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Columbus Day - Myvocabulary.com
Grades
3 to 10In the Classroom
Use this site to reinforce and support vocabulary as you study Columbus Day. Share the word puzzles on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students create their own word activities from the same vocabulary list, such as matching or ranking challenges for their peers to try on the interactive whiteboard.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent - University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Teachers will find this site rich in resources for units on science, social studies, geography, architecture, music, art, and culture. Make Africa a "real" place by sharing on a projector as you share stories or learn about homes ("Structures") and habitats or landforms ("Landscape") with younger students. Use the sound recordings for lessons on oral history, myths, languages, and music. Assign student groups a topic area, which they can research and present to the class as a PowerPoint or another multi-media format using an interactive whiteboard or projector.Images, text, or other content downloaded from the collection may be freely used for non-profit educational and research purposes under Fair Use. That means that you may NOT put them on the web in a public site, blog, or wiki, since you would not be limiting access to class members. If you want students to create blog or wiki pages, create passworded access for class members only to areas displaying these images and resources. Check the website for instructions on how students can cite this source in their bibliographies.
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Mix - StumbleUpon
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use Mix for your personal research and professional development. Visit Mix occasionally to find new ideas and new sites for teaching. Create and share collections of websites to share with students for use with research projects. For example, as you prepare to teach a science unit on plants, create a collection containing news articles, explainer sites, and online games for students to use as a virtual resource for supplementing classroom lessons. Include documents, slide presentations, and more from your Google Drive for student access from any device. Another use of Mix is to create collections when teaching students how to evaluate online resources. Create a collection from a variety of different resources based on the same topic and ask students to reflect upon the validity of the information and the source. Ask them to use a presentation tool like Sway, reviewed here, to share their findings by including links to the information along with supporting evidence. Another idea for using Mix is for students to create collections to share as part of multimedia projects as a virtual bibliography. In addition to websites shared, ask them to add their written work, images, or other creations. Mix is an excellent tool for creating an online portfolio for students to use when applying to college. Show students how to easily create new collections using their work, but personalized to individual college applications.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Origami Learning Center
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as an supplement to the book "One Thousand Paper Cranes." After the students have completed the book, use some class time to allow students to create their own cranes in class. Introduce the site on the interactive whiteboard before allowing students to explore it further in cooperative learning groups. Once students have created a crane, encourage them to try more complicated shapes and figures! This is a great way to lead into a conversation on the significance of origami and why it was so important in the book.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Ben's Guide to U.S. Government - Government Printing Office
Grades
1 to 12In the Classroom
With younger grades, use an interactive whiteboard or projector to learn the states' locations with the entire group. This simple site would be great to use in your computer center for individual learning or for some indoor recess enrichment fun. Secondary teachers looking for more than the basics will want to supplement this site with other resources. There is a link for parents and teachers, be sure to take a look!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Dickens and Christmas - David Perdue
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Use this website as a tool during a unit on Christmas or Charles Dickens. Divide students into small groups or pairs to read the information on this page. The text might be challenging for some students. Pair weak readers with a strong reader. Exchange paper and pencil and instruct students to use Webnote, reviewed here, to take online "sticky notes" for the important information they learn. If some of the passages are difficult, even for the strong reader, have them use Rewordify, reviewed here, to replace the difficult text shown with easier to understand words. Be sure to tell students to use Webnote (mentioned above) to make a sticky for the difficult word or phrase and it's definition, or easier wording. Allow ESL/ELL students to try using Text to Speech Reader, reviewed here, which will allow these students to follow the highlighted text as the article or passage is read to them.Redefine learning and challenge students to create a multimedia presentation around a theme from Dickens using one of the TeachersFirst Edge reviewed multimedia tools. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Canva Infographic, Lucidpress, Powtoon, and MoocNote.
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Dare to Compare - Nation Center for Education Statistics
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector as a pre-assessment for a new unit or as a mind bending class challenge. Reinforce and review lessons previously learned with your students. This is a terrific site during the run-up to high stakes testing. Use the questions as classroom conversation starters after taking the quizzes. Print out questions from the quizzes and provide your students with the correct answers and see if they can match them up with the questions. List this link on your class website for students to practice at home. Challenge small groups of students to create their own set of 5 questions about a current unit of study and create a multimedia presentation. Why not have cooperative learning groups create online books (one question per page) using a tool such as Bookemon, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts, Inc.
Grades
2 to 12Creature Creator is a free download but is a limited version of the original purchased program. The purchased program provides many more choices for the features and environments used to make the creatures. The download is available for both PC and Mac.
