Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

On the Digital Booktalk site, find high-quality book trailers that will whet your appetite for a good book. Search for books by content level and interests. Then click on a book to be taken to the book's page. Included on each page is a short video (some created by students), book synopsis, Lexile level, publication date, the number of pages, genre, and ISBN. Teachers, library/media specialists, and students can join the project and contribute videos. Read the "UB the Director" area ( UB=You Be) for Lessons and Activities.

Digital Citizenship offers a large number of resources for teaching digital citizenship for students of all ages, teachers, and parents. Scroll down the page to find categories for Online safety, Healthy online habits, Teaching and learning, and more to begin. Each section includes articles and resources for learning responsible digital citizenship. The site was created in Australia. American English speakers may notice some slight differences in spellings and pronunciations. The videos reside on sites other than Digital Citizenship. Some are on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

Digital Learning Day is an annual February event spotlighting successful instructional practice and effective use of technology around the country. Choose the "About DLDay" option to find out more about the goals of Digital Learning Day, begin with a detailed description listing the characteristics of digital learning. View exemplary models, showcases, lesson portals, and more using links provided. Sign up as a participant for Digital Learning Day then plan your own classroom activity, provide a presentation to parents, or choose from other ideas offered on the site. Explore the Participate portion of the site to find digital tools, online resources, graphics, lesson plans and more. Sign up isn't required; however, it does allow you to receive emails with updates and learning ideas throughout the year. The digital learning content demonstrations are conducted in four areas: math, science, language arts, and civics/social studies; critical areas, such as working with ELL or special education students, will be woven into the lessons.

This interactive social bookmarking and collaboration tool does so much more than any ordinary bookmarking tool. It is a research curation tool, knowledge-sharing community, website annotation tool, and social information network all rolled into one "cloud" package. To get started, check out the About link. You will find information and videos on the uses of Diigo. Set up an account, being sure to click the FREE education edition upgrade. This is a device-agnostic tool, available on the web but also available for free as both an Android and iOS app. Use it from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. App and web versions vary slightly. At this time Diigo is experiencing issues with the "Top 10 Tags" from the menu on the left.

This tool can be used as a basic bookmarking tool, simply allowing YOU to save, sort, and access your own bookmarks from ANY computer or mobile device (once you are logged in). You have the choice whether your bookmarks are public or private. You can gradually ease into more advanced and interactive features: highlight parts of sites and save or share those annotations, add sticky notes to parts of websites, pictures, screen-shots, documents, audio, and more. Do group collaborative research. Organize your bookmarks by tags. Unlike sorting bookmarks into file folders, adding tags permits you to put multiple tags or "labels" on one site. The same site you tag for book reports could also be tagged for biographies, for example. Additional Diigo features include groups (a way to share and exchange bookmarks with a certain group of Diigo users), messaging, and search features. You can search all the public bookmarks made by others and discover other people with similar interests, already bookmarked and ready for you to mark as your own. There are many groups you can join, such as those with a specific teaching interest or hobby. See "Tools" for many helpful options, including bookmarklets to make bookmarking instant on multiple devices. Bookmarklets drag directly to the toolbars on your computer and are well worth it. It goes beyond simple bookmarking and adds options like highlight, capture, send, read later, comment, search bar and Diigo message options. You decide your own level of use and desired tools to be shown on the bar. If choosing not to install the toolbar, then there is an applet called Diigolet that will be used in its place. It is not as strong a tool as the toolbar, but will work well if the toolbar installation is not possible. Check our sample group. You can also install a widget on your blog (or class web page) that will show your bookmarks there.
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Travel to the world's most amazing places whenever you like with Discovery Education's Virtual Field Trips, no chaperones or payment required! Explore the Curriculum tab at the top by subject and scroll down the landing page to view Virtual Tours where you can filter by subject area. The virtual field trips include a video along with multiple additional resources like a Teachers Guide, links, and additional resources to download. Some videos are hosted on YouTube. Search for your topic in the search bar, you never know what you'll find. This review found Pi Day virtual field trips!

Finding and implementing engaging lessons is difficult and time-consuming; Ditch That Textbook offers practical teaching ideas that adapt quickly to all content and grade levels. There are three main areas of the site to search for resources - the Blog, Google Ideas, and Resources. Blog content includes suggestions for feedback, gamifying classrooms, and sources for finding free content. Use the keyword search to look for specific information. The Google Ideas section shares material for all things Google, including using Chromebooks. Scroll down the page to find ideas sorted by Google tools and links to videos, templates, and related blog posts. Select the Resources link to find an abundance of free templates, how-to videos, and tools for remote learning. Be sure to dig around at length; there is much more available on this site, including a handful of free online courses for educators. The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.

Organize student Google documents with Doctopus! This tool is essential for organizing of documents both to and from students. Create a Google Doc template. Next, create a spreadsheet containing the students who will be using the document. When you install Doctopus as a Chrome add-on, a Doctopus folder is created in Google Docs. Be sure that the template you create and the spreadsheet containing student names are in that folder. A script needs to be installed to pull the student names from the spreadsheet and then send them the document. Find simple directions with screenshots here. Doctopus is a Google Chrome add-on and is available for Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, and Linux. This add-on is not available for Windows RT, iPad, or mobile devices as of this time.

