BP9_2010012_Web2.0_T3_Zoodles

I am really enjoying trying out new sites in search of tools I can personally use. On this blog I want to highlight www.zoodles.com where you can set up activities specific to age and level of your student. It has games, a variety of subjects, characters, animals and a place for you favorites. The basic is free to all and you can upgrade depending on how much you use this. There is a great tutorial video at the beginning explaining the features that are available. I did set up a basic account and created an account for my class as a whole. One feature I really liked was how the whole screen is used when doing this to help keep it safe for students. Also, the favorites button shows what games or activities they work on the most. I went in like a student would to see how user friendly it was and was able to look around and figure out how to play.

If a teacher wanted to scaffold this to meet different needs it would be really easy. You would set up an account for each student that needed the extra help or possibly a lower level without it being really obvious to the other students. I plan on using this as a center with my computers twice a week. The student can feel like they are playing games and I can be confident that they are learning the skills I want then to learn.

My first step would be to demonstrate it as whole group and see what the reaction is. If the students seem eager to play those will be the first ones I assign activities to. My experiences as a teacher so far have been that everyone learns differently and some may gain the most benefit from Zoodles. Let me know what you think....