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CleverPDF - CleverPDF
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to bookmark this site on all classroom and personal computers for use throughout the year. If you have a large PDF file but only need a page or two, use CleverPDF to extract it for you. Convert PDF files to Word or Pages when working with a document that needs editing. Convert student work into PDF then convert into a book using PDF to Flipbook Converter, reviewed here. PDF ro Flipbook Converter even includes a handy page-turning effect! This is a helpful utility for students entering contests or completing applications offered only in PDF form. Help students create a more organized and appealing portfolio by converting all items to one standard file type such as PDF. bulb, reviewed here, is an easy to use tool for creating and sharing portfolios, include student-created PDF documents to share any work document.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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WikiArt - Visual Art Encyclopedia - Wikipaintings
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use an interactive whiteboard or projector and this site to view many different works of art for discussion and comparison. Compare student artwork to that of masters to understand various design principles. Use the images in any class as a prompt for written or artistic expression. View paintings of various periods of history to identify various events that shaped life at that time. Invite students to select their "dream" art gallery and write a script for an audio tour of the gallery with links to the paintings. They can record their podcast tours using a tool such as Spreaker (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mentimeter - Mentimeter
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Mentimeter is helpful in the classroom as a formative assessment tool. Educators can interact with others inside the classroom, remotely, or during blended classroom sessions. Because the poll address and ID code number appear on the beginning slide of your creation or can be given verbally, it is effortless to create and provide to classes. Survey students during activities and lectures to check for understanding of essential concepts. Responses can also be open-ended by creating your poll without any choice of answers. Students can only vote once per question with this tool unless you check the box about answering more than once during the creation of the answer slides.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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KidsTV123 - YouTube Channel - KidsTV123
Grades
K to 3This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
View videos on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you allow students to explore on their own, take caution since they could click and go elsewhere on YouTube. To share a single video safely at a center, use a tool such as Nicer Tube, reviewed here, and create a shortcut to the View Pure page directly on the desktop. Share a link to this site with parents through your classroom website or newsletter for students to view at home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wolfram Demonstrations Project - Wolfram Mathematica
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Explain how to use the Demonstrations on your interactive whiteboard (or projector). Allow students to explore on their own classroom computers. (Remember to download the CDF player onto each computer or request it in advance from your tech department.) Challenge students to create a talking avatar using a photo or other image (legally permitted for reproduction). Use avatars to explain activities performed using a Demonstration. Use a site such as Blabberize, reviewed here. The beauty of the demonstrations is that it allows students to manipulate and "play" to view the impact of changes made, allowing many opportunities for classroom discussion. Ask students to predict the impact of changes using the manipulate command; then discuss the actual impact as it occurs.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ReadWriteThink Notetaker - ReadWriteThink
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Notetaker is a fantastic tool for teaching students how to outline and also for furthering knowledge of those familiar with outlines. Take advantage of this free interactive and the link to lessons that include this interactive to supplement your current teaching materials. Share Notetaker on your interactive whiteboard to demonstrate how to build and add content to an outline. Create outlines together as a class to summarize reading materials, information about cultures around the world, or steps taken during science experiments. Include Notetaker with your other links for student resources on your class webpage and classroom computers. Ask students to print outlines and include with any writing project, or have students copy their outline onto a Google document to accompany their project.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Storyboard That - Aaron Sherman and Clever Prototypes, LLC
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Enhance learning and demonstrate how to create a storyboard using Storyboard That on your interactive whiteboard or projector. As you and your students create a class story, show them the different selections of characters, settings, dialogue boxes and more. Show them how easy it is to edit anything in the frame. Have your students use "Storyboard That" for anything from brainstorming for a video story they want to create to a final copy of a story, report, comic, or poem. This is a highly engaging way to teach your students about story elements, dialogue, character development, etc. Challenge students to create a storyboard of a book or short story recently finished in class as a review of characters and story plot and extending their learning. World language students can create storyboards and label the images, or tell the story in the language they are learning. "Storyboard That" has a growing collection of lesson plans and you can also contribute yours. Math teachers can use the interesting storyboard characters to explain word problems and capture reluctant student's interest. Have your students complete biographies for famous people. Tell the story of different famous events in history or explain their understanding of cell division using this easy program that produces entertaining results. Autistic or emotional support teachers can have students storyboard interpersonal behavior skills.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Comments
