Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Healthy and Simple Roasted Vegetables!

I love making easy and healthy recipes. This recipe for roasting vegetables can be done with whatever vegetables are in your fridge. This time I did a combination of brussel sprouts and cauliflower.

To make the recipe reflected in the picture I cut the brussel sprouts in half and sliced the cauliflower so the pieces were thick enough that they didn't fall apart but would still cook. I put all the pieces in a zip lock baggie and added some extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper (to taste). Im sure you could add different spices to give your vegetables a different taste. You want to use enough oil that it will coat all of the vegetables, too much will make your vegetables soggy. I eyeball a little bit and start shaking, knowing I can add more oil if I need it. I dump the vegetables from the baggie into an aluminum foil pan. The vegetables get baked at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes based on the amount in the pan. I tend to stir them after the initial time and put them back in for the same amount of time. You can always continue cooking or remove vegetables from the oven early if needed.



 
Breana

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

TenseBuilder App Review

TenseBuilder by Mobile Education Store is one of my new favorite apps. I have been using this app for a few weeks and love all of the different ways the app can be used and changed based on each students needs.


This is the homescreen that is seen when the app is opened. As you can see, I created this set under my name as an example. The first selection is to turn audio instructions on or off. I turned them off because I didn't think they were necessary. Correct answer reinforcement is basically the option to allow praise after each question. Recording the correct answer allows keeping score, but most of the time I use this app with two students and there is not an option for that, so I keep my own data. Level of play allows a different structure for more or less advanced students. I will show examples of each level later on. Maximum number of choices allows you to select how many answer choices are shown for students playing in level 2 (this will also make more sense later). Tense allows you to select who tense you want the videos to focus on. You can select from past, present, future, or all of the above. Verbs allows you to choose if you want to focus on regular or irregular verbs or both. There is also an option to select exactly which verbs to focus on. Lesson style allows the selection of a short lesson, which is a short video and then the selection of pictures or words, the short lesson comes in if a student gets the answer incorrect. The app will switch the image in level 1 to the tense that was selected and explain why that answer was incorrect. In a long lesson, the video will be played again and stopped periodically to explain how each tense is occurring.


This is what the video screen looks like. The blue button allows the user to swtich from a short lesson to a long lesson. The red button allows the user to move on to the next video. The green button plays the video. These videos contain only sound bites, they do not contain voice of any kind.


This is what the video screen looks like after a level 1 video has been played. The sentence tells you which tense and the student has to match the picture to the sentence.


This is what the screen looks like after a level 2 video with 5 answer choices. The app reads the sentences and the student must decipher which verb fills in the blank. When the user touches or slightly moves any of the answer choices it will read the answer choice.

Overall I think this app was done very well. My only cons about this app is the fact that you can only work on one user at a time and in level 2 the answer choices do not disappear when the student guesses incorrectly. It is not difficult to switch between users, but it is annoying to have to keep switching back and forth between users. I would definitely consider this app a MUST HAVE!!!!

Breana


The opinions in this review are mine and only mine. I was provided a copy of this app and no other compensation.