In the Classroom
User needs to be able to download and install the free program. Easy to use interface. Start with a blob, which you manipulate into a shape, pulling its spinal cord in any direction with the mouse, before adding a head, limbs and various optional extra body parts. Choose your part by using the onscreen catalog. Manipulate it further by changing the position of joints or through adding or deleting segments. Add a background and move your creature by dragging your mouse for it to follow. Continue to alter your creature to get the movement or features needed.Pressing "H" brings up the spore guide which includes topic categories such as "Welcome to Spore," "Getting Started," "Build Mode," "Test Drive," and "Paint Mode."
Check your district policy on downloading and installing of programs. Check with your IT department. Teachers who must request software installation by tech staff may want to try this tool at home and create some sample projects to convince administration of its educational value.
Uploading pictures and videos of creations to You Tube or the spore site may expose students to advertising as well as inappropriately created creatures. You may want to send students directly to URLs for their own projects, maintain the creatures on the classroom computer itself, or use Teacher Tube to upload the creations. Uploading creatures enables outsider comments without teacher control. Outsiders can interact or mark the creations as favorites. Many school policies prohibit such interaction, so be sure to check your school policy. You will want to discuss these features in the context of Internet Safety or establish specific written class rules and consequences for interacting with outsiders. Student work can be saved as a picture and printed, as well, for sharing and showing. Check your school policies on whether student work may be displayed online and what information is permitted, then enforce that policy with your students.
The tool does not show which work is attributable to each student. You may want to require student initials on projects in order to get credit.
Use Creature creator to create an unusual creature as a class project. Create a classification system of all the class creatures to demonstrate biology classification skills. When discussing the groupings in the Animal Kingdom, use Creature Creator to create a new organism for that group. Use the tool to create a class creature with adaptations to a specific environment. Have students create a creature and then write a story or poem about it and how it lives. Have students create a creature as a self-portrait of personality or other traits the students possess. Students can design and draw habitats that would house their creation including the calculation of the volume and area the housing would require. Use a classroom projector or white board to share/create creatures in class and discuss specific features of the creatures.
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Presidential Election Interactive Map and History of the Electoral College - 270 to win
Grades
6 to 12Be aware: during election season, this site opens slowly. But it is well worth the wait.
This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use the site on an interactive whiteboard to illustrate the impact of Electoral College voting on the election of the US President, both today and in the past. Perhaps we will finally raise a generation who completely understands the Electoral College and how it works!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Panda Central - San Diego Zoo
Grades
2 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Both elementary and secondary teachers will find this one useful.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Endangered Animals in Africa - Africa Conservation Fund
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Once you become familiar with specific naturalist bloggers on this site, you may want to revisit their posts throughout your unit on animals, biodiversity, or the environment. These real world connections would be good lesson starters. Teachers may also use this site when studying world cultures and geography of Africa. Elementary teachers will want to share selected portions of this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector as they teach about animal habitats and adaptations. Since some of the incidents that threaten the animals may be involve violence or be frightening to students, teachers should preview before sharing with younger students. The reading levels are adult, so this is not a good site to suggest for elementary students to use independently.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ScreenPal (was Screencast-o-matic) - ScreenPal
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
You will need to know how to use whatever computer software, website, or skill you are demonstrating. Following basic directions and managing browser windows or tabs are a must, as well as the managing settings of the computer being used. There are plenty of tutorials to explore for PC's, Chrome Books, Mac's, and downloading their apps.Use the symbols in the upper right corner of the page to start. You will also find your content there and under the personal (could be a white circle) icon find settings, tutorials, support, and of course, your log-out. Select Capture Screen Screenshots. As a first-time user files for the Screen Recorder will need to be downloaded to your computer. Follow the prompts as they appear. Choose the screen size when played and whether audio will be needed (audio can be tested here as well, which is recommended: settings may need to be adjusted for different microphones.) Open a new tab or browser window and enter the web address of the site (or software) that will be the subject of your screencast. Drag the black frame by clicking the line and dragging it in order to choose what will be recorded during the screencast. The microphone icon has a green bar that shows recording levels. A green arrow showing instead of a green bar denotes that sound is not being captured. The red button is used to start recording while the black "X" stops the recording. Once you stop recording, click on your screencast tab or browser window and preview your recording. You can then either upload or discard your screencast. At this point you can create an account easily. Save your screencast to a channel of your own. Use the embed code to place your screencast into a blog, wiki, or other site. You can also use a widget code to embed the screencast player into a website. Screencasts can then be made from your other site and will save directly to your screencast channel. Screencasts can be set to different levels of privacy and comments can be turned on or off.
