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Wonkblog: Kurt Vonnegut graphed the world's most popular stories (blog post) - Ana Swanson/Washington Post
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Explore the patterns of story and narratives in our culture and beyond using this visual approach to story mapping. In a high school language arts class, watch the video of Vonnegut explaining story shapes (about 4 minutes) and challenge student partners or groups to think of other examples of that story map, even from movies or television shows. Then turn the class loose to make their own graphic representation of a literary piece you have read recently - or of a movie that is popular right now. If you have an interactive whiteboard, have students direct a student "emcee" to do the drawing as the class gives instructions. With younger students, you may need to talk as a class to be sure students are able to grasp the abstract patterns shown in the graphs, and the video may be too adult level for them to understand without a slower discussion. Once your class (of any level) seems to grasp the idea, post story shapes on your class wiki or web page (with proper credit) so students can add their own examples of tales they have read or watched that fit the pattern. If you give them extra credit for noticing such stories in their own lives, they will internalize the idea of narrative patterns. You could also make a story shape bulletin board where students can add index cards with names of books/tales they read under each pattern. If you are promoting narrative writing, use these story patterns as a way to help students get ideas for where a storyline can go so it has a beginning, middle, and end.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Breaking News - NBC News Digital Network
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for current events projects. Assign students various weeks through out the semester in which they are to be the class news reporter. The reports should keep their peers up to date and informed. Have students research what is going on via this news site, and give a small presentation at the beginning of class every day during their week. Students can do an oral presentation or create a short video summarizing the same information. View several news articles from different areas and discuss bias and point of view from other cities and countries. Choose dots on the map randomly from the various sections to see what is trending in different regions. Have students create news briefs and share them using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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XKCD - XKCD
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Add humor to your science, math, language, and current events classes to lighten the mood! Spice up professional presentations with humor, and keep your audience involved. Share the direct URL to any comic that relates to your curriculum or specific topics. Encourage students to create comics with your current content. Have students use one of the tools and ideas included in this collection. Keep your class website humorous with a few comics from XKCD.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Corpus of Global Web-Based English - Brigham Young University
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as an addition to reading skill work and vocabulary enhancement studies. Students may find this beneficial when preparing for the ACT, PSAT, and SAT exams. Students can keep their own word lists of target and related words directly on the site.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Corpus of American English - Brigham Young University
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as an addition to reading skill work and vocabulary enhancement studies. Students may find this beneficial when preparing for the ACT, PSAT, and SAT exams. Students can keep their own word lists of target and related words directly on the site.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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MediaFire - MediaFire
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use MediaFire to transfer files and images between devices quickly in your BYOD or 1:1 classroom. Student groups working on projects in class can gather and share data easily from anywhere. Use for any work students may wish to collaborate on. They can easily make documents public or private and share with others. What a great way for students to turn their work into you when completed on their devices! During curriculum development and other professional development activities, members of a department (or even school-wide) can share resources and documents easily with each other.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Random Name Generator Tool - Instant Classroom
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use the Random Name Generator to select a student to do an activity or to answer a question. Allow students to use the name generator to choose the classmate who comes next. Create your list at the beginning of the year and SAVE it to use throughout the year. Use the Random Name Generator as part of your probability unit to chart how often names appear with random spins.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Nautilus - Nautilus
Grades
9 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share these articles as part of a broad discussion of the role of science in our world, such as during a unit on scientists or careers. Share Nautilus with your gifted or science-focused students to spark interests in scientific fields that are new to them. Assign gifted students to select an article and research it further when they have tested out of regular curriculum. They can share their discoveries as a multimedia presentation or write a blog post about them. Use articles from the magazine as fodder for class debates in English class or pull excerpts to use as writing prompts for informational or expository writing. The reading levels are high school and up, so be sure to partner weaker readers with a more capable reader if using this for class assignments. Check specific reading levels of an article by pasting its url into the Juicy Studio Readability Test, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Travel By Drone - Jan Hiersemenzel
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
This site is continually adding new places to see. If you don't find what you want, check back frequently. Make geography come to life by showing students WHERE a story or news event takes place. Share the videos on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Use this tool to explore how it looks in the country or city studied in world cultures (or languages). Explore geography concepts, historical locations, famous battle locations, and more. Students creating a multimedia presentation with a setting can look at Travel By Drone to see if there is footage they can use.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Roman Gods - Jo Edkins
