I really liked all of the ABC interactive activities for K-2 at http://www.uen.org/k-2interactives/abc.shtml
I would like to use the whole group as a way to individualize the education of my students based on their current level of proficiency. The great things about the games offered there are that they vary in difficulty and scope. I could list the individual activities each student could choose for their own personal computer time. This would give my student the opportunity to choose the activity that most appeals to them so they will be able to progress in their learning in a fun way. For example, if I had a student who was struggling with the identification of letters in either uppercase or lower case, I could let them choose between any of the following activities:
Identifying Letters with Alpha Pig
Kangaroo Confusion
Undersea ABC
In Identifying Letters with Alpha Pig, I can assign the student to Easy=all uppercase, Medium=all lowercase, or Hard=mix of upper and lowercase, depending on where their struggle lies.
In Kangaroo Confusion, the student must match the uppercase to its lowercase version, so I would assign this one if the student was struggling with that correlation.
In Undersea ABC, I can assign upper or lowercase identification based on the need of the student.
This group of activities also reminded me that I need to be very aware of the validity of each activity. For example, there were 2 broken links in the games listed, A-Z Highway Game and ABC Matchup. If I assigned these to students who were already struggling, they would become frustrated and possibly give up because they think it is their fault and they are too stupid to even get to the right page for the activity. There was also a game that had little academic merit. It was fun, but it did not really serve an educational purpose in my mind. It was called Bembo's Zoo.
Overall, I think these were good resources just because it does cover a wide variety of learning opportunities. I liked that one page held several games that various students could all utilize. I would consider having it as a station for Language Arts activities. I think it would also be a motivator for students to progress because then they would get to play
Identifying Letters with Alpha Pig
Kangaroo Confusion
Undersea ABC
In Identifying Letters with Alpha Pig, I can assign the student to Easy=all uppercase, Medium=all lowercase, or Hard=mix of upper and lowercase, depending on where their struggle lies.
In Kangaroo Confusion, the student must match the uppercase to its lowercase version, so I would assign this one if the student was struggling with that correlation.
In Undersea ABC, I can assign upper or lowercase identification based on the need of the student.
This group of activities also reminded me that I need to be very aware of the validity of each activity. For example, there were 2 broken links in the games listed, A-Z Highway Game and ABC Matchup. If I assigned these to students who were already struggling, they would become frustrated and possibly give up because they think it is their fault and they are too stupid to even get to the right page for the activity. There was also a game that had little academic merit. It was fun, but it did not really serve an educational purpose in my mind. It was called Bembo's Zoo.
Overall, I think these were good resources just because it does cover a wide variety of learning opportunities. I liked that one page held several games that various students could all utilize. I would consider having it as a station for Language Arts activities. I think it would also be a motivator for students to progress because then they would get to play