SparkTop.org
Facts, encouragement, and a place to share for anyone who learns differently. Explore is the section that provides primary content about the brain, learning, and how it all works. Create is an area for drawing pictures, manipulating images, mixing music, recording voices or writing responses. Brainstorm lets you select graphics, add sounds and even record audio to create your own brain. Connect is the section with discussion boards, communications options and opportunities to join other participants online in games.The site was designed by SchwabLearning to help kids ages 8-12 with learning disabilities (LD) and/or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). Registration is free.
No one thinks exactly like anyone else, and kids diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia, and other learning differences know this better than anyone. Students who are singled out with in-class modifications, scheduled for sessions with special education teachers, or making daily trips to the office for medications know they are different, and they need to know that different is OK. No matter what the IQ tests say or what difficulties they overcome through compensating in the classroom, many students say they are “not smart” because the work and daily routines at school are contrary to their learning preferences and energy level. These students need straight answers to their questions and they also need to know that they are not alone.
SparkTop.org, produced by Schwab Learning, is a free, highly engaging, interactive website for students in upper elementary school through middle school and for the adults who care about them. Designed to encourage the development of an accepting, informed community of learners, Sparktop offers facts, encouragement, and a place to share. Full use of the resources, including a customized storage area to collect materials you created or located on the site, requires registration.
Explore is the section that provides primary content about the brain, learning, and how it all works. Questions kids may have about improving organization or taking medication are answered using audio and images in Studio 24/7 and DBTV. For many students with learning differences, it is in outside activities that they are most successful so The Last Bell section is where students share their activities beyond academics. In the Brain Arcade students “design” a brain with attributes they can identify with, then explore profiles of famous people’s brains and the struggles these people, like Leonardo DeVinci and Jacki Chan, faced due to learning differences.
Create is an area that allows students to take full advantage of the technology while responding to questions, issues or just expressing themselves. Drawing pictures, manipulating images, mixing music, recording voices or writing responses; students are bound to find a way to show what they know or share how they feel. The Brainscan Gallery is a selection of other participant’s responses to the Theme of the Week (like Sibling Stories) or other random submissions. Any participant’s work may be chosen for display in the gallery. Brainstorm lets the students select graphics, add sounds and even record audio to create their own brain.Connect is the section with discussion boards, communications options and opportunities to join other participants online in games. As with all areas of the site, all submissions are monitored and the posting of inappropriate materials or sharing of identifying information are not allowed.
Use SparkTop to increase awareness in your classroom and build understanding of the learning differences we all, to some degree, demonstrate. Sharing the BrainPop movies on ADHD, Dyslexia, or Bullying can inform the whole class. These resources explain the science behind the behaviors and they even mention that characteristics may be present to some degree in all of us.