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a reference for students studying world history and ancient religions. It is also an excellent introduction to a unit on the Romans for young learners. Put a link to this site on a classroom computer as an activity center for the Roman unit of study. Assign student pairs, or small groups, a topic (god or myths about that god). Have students create a multimedia presentation using Presentious, reviewed here. This tool allows narrating and adding text to a picture. Challenge students to find a Creative Commons photo or image, and then narrate the photo as if it is a news report about the god's life. To find Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), try 4 Free Photos, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Springboard - Parul Gupta and Gautam Tambay
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share Springboard with your gifted students as a resource for finding enrichment resources or content not taught by your school. Search for and share free courses for all students to use for review of any topic. Use the Springboard search engine to find professional development courses for your own personal use.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Elementary Science Resource Kit - Tech4Learning
Grades
1 to 8This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Immerse students in hands-on, inquiry projects with these seven plans. Introduce them on your interactive whiteboard or projector and select a class project to complete. Have student groups choose a topic to research. Created for grades 1 to 5, with one for 5-8, any of the plans could be adjusted to fit any of these grade levels. The science kit lesson plans are free, and so are some of the resources they suggest using, such as Pics4Learning, reviewed here. However, the Pixie and Wixie program that the lesson advises using is not free. Instead, use QwikSlides, reviewed here, or FlexClip, reviewed here. FlexClip is designed to allow you to create short animated or explainer videos to share on YouTube and other social media sites. Be sure to bookmark these units for future use.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Scrim - Basem
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use Scrim whenever sharing your email address on Twitter or other social networking sites to avoid receiving spam. Share with older students as part of your cyber safety lessons.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Soft Murmur - Gabriel Martin
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to share this link with students (and their parents) looking for less distracting sounds while brainstorming or working. Does your class have silent reading time, or are you reading a book to the class or conducting a science lab? Turn up your speakers and use a background sound as mood music to set the stage for your story. Use the sounds during creative writing exercises. Why not listen to waves or water while studying them?! Play a few minutes of relaxing sounds before a major test. Consider using as background sounds for student presentations. If you talk with students about discovering their own learning styles, offer this site as a suggestion for them to try while prewriting or studying for tests. Emotional support (and autistic support) teachers may want to experiment to see if these sounds can help their students. Some students may find them over stimulating while others may find the sounds very helpful.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Netwars - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use portions of this site with more mature students to spark discussion about the real (or unreal?) threats of cybersecurity. Every week, news stories about data breaches and hacking proliferate. Include this site as one of many current events topics in a government or civics class where you talk about the issues facing both the executive and legislative branches -- as well as the constitutionality of some proposed solutions. In a research unit in English class, include this as a site to be evaluated. Is this a reliable source? Does it show bias? Is the threat portrayed substantiated with facts or is it designed to scare the audience? Have student groups write and create a web tour using a tool such as Screencast-o-matic, reviewed here, to make an argument about the site and support their points with examples from the site's visual "text." Challenge gifted students to research other evidence supporting or debunking the facts from this site. Since the site is also available in German, world language teachers may want to share it with more advanced German students for language listening and practice.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Slides - Whim, LLC
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use Slides to support presentations in the classroom. Challenge your writers to create short stories that include their artwork, and publish with Slides. Search for Creative Commons licensed images related to classroom content using Vecteezy, reviewed here, to create a slideshow. Slides is a great resource for your BYOD classroom. Create supporting presentations for lessons and take advantage of the math formula feature. Encourage students to create presentations to support book talks and share them on a library website. Slides is your collaboration destination for students to work together on assignments.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
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The Mighty - Mike Porath
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Share The Mighty with parents and even older students as a resource for finding positive news about those with disabilities. Read these stories together on your projector or interactive whiteboard to teach about tolerance and acceptance of differences. Encourage parents and students to submit their own story of inspiration to the site. Search for articles dealing with challenges your students face to read and discuss together.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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After the Deadline - polishmywriting.com
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Use this visual revision program with your students who are ready to refine and improve their writing. After the Deadline is a wonderful program to use for revision after self-editing of grammar and mechanics is complete. Put the URL on your website for students and parents to use from home. Remind seniors to use it for their college essays. Use this tool to polish your professional writing, parent newsletters, blog posts, and papers for grad classes!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Group Maker Tool - Instant Classroom
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Although a bit awkward and slow to get started, this tool is helpful for creating random groups for many purposes. It is best to create your class list ahead of time then you can easily create groups anytime on the fly! Use this tool to create groups for cooperative learning, class plays, presentations, computer centers, field trips, and much more.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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LearnEnglish232.com YouTube Channel - learnenglish232.com
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share the video clips on your interactive whiteboard or projector. In pairs have students list idioms they did not understand. Create another list of new vocabulary words. Have students try Funnelbrain, reviewed here, to create flashcards of the new idioms and vocabulary to help them bring the words into their active vocabulary.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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