Do not, my friend, keep children to their studies by compulsion, but by play. – Plato
Good morning all,
Yesterday I wrote about http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/, a site that allows kids to practice math facts in a collaborative online gaming environment. Today’s featured site, which I heard about from my PLN pal Dan Callahan at BarCamp Philly on Saturday, is http://tutpup.com/. It is similar but takes things a bit further.
Both http://tutpup.com/ and http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/ let you get right into the action and start playing, http://tutpup.com/ goes a bit further and allows teachers to create classes to group your students:
This data could prove helpful, providing basic information on which students use the service, what they play, and how they do (difficulty levels attained). Here’s an example:
The students also get immediate feedback at the end of their game, showing them how they and their competition did. Pretty neat!
The signup process is straightforward, but the students will absolutely need help remembering their sign-in names – a combination of a color, an animal, and a number that they choose when they create their account.
Gameplay is simple and incorporates sound for feedback (which can be turned off, but I found it helpful and fun.) Here’s a game underway:
I like how the countries of the students are represented with flags. Nice!
The site loads quickly, there are a wide variety of activities, and even the spoken pronunciations for the spelling game are good (there is just a hint of a British accent). All in all, this site could be very popular with students as a practice site. The worldwide competition makes it even more fun!
Hope this helps!
-kj-
P.S. Credit for that Plato quote goes to the folks at http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/, which is where I saw it today!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Dan Callahan // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’m just glad that I was finally able to contribute something back to you that you could share with everybody after all of the great resources I’ve seen here!
2 Kevin Jarrett // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Dan! Thank you for jogging my memory! I make a point of crediting my sources for these great sites so I’ve updated the post. #bcphilly was so amazing! Can’t wait until next year! -kj-
3 TeachingSagittarian // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:35 am
My Grade 5 students loved Tutpup last year. I only showed it to them once, after setting up and the competition that ensued was extremely motivational. What I liked the most was that my English as a Second Language Learners were able to be just as competitive and successful as my native English speakers. This gave them a much need boost for their learning. I’m about to introduce to my next class of 5th Graders! I can just about hear the competition banter beginning!
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