A Tuesday Tech Tidbit

This weekend I was working on some lesson plans for the first couple of weeks of school.  In doing so, I reviewed what I had done last year and the year prior.  The good thing about going back over what you've done before is that it helps you remember some of your favorite things.  One that I'm excited to share with you is MangaHigh.  I love MangaHigh because the kids love it and this makes it a worthwhile resources, one that I know my students will use.

You can use MangaHigh two ways.  The first way, Prodigi, is almost like a minilesson.  Prodigi lessons are sorted by curriculum standard.  Choose the curriculum standard and then you have the option of going through a short lesson "teach me" or jumping in to answering questions.  There are 10 questions for each "lesson" that get progressively more difficult.

The second way to use MangaHigh is games....and these are fun games!  My favorite is Ice Ice Maybe.  It's an estimation game that uses all four operations.  Not only does it require players to estimate, but it requires them to do it quickly (the purpose of an estimate!).

And, if you didn't think that was awesome enough, you can challenge your kids to meet certain goals on MangaHigh.  And if that wasn't awesome enough either, schools can challenge one another.  These Fai-To's (the challenges) last for 5 days and a school wins a round by earning the most medals each day.  Last year there was a U.S. vs U.K. Fai-To (sadly, the U.K. won, but I'm hoping we get the chance to redeem ourselves this year!) which the kids really had a lot of fun with!

The best part is that MangaHigh is FREE!  You read that correctly...it's FREE!  And, the folks at MangaHigh will help you get your classes set up...you just need to send them an Excel spreadsheet.  (It's very easy to do yourself...but they'll help, too!)

What are you waiting for?  Go play!