain topics and save it on Flickr, then access it at school. I would still have to figure out a way for students to access it - maybe create a Powerpoint for it. Will have to play around with that.

Thing 6

I can't wait to use Flickr. I tried to do it on my old computer last year, and couldn't get it to work. It is a great fear of mine to lose pictures forever, so I back them up on different discs or flash drives, but have duplicates everywhere and it is very disorganized and I can't easily access them. This will be much better!

Thing 5

Had a little difficulty with this thing. I couldn't get some of the things to work, so had to review the videos and make some modifications. Had some fun playing around with blogs and organizing them. Seems like a neat thing to use. Am still a little confused with the difference between blogs and posts.

Thing 4

This looks pretty neat. I go to shopping forums almost every day to check out the deals of the day. Now I will check to see if I can subscribe to them. This could be dangerous:) I also want to find out if there is some kind of "educational tip of the day". There is so much information out there that I get discouraged when looking for information and finding a long article to read. A shorter bit of information would be great for me or the summarizations that Bloglines give would be helpful.