Teachers who must request certificate approval by tech staff may want to try this tool at home and create some sample projects to convince administration of its educational value. Unless checked to turn off comments, this site will allow comments on your work. Many districts prohibit such interaction and steps should be taken to prohibit commenting from others. When using the widget, the tool does not attribute work to specific students. You may wish to have the students identify their work while creating the screencast. Screencasts will only be able to be viewed when using an embed code in a site, wiki, or blog. By marking the screencast "searchable," it can be available to the public. Recently created screencasts do not appear on the home page of screencast-o-matic. Students are able to self-register, but you may want to keep a record of logins and passwords for students who forget.
Make how-to demos for communicating instructions on using and navigating your class home page, class wiki or blog, or other applications you wish the students to use in creation of classroom content. By narrating how you want students to navigate through a certain site or section, you can eliminate confusion, provide an opportunity for students to use the information as a refresher for the future, and maintain a record for absent students. Software demonstrations add an increased flexibility with helping students who need it while allowing students to begin and work at their own pace. Added audio is a great asset for many students including learning support and those who might need to access the material in smaller "chunks." Use this site for students to give "tours" of their own wiki or blog page. The presentation of their web-based projects and resources can be more engaging. Use screencasts to critique or show the validity of websites, identify a resource site they believe is most valuable, or explain how to navigate an online game. Challenge your gifted students to create a screencast as a final project rather than a more traditional project. Social studies teachers could assign students to critique a political candidate's web page using a screencast. Reading/language arts teachers could have student teams analyze a web site to show biased language, etc. For a powerful writing experience, have students "think aloud" their writing choices as the record a screencast of a revision or writing session. You will probably need to model this process, but writing will NEVER be the same! Math teachers using software such as Geometer's Sketchpad could have students create their own narrated demonstrations of geometry concepts as review (and to save as future learning aids). Teachers at any level can create screencasts to demonstrate a computer skill or assignment, such as for a center in your classroom or in a computer lab. Students can replay the "tutorial" on their own from your class web page and follow the directions.
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
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
Requires download/installation of software
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Easter Lesson Plans - Teachnology
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use these free lesson plans with your students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mysterious Places: Ancient Civilizations Modern Mysteries - Mysterious Places
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
This site might be offered to students doing independent research or included as "real" mysteries during a reading or literature unit on mysteries. The information could augment a lesson plan from a standard text with its lovely photos. It could be an option for exploration by accelerated students who have completed a unit on ancient history. Teachers should be aware that there is an on-line forum as a part of this site which requires registration. Its content is completely peripheral to the site, and students should simply be instructed to avoid it.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Physics of Baseball - Alan Nathan, University of Illinois
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this website to find content for your science and/or physics lessons. Share the video clips on your interactive whiteboard or projector.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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English-Spanish Picture Dictionary
Grades
1 to 12In the Classroom
ESOL teachers can easily use this site to acclimate new spanish-speaking students, helping them begin the transition to speaking and understanding English. In many of the hyper-linked words are attachments of graphic organizers and handouts, so peruse the site for content being studied and see what's provided that can benefit your class!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Video: Saving Money - Compound Interest in Plain English - Common Craft
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share this video with your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Have cooperative learning groups research other aspects of economics and create their own videos. Include this video as you teach about interest in math class, then have students create a video advertisement for a savings program. Transform technology use by using (click on the tool name to access the review): Animatron, Renderforest, Powtoon, or MoocNote. Share the videos on Teachertube, explained here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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300 Spartan Warriors - 300spartanwarriors.com
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Include this site as one of the resources you offer from your teacher website for students doing individual or group projects on Sparta, the Greeks, or mythology. The site offers some useful research information and some good visuals.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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English Online France: Free online ESL/EFL Academic Reading and Writing Exercises - Glenys Hanson and Fiona Robertson, et. al.
Grades
4 to 12Be sure to check out the videos, which include commercials from the 1960s!
In the Classroom
This site has so much to offer, the possibilities are endless. Obviously, this site is handy with ESL and ELL students. But there is SO much here to explore for teachers of elementary (social studies or language arts), AND secondary teachers trying to reinforce grammar skills, connect history and writing, and more.Share portions of this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. With primary students, set up learning stations. Have cooperative learning groups explore the site together. Have groups investigate a specific area of this site and create a multimedia presentation to share with the class: wiki, blog entry, podcast, online book, or video. Need some "technology tips?" Try enhancing students' learning by having them create a podcast using podOmatic, reviewed here. Share "student-created" videos on a tool such as TeacherTube, reviewed here. Transform learning and have students write online books using a tool such as Bookemon,reviewed here.
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America's Stone Age Explorers - NOVA
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Take advantage of the free lesson plans located in the classroom activities section. (located in the teacher guide) These lesson connect the history lesson to biology and the study of genetic traits, a very interesting inter-disciplinary focus.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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