Need kid-friendly online news? This safe site, written for kids, by kids, offers news from a younger point-of-view. You can create a class page where you can load a variety of articles, add a book list, a calendar, favorite sites list, add lesson plan instructions, monitor student comments, and more. DOGOnews is kid-friendly, colorful, and flexible. After all, DOGO means young or small in Swahili. You can select articles from a number of categories (Social Studies, Science, World, Current Events, etc.). There is an integrated dictionary for challenging words and maps for geographical context. Some of the articles include short video clips. Students may leave brief comments about each article (no login required). Also, typing the word "video" in the search box will bring up the Video of the Week for the past several weeks. The videos reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. In addition, find a Book and Movie section with a brief summary for the book or movie, and comments. You don't have to join to read the articles, but you do need to join to create a class page. There are many benefits to creating a class page, and it's all free! Don't want to create a class page? You can also embed articles on your current web page.

Looking for best practices and ways to provide evidence for current practices? Discover Doing What Works! Find research and resources in the subject areas of reading, math, science, English fluency, and how to teach effectively for teachers and administrators. Current national reports reflect recent trends in education. Information is also geared to educating parents.

Doozy is a social platform for teams to chat, create quizzes, participate in group games, and much more. Register and create an account with Doozy to create your social space. Grab the link to invite others to your game room to begin group activities. Once in the room, use chat features to interact, create a quiz or choose from the library of pre-made quizzes, or add a playlist from Spotify as part of your activity room. With the free account you get 1 meeting room, 10 participants,15 min sessions, games, quizzes, and icebreakers.

Convert the content of any webpage into an e-book format to read on your tablet, phone, or other e-reader device using dotEPUB-- even offline! Install the browser bookmarklet in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Mozilla, or Chrome to begin. In Chrome and Mozilla use the dotEPUB browser extension to create documents. Once installed, click on the bookmarklet or browser extension while on any page to convert the page and send to your e-reader. Choose from either epub or mobi (Kindle) format for use in e-readers. View the instructional videos for complete directions on how to use the bookmarklet or extension. This site is also available in Spanish. The instructional videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube and you wish to share the videos in class, they may not be viewable.

Create an online bulletin board (much like Padlet, reviewed here, or Lino, reviewed here) for brainstorming and VOTING on any topic. The voting is what makes this tool different. Create an account. There is no waiting for email approval. Add a board, title, select how many votes the participants will have (up to 10), and start adding posts with text, images, and video. Add images and video via URL or upload from your computer. When participants join, they give their name. Participants can add posts. Names of participants using the board appear below the chat box. Participants name's appear when they make a comment in the chat. However, comments on posts don't have the participant name. Once the board is complete, the creator can finalize the board so no new ideas can be posted, but the voting feature is still open. At the time of this review, a free account allows you to have one fully featured board. If you wish to create another board, you will need to delete your existing board.

Down the Drain is a free Internet-based collaborative project that has classes around the world share and compare their water consumption. For a detailed explanation, visit the New to the Project link. The project includes a hypothesis, prediction, data collection, and comparing results. The data collection period lasts one week. There is a link for Student Activities. The Teacher Guide link offers an overview of the project, publishing policy information, and extension activities. The project says it is designed for grades 4-8 but can be used in upper grades, as well.

This easy-to-follow list of do's and don'ts provides an excellent start to understanding the basics of teaching Black history throughout the year. Adapted from lessons created by Pat Russo at SUNY Oswego, these simple ideas offer guidelines that ensure Black history lessons are meaningful and relevant.

Draft is a collaborative writing tool similar to Google Docs with one notable exception: the ability to view and accept changes before they are actually made to the document. The site also features the ability to mark/label major versions of your work as it is produced, allowing the ability to go back and easily view previous versions. Be sure to check out "Hemingway Mode" (explained in Features) which prevents any editing as you write, forcing you to get ideas down to rethink, revise, and edit LATER. This is a great way to prevent the perfectionist in you from paralyzing your writing process! But the BEST part of this site: it is easy to use! Sign up using your email and password and immediately begin creating your document. When ready to share, choose the home icon and copy your document's link to send via email or text (or copy and paste as desired). When changes are made, you will receive an email. You may then view the document to see color coded changes and accept or deny changes as desired.

Think of Draft as a collaborative workspace that offers features to investigate ideas, solve problems, and draft plans to move forward with a designated workflow in place. Sign up using your email to begin, then choose from three workflow options. Use the dashboard to add notes, create drag and drop lists, upload documents and images, and add information from the web. Use the sharing options to invite others to edit the board or allow viewing only. Use the examples on your home page as inspiration using Draft in a variety of ways. Free plans allow members to use up to 500 objects in drafts, create an unlimited number of drafts, and have unlimited contributors.

Draggo is a convenient way to save, share, and organize your bookmarks from anywhere. With Draggo, you use the web to store your favorite links, preventing loss from computer problems. Join for free. Inside your account, add pages to store, share, and organize links. Add the browser button or drag links into Draggo to put in your inbox; organize when you have time. You can have up to 10 tabs to save your important links. Choose to keep private or make public via your own personalized Draggo URL. Editing is not possible without a user name and password. The introduction video to this site is the only part of the site that appears to require Flash.