As of January 2013 teachers can now create a private classroom where their students data is secure and the teacher has more control. -Aaron (Founder/CEO of Storyboard That) *Editor's Note: this feature is available as part of the Classroom Portal Section which is a paid add on. This review highlights only the free portions of the site.Aaron, , Grades: 0 - 12
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The Critical Thinking Community - Foundation for Critical Thinking
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Share critical thinking strategies with students and create lists of how and when they are used in the classroom. Create a bulletin board with critical thinking strategies for your classroom. Use the lessons included on the site as a resource for lessons in your classroom. Bookmark this site and save it in your favorite's as a professional resource. Share suggested activities and resources with other staff members.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Noisli - Stefano Merlo
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to share this link with students (and their parents) looking for less distracting sounds while brainstorming or working. Reading a book to the class or conducting a science lab? Turn up your speakers and use these background sounds as mood music to set the stage for your story. Why not listen to waves or water while studying it! Play a few minutes of relaxing sounds before a major test. Let a student "DJ" create a class relaxation or creativity soundscape. Consider using as background sounds for student presentations. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, Animatron, Sway, and Presentious. Use the writing tool available at this site to motivate your students with music, color, and more. 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 overstimulating, while others may find the sounds very helpful.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Attitude Anchor Chart - Zearn
Grades
K to 8In the Classroom
Share this anchor chart with students and post it on a bulletin board to remind students to reflect upon their work and learning process. As discussed on the information for the chart, provide students with badges for demonstrating the different qualities found on the chart. Instead of a printable badge, use a digital badge creation tool such as Open Badges, reviewed here, to create unique badges to share with students. Include students in reflection and developing positive attitudes by encouraging them to use this anchor chart as an example to create their acronym and learning attitude goals. Use Canva Edu, reviewed here, to design and share anchor charts to print and display in your classroom and online.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Freepik - Alejandro Blanes, Pablo Blanes, and Joaquin Cuenca
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
These graphics and templates are free to download and use (with appropriate credit). This site is great if you need some clever clipart to jazz up student handouts, classroom bulletin boards, or PowerPoint/Keynote presentations. Special Ed, speech/language, or ENL/ESL teachers may find these images helpful when working with non-readers or non-verbal students. There is also web clipart that you can use for your blog, class webpage, or wiki.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Animal Jam - National Geographic Kids
Grades
2 to 6This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Studying ecosystems or biomes? Animal Jam offers great supporting materials with an added social feature. Print fact sheets for students on plants and animals. Students can journal about their experiences. Animal Jam is great for science learning stations, enrichment, or support. Share Animal Jam on your interactive whiteboard and take a trip around the world with your class. Provide the link on your class website for students to further explore (and play) at home. Use the social features to teach digital citizenship skills in a safe environment. Students can write creative journal prompts from the point of view of their avatar as they integrate facts they learned in Animal Jam. Use the content in Animal Jam to provide a visual for your science instruction.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Circle Round - WBUR
Grades
K to 6In the Classroom
Place the link To Circle Round on your teacher web page for students to share stories at home, too. The stories would make an excellent classroom listening center with headphones. Let younger students listen over and over. Use these delightful stories as opportunities to develop listening skills by playing the story, then asking questions. Ask listening comprehension questions, or talk about story structure with older children (rising action, climax, and falling action, for example). Consider having your younger students share their own favorite stories with a tool like Flip, reviewed here, and then encourage students to respond to each others favorites. Inspire your older students to build fluency and expression by creating their own podcasts after listening to these. For this have students plan their story with digital "post its" that can be moved around using a tool like Pinup, reviewed here. Once students are ready, have them record their podcast using a tool like Podcast Generator, reviewed here. Be sure to post student podcasts on your website or wiki to share with parents.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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SurveyRock - surveyrock.com
Grades
3 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Copy/paste the link to the poll or use embed code to place in a wiki, blog, or a website. Be sure that students use the poll appropriately and that personal information is not offered in poll responses. Use polls to record quick responses to questions. Have students create a poll about their interests and allow time to analyze responses and report findings. Use this site to vote on correct answers in math class, project ideas for science or social studies, social issues in current events, and practically any other subject area. Encourage students to incorporate polls during class presentations. Provide options for students to gain confidence in generating and analyzing statistics they have created. Make a quick parent poll to include on a class website to keep the lines of communication open.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ytCropper - 10 Best Design
