Oh No Fractions App

Product Description:
This is an app from Curious Hat. The app is designed to visually and numerically teach students about fractions. This app allows students to compare, add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. The app walks students through the process to allow them to learn each step as they go. While going through these steps students are encouraged to calculate the information on their own, but does offer help if students struggle with the calculations.

Glitchy Review:
I have used this app sporadically in my classroom mainly focusing on my RSP and low performing students when we learn about dividing fractions. This app allows these students to visually see this information when most of them have auditory processing issues or retention issues. The app has allowed me to access their strengths to really allow them to learn the information. I am able to go back to 4th and 5th-grade skills within the app. The students were able to become successful with this where if I did this a different way would have been longer and harder on me and the students. While this app is very basic in its set-up it works for these students. There are no crazy bells and whistles for the students to get distracted and keeps them focused enough with just the right amount of interaction. Hands down the best part of this app would have to be the visuals for the students. They are able to see the fraction in pieces and bars; which when you get to ratios REALLY helps to transfer the skill sets. I cannot express how happy my students were to be able to FINALLY understand fractions and how to use the steps correctly. They were able to master on the app and feel confident enough to do it on their own. This app is best for lower grades introducing fractions as well as low performing students in the upper grades, not so much for students outside of this group. (Trust me I have tried.) All of this is great for teachers; on top of that, it is FREE! Enjoy!

User Rating:
This app would be a level 1 since figuring out how to use this is basic and the set-up is the same no matter what you are doing in the app.

Glitchy Rating:
I give this app a 5 for the ease of use as well as the drastic amounts of help for the students.

Feel free to leave comments or suggestions below!

Newsela

Product Description:

Newsela is a website which houses numerous different non-fiction articles for different grade levels. Teachers can either assign articles, quizzes, or writing based on these articles.

Glitchy Review:

Newsela is a decent program. I use the free version with my class and can still do many different things. While with all programs the paid version does give you more information there is still much to do with the free version. When you sign up you get a month of the paid program to check it out. The only flaw with this would be if you like the program you HAVE to be a school or district to get the paid program. There is not option on the site to order for the individual teacher. I am currently looking to find out if you can get Newsela for individual teachers. I will update when an answer is received.

For this review it will be a compare and contrast the free version to the paid.

First, with the free version you have access to all the articles available on Newsela as well as the quizzes and writing assignments. The only difference between the paid and free version is you can assign these to the students online while the free version you do not have that option. For me I just read the questions on type them up for my students. (Paper and pencil is still good!) The only thing you can do with the questions on the paid version and not on the free is customize the prompts.

Second, with the free and paid version you have the ability to change the Lexile level of the article to allow all students to read the same article at their level! (Hello access to the information!) Now students and teachers do not have to worry about students not being able to follow along or not have access to the information! (This is my FAVORITE feature! Yes, even more than the quizzes.)

Third, with the paid version you have access to all articles in SPANISH. Yes, you read that correctly, SPANISH. All quizzes, writing, and articles will be in Spanish as well. No other languages are available, but I am sure they are in the works.

Fourth, is a couple of things. With the paid version you will also have access to a report for each student with a breakdown of the concepts. This breakdown also allows you to see the class average, annotations made by students, organize the questions by CC Strand, view student progress, and compare your students to other students on Newsela. This works great for any teacher’s, schools, or districts looking for RTI information or small group information.

Glitchy Rating: I give this website a 4 simply because you have so much you can do as teacher on the free version. I really wish they would have a way for us to buy the program as the individual teacher and more language options available.

User Rating: This website is a level 1. You can go in there and begin working right away. It will take some “playing around” to figure out where everything is, but still highly user friendly for any of the user.

Here is the website for you: https://newsela.com/

Frontrow

Product Review:
Frontrow is an online product to review/teach students skills in both Math and Language Arts. The program is accessible from both computers, tablets, and SMART phones. There is a free version as well as a paid version; however, the paid version is only for schools/districts.

Glitchy Review:
This product is amazing. If you haven't started using this, you need to! I use the free version for my classroom and I am still able to do multiple different things for my students. Let's begin with the teacher dashboard. This is very user friendly. It is simple for teachers to find the information they are looking for. There are videos available to you to help you learn what each part does. The teacher has access to any things about each student. I could list them all but that would take a long time; here are a few highlights I find the most beneficial.

1. a time stamp on when a student logs in
2. an average grade level for Math and Language Arts based on use and answer of the student
3. breakdown of grade for each domain 
4. current standard of each domain the student is working on
5. suggested domain to have the student work on

As you can see multiple benefits to the teacher. If you are conducting the SST or RTI process on a student you can use the program's Report Card as data as well as a place to have the student work to review topics of other grade levels. This program also allows the students to go home and work on this at home because all they need to log in is their first and last name with the classroom code. Teacher benefits include creating targeted assignments in both subject areas. Please understand most of the good things you can do in math are not accessible in Language Arts. You can assign students activities within Language Arts but will not be able to see the results except for a couple of students.

I have been working with this program for 3 years now and seen benefits of it with multiple students. I had a student failing math in the fall and she committed (to herself, I did not know) to going on FrontRow every day for 20 minutes. By the end of the year, she had an A in math; she started at a 2nd-grade level. I have my RTI students use the program and they refer to videos already linked into the program and I use the suggested lessons when I pull them into small groups. There are so many benefits to the program on the free level I can only imagine what I could do if I had the paid version.

For the paid version I do know you have access to all assessment results, can share and access results from all grade level teachers, use these results to create RTI groups, and grade level teachers will be able to see the results to aid with RTI/SST interventions. You are also able to create assessments online for the whole grade level for your CFAs and the program will automatically grade and group the students for you. Hello to extra time during PLCs!T

Did I mention the layout of the screen and way to answer questions is IDENTICAL to the Smart Assessments we give our students for CCSS? It does and helps ease stress related to that because the student has already been working with this layout and don't have to worry about what to do to answer the question!

Glitchy Rating: Overall, I give this program 2 ratings. For the free version, I give it a 4 because you do not have access to everything. For the paid version, I give it a 5 because of the numerous benefits to both teacher and students.

User Rating: This website is a definite level 2. You will need to watch the videos or hit the Need Help button to really be able to understand all the things you can do.

I hope this post aids you in discovering FrontRow. Below is the website for you to go and get started. Enjoy!

www.frontrowed.com