Widgets

I began my widget search with Google. I simply typed widgets into the search bar and away I went, to the land of overwhelming resources. Actually it didn't take me to long to find widgetbox.com. Widgetbox had different categories, and a search bar, I used both to look for educational widgets. I have many more then four widgets uploaded to both my blog and iGoogle home page, but here are the four that interested me for this particular assignment.


Today in History, widgetbox.com/widget/today-in-history-lividbox, is a widget that allows readers of my blog, or myself in my iGoogle pages to read about history and learn or relearn facts about topics that occurred many years ago. I like the thought of being able to have students pick of the topics in this widget and do more research on them, and teaching the rest of the class about its significance, and how or if it did anything to influence the way we live our lives today. After reading this for a few days, it seems to me that some topics are more important then others, and I would probably disregard as important historically, but that is just my opinion.

Grammar Girl Quiz, widgetbox.com/widget/grammargirlquiz, is a widget that quizzes on proper grammar. I think I could really use some refreshing on correct grammar usage, and so could many other people. I added this widget more for myself then other people. Not all the questions are self explanatory, and basically choices will pop up and you have to pick the grammatically correct sentence. If you answer a quiz question incorrectly, Grammar Girl gives a brief explanation as to why you were wrong, and why the other grammatical answer is correct. After using this widget and completing the quiz, I soon realized that they wanted me to purchase other Grammar Girl materials. This widget does not upload new quizzes or questions, and I will not be using it in the future.

Nutrition Game for Kids, widgetbox.com/widget/nutrition-game-for-kids-nourishinteractive, is a widget that offers interactive games, that help reinforce proper eating habits and the food groups with children. Also available on the website are resources and tools for parents. The widget I attached to my blog is one of the games, it is memory. Each of the food groups is a color that coincides with its color on the food pyramid. Each level is timed, and depending on the level you choose, that determines how many tiles need to be matched. I did fine on the easy and tricky level, but it took a few tries before I passed the hard level. This widget and its corresponding website could be a great reinforcement tool for primary age students. If they can't read it's o.k. because the matching cards all have pictures on them as well as the food and food group.

The last widget I uploaded for this part of the assignment was, USA Smarts, widgetbox.com/widget/usa-smarts. As of now there are 44 rounds of multiple choice questions that have to do with the United States; its cities, landmarks and attractions. The nice thing about this widget is that players can add and provide feedback on the questions and challenge a friend. The quiz also gives little fun facts about the cities or states it asks the questions about. I don't know how many elementary students would know the answer to some of the questions but it sure would be fun to see out of my friends who gets the high score. I think other people who visit the blog will enjoy seeing just how much they know about the United States and just what they have forgotten over time too.