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use ytCropper to highlight specific information from YouTube videos for student use. After creating a shortened clip, encourage students to predict what comes next or use the segment before showing the entire video. Flip your classroom and ask students to use ytCropper to share important information from videos or highlight portions that need further clarification. Using shorter video segments offers many opportunities to use video clips within other online tools. For example, have students enhance their learning by uploading an image related to their science research and add annotations. Use Google Drawings, reviewed here, to include shortened video clips, images, and text to describe the stages of plant growth, introduce a political figure, or provide background for a novel. Google Drawings allows you to annotate an image with links to videos, text, websites, and more. Not familiar with Google Drawings? Watch an archived OK2Ask session to learn how to use: OK2Ask Google Drawings, here. Google Drawings presents a variety of levels for technology use depending on teacher requirements for the project, or even student ability; it allows for adding narration, videos, text and links to help explain what certain parts of the topic are about. Ask students to include shorter clips within multimedia projects created using a tool like Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here, to redefine classroom technology use and their learning and understanding.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Nelson Mandela Biography - bio.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector as an introduction to your Civil Rights, Black History, or Heroes unit. To allow students to explore on their own, you may want to create a guided reading activity using Read Ahead, reviewed here. Ehance learning by using an online tool such as the interactive Two or Three Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here to compare Nelson Mandela to other Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. Have students create timelines about Civil Rights (with music, photos, videos, and more) using Timeline JS, reviewed here. Find music for this period in history using Radiooo, reviewed here. Challenge students use Fakebook, reviewed here to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about Civil Rights leaders.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Ask Smithsonian - Smithsonian Institution
Grades
3 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share a few of these short videos on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Choose a video and have students complete a quick write or Know-Want-to-Know-Learned (KWL) chart to put down what they THINK they know about the topic. Find a ready-made KWL chart at 25 Language Arts Graphic Organizers, reviewed here. Show the video and have students write about what they learned. Use some of them as a segue into a subject you will introduce in class or for mini-research.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Watch2Gether - Sailer Interactive
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use for teaching a concept with others by viewing portions of videos and chatting content and main points. Use for reviewing materials for exams or preparing for project creation. Be sure to set up who can change videos and monitor the chat when in sessions with others. All of the following suggestions will extend your blended learning classroom: set up a snow day or evening video viewing time and URL to watch and discuss videos together with the teacher for extra help or enrichment; an online back to school night, share a video at a specified time and invite parents to join you and chat their questions. What a bonus for parents who travel and can't be there! Offer video/chat how-to sessions for major projects, such as science fairs or other major independent work. Enhance video instructions for any significant assignment by scheduling a Watch2gether session. Use Watch2gether with Khan Academy videos for math class. Make your "flipped" or blended learning classroom more social using Watch2gether.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
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Describing Words - describingwords.io
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Include a link to Describing Words on classroom computers for student use with any writing projects. Have students create online posters individually or together as a class using a tool such as Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here, or PicLits, reviewed here, to share alternatives to overused adjectives. Have students share the results of their search on Describing Words using Image Annotator, reviewed here, to annotate an image.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Reshot - reshot.com
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use Reshot in the classroom any time images are needed for projects, even if the project is not put on a website for others to see. Even though the site says "no attribution required," it is a good idea to have students acknowledge, or as the site says "appreciate," the origin of the image; this will help to get students into the habit of citing their sources. Student groups can use Reshot to find the best image to use for a project collectively. Challenge students to create personalized images (with text) using PicFont, reviewed here. Teachers can collect images for use on their interactive whiteboard for sorting activities (monocots and dicots, producers and consumers, etc.). Use images as a writing prompt or in poetry collections. Art teachers can find images for students to use as references or in photo-montages (with attribution or "appreciation" as they say on the site). For an easy online photo editor and montage maker, try using Pixlr, reviewed here. Elementary teachers can use images from this site as part of student-run interactive whiteboard activities, such as labeling parts of plants. Speech and language or ENL/ESL teachers can find images to use in vocabulary development activities. World language teachers can find cultural photos to use in oral exercises.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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