Warren Buckleitner of Children's Technology Review and thought leader behind Little Clickers, made the following recommendations for parents for us to share with you this month.
For iPad users, two free NASA apps were just reviewed.
NASA Science: A Journey of Discovery, free, by NASA is organized around four questions that have driven NASA research: What are the effects of space weather on the Earth's technology?; How are Earth's sea ice sheets changing?; Are there other habitable planets?; and Was Mars ever a habitat for life? Each question leads to an encyclopedia-like set of interactive info-screens, the kind of screens you can imagine at a kiosk in a hands-on museum. You can swipe through photos, watch movies, and play with interactive maps of Mars or the Earth's glaciers. The information comes from various NASA missions. For example, the Kepler Mission is an effort to survey a region of the Milky Way in search of other Earth-like planets, by way of a 9 foot diameter satellite equipped with a very sensitive photometer. Using this app requires a lot of reading, and there is very little sugar coating; it should be on every upper elementary and middle school iPad. For ages 8-up.
Spacecraft 3D, by NASA is amazing, but limited. This augmented reality (AR) app lets you explore different NASA spacecraft used to explore our solar system. To use the app, you need to first print a sheet of paper containing a marker, which is used to unlock the spacecraft. Current options include the GRAIL (at the moon) and Curiosity rover (on Mars). You can print the marker directly from your mobile device, or have it emailed to an account of choice. After you have your marker, lay it on the table and line up your iPad or iPhone's camera. Presto! A 3D model of Curiosity rover pops up on your screen. You can move around the craft; a set of buttons on the bottom of the screen extends the robotic arm. There's not much to do, but what is there, will grab your interest and imagination. You certainly can't argue with the price -- $free. For ages 8-up.
In book news, if you teach Scratch, you should know about Super Scratch Programming Adventure!, a color, cartoon-illustrated guide book designed to teach the programming fundamentals of Scratch - the educational programming language developed by Mitch Resnick's group at the MIT Media Lab. The book is thin,160 pages, and organized into ten chapters that start with sprites and coordinates, and end with complex sprite movements and sound recording. Each chapter starts with a cartoon that stars Mitch (a tall, geeky programmer inspired by Mitch Resnick) and Scratchy (the cat). It then introduces a basic programming challenge, and walks you through each step. Missing are useful features, such as an appendix or command directory, making this less of a reference book and more of an attempt to contextualize Scratch, which in turn, can lead an upper elementary age child through the Scratch basics.
The book was written by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups Learning through Engineering, Art and Design (LEAD) and translated into English by Canadian-based No-Starch Press. This isn't our favorite Scratch resource, but it may be useful for children who want to explore Scratch independently. We were interested to learn that Scratch has now been localized into 50 languages. The book is best used with Scratch version 1.4, which includes Windows 2000 or newer, Mac OSX 10.4 or newer, and Ubuntu Linux version 9.4 or newer. Computers should have at least 120 MB of free disk space, and it helps if they also have a camera and microphone. No Starch Press. nostach.com, $24.95. Best for ages 7-up.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét