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The Online Guide to Traditional Games - James Masters
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Have students design gameboards or cards, game pieces, and rules to play variations of the games on the site. In your world cultures class, have students play and compare games from different cultures. Use game-creation as the culminating project at the end of a content or research unit or simply as a way to teach writing: both informational (directions) and creative. Have students role-play characters who might play original or historic games by writing character sketches and then performing them. Let the games begin!You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Catalog Choice - Ecology Center
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): advertising (24), earth (189), earth day (61), environment (246)
In the Classroom
If you teach about advertising techniques or information literacy, project both the .org and the .com sites on a screen or whiteboard so students can use a critical eye to see what the .com site is trying to do! Invite your science class to share the .ORG site at home and start an "uncatalog" drive to save some trees. Keep a running total of the number of catalogs your class has stopped and have students research the number of trees you have saved. As part of Earth Day or with your environmental club, share this resource with the entire school community. Encourage students to create tree-safe electronic "ads" for catalog choice (.ORG) that you can share on your class web page. Note: the site requires a free membership, so students should join together with a parent, especially since most catalogs are probably addressed to the adults in the house. Do not permit sharing of personal information (name and address) by students on the site!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Exploring Africa - Michigan State University
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
This website is literally a textbook online. Consider using a reading guide tool such as Read Ahead, for younger readers. Read Ahead is perfect for introducing any reading passage to struggling readers, special education students, and ENL/ESL learners. The information is ready to go and easy to use. It may not be possible to cover all of the information included in this extensive website. Pick and choose the modules that will be useful in your own classroom. Modules can easily be used independently and include detailed teacher notes, evaluations, printable pages, and more. Many of the activities will work well using technology, though the plans do not specify this. For example: Share some of the maps on your interactive whiteboard or have students draw some of their "preconceived notions" about Africa on the whiteboard as part of the introductory image activities.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Africa Guide - africaguide.com
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): africa (162)
In the Classroom
What a fabulous tool for online research or student-guided learning. This website presents a wonderful, concise summary of all of the countries in Africa. Why not assign individual students (or groups or 2) a specific country to research. Then the students can create an interactive PowerPoint or other presentation to share on a projection screen. With younger students, use your interactive whiteboard to share the site (turn up the speakers), allowing students to click and guide the class "trip." Music links go to Amazon, and only some have the listening feature available (scroll down the Amazon page to "Listen to Samples"). You will want to check before class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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National Women's History Museum - National Women's History Museum
Grades
K to 12tag(s): 20th century (171), artists (105), biographies (97), jamestown (5), women (191), womenchangemaker (81), womens suffrage (64), world war 2 (168)
In the Classroom
Of course, the site would be useful to students doing research on the women's movement in general, or on the role of women during several important historical eras. In the "educational resources" section, there is a collection of quotations from women that would be great for creating displays for women's history month. Challenge students to create a poster for one of the women quoted using a tool such as Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here. There is also a group of quizzes that could be adapted for classroom use. The section focused on the women of Jamestown includes the stories of Native American women as well as the role of early European settler women and could supplement the usual Thanksgiving lessons on the new American colonies. There are also free lesson plans and classroom activities that teachers should take advantage of!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Time of Remembrance - Elk Grove Unified School District
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): 1940s (70), 1950s (33), 1960s (54), 1970s (30), 20th century (171), california (18), japan (62), japanese (53), world war 2 (168)
In the Classroom
There are lesson plans (tied to California standards) and good resource lists for students and teachers. Skip the "guided tour" of the website, however, unless you are very new at using the Internet. Share this resource as one of several when studying civil rights, discrimination, and the U.S. Constitution in theory and practice. Have students create products to compare the internment camps to similar acts in history or create a presentation on the constitutional violations of such camps. Or include this as part of a study of the decades of the twentieth century.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Object of History - Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): museums (56)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a mini lesson for yourself in the use of artifacts in the classroom. We are often called to make education more "hands on," and this is a prime example of how to do this effectively with history. Use the specific artifacts featured on this site (and project the 360 views on an interactive white board or screen for maximum punch), but consider how you could also bring artifacts into the classroom using the suggestions provided. They need not be priceless museum pieces; in fact, an academic discussion of the cultural impact of a familiar object like the iPod or the cell phone could be quite effective. Extend the activity by having students in small groups create an artifact collection on a wiki using digital pictures they take themselves. Document a local landmark, an era in your school, or even today's teen lifestyle through artifacts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Exploratorium Magazine Online: The Evolution of Languages - Exploratorium Magazine
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): greek (45), japan (62), japanese (53), latin (23), portuguese (21)
In the Classroom
What a fabulous tool to study the origins of language. Explore comparisons are made between English, Latin, Japanese, Classical Greek, Portuguese, and Sanskrit. This would be a great site to use during world languages week or as an introduction to a world cultures class. Gifted students would find it fascinating. Have students create a digital "dictionary" of particularly interesting words that have evolved in unusual ways, perhaps computer terms. They can make it in the form of anything from a word document to a wiki!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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in Our Own Backyard: The Hidden Problem of Child Farmworkers - AFT
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): immigration (86), migration (43)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a launch point for debates, class discussion, or student projects on the history of labor, the contributions of minorities in American life, and the hot current events discussions of border control. Consider this topic for possible social action projects or political letter-writing and more. Examples of projects other classrooms have created are available on the website as well as teacher testimonials on teaching about child labor.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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16th Century Renaissance English Literature - Anion Jokinen
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): elizabethan (12), literature (215), marlowe (2)
In the Classroom
This is a great site for research and sharing with students. It gives them a taste beyond what they think they know about the English Renaissance. Most of the author-specific pages have links to discussion forums for that author, and students can quickly find other aficionados for obscure writers of this period. Share an author a day as you read Shakespeare, then ask students to research a favorite and create a digital museum piece about him/her on a wiki or write a blog entry as if from their person's journal.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Cornell-Notes.com - Ryan Stewart
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): note taking (36)
In the Classroom
If you require a notebook for your course, this is the perfect tool. Share the link from your teacher web page so students can create their own, customized sheets. Be sure to demonstrate how it works, then "write" a sample set of Cornell-style notes by sharing it on your interactive whiteboard so students can see how to use them! Learning support and study skills teachers will love this one. Middle school science and social studies teachers should encourage a consistent note-taking system like this so all students can find what works for them. Perhaps try different variations until students figure out which is best.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Opensecrets.org - Open Secrets
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Put this site on your TeachersFirst favorites list or teacher web page so students can use it for research on political candidates and issues. Civics teachers will find it useful in demonstrating the importance of lobbying and campaign finance in the political arena. Economics teachers can use these data to illustrate the connection between wealth and political power. Teachers doing lessons focused on the upcoming elections can track current Presidential candidates and their major contributors.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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September 11, 2001 Documentary Project - Library of Congress
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
This site would be most useful to students doing research on the 9/11 attacks, but also could provide teachers with supplemental material for a lesson on the events of that date. Although teachers will remember the day vividly, most students were either not born yet, or young enough when it occurred that their memories will be clouded. Another use for this site is as an example of the power and necessity of primary sources in documenting any event. Compare these resources to accounts we have of Pearl Harbor and other major events as you ask students to conduct an interviewing project of their own, perhaps of local history. As an introduction and for students to get a feeling for the drama of the event you may want to use the video posted with live footage of an ABC broadcast as the events of 9/11 were unfolding. You can access the Encyclopdeia Britanica's version of the video on YouTube here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Gapminder - Gapminder
Grades
7 to 12tag(s): civics (130), data (212), demographics (13)
In the Classroom
The site would be best used on an interactive whiteboard, although computer-savvy students could access it individually. The world data presented might supplement lessons in economics, civics, world cultures, current events or modern history. Teachers should plan to spend a chunk of time previewing the site before using, however, as the interface is not entirely intuitive. There is a tutorial, but it will take some experimentation to discover the various ways to manipulate the data and present it graphically. There is also this page of ideas specifically for teachers. You can compare individual countries, or zoom into geographic regions. "Mature" teachers who learned bar graphs and pie charts may find the choices a little overwhelming, but with a little noodling around, will be able to graphically illustrate concepts in ways never before possible. Challenge your students to retrieve and use some of the data in support of an essay thesis, oral presentation, or debate.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The American Experience - Hoover Dam - PBS
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): 1930s (40)
In the Classroom
This website was created to accompany the PBS movie "Hoover Dam", however it can also be useful independently to teach about the history of the Hoover Dam. Don't miss the Teacher's Guide. If you study geography, Hoover Dam is a fascinating study on the impact of WATER on human settlements. Include this as one of several web reources for students to research and discuss human interactions with and adaptations to landforms (in this case, desert).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Victorian Web - George P. Landow
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): evolution (85), industrial revolution (21), victorian (15)
In the Classroom
In English, history, art or music classes, have students research aspects of Victorian times and present those pieces to the class. Everything from dressing up in costume to displaying the appropriate manners is game! Portraying authors, actors, and others at the popular soir?es using the language of the time would be a great learning experience for students. In fact, there are more than enough authors and others listed to have quite a party of in full regalia and language. What a dinner party that might be!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything - Assessment & Rubrics - discoveryschool.com
Grades
K to 12tag(s): assessment (140), rubrics (40)
In the Classroom
Although this website is plain vanilla (basically a list of resources). The list is phenomenal and includes an eclectic mix of many types of rubrics and assessments.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Rubric Maker - Recipes4Success
Grades
K to 12tag(s): assessment (140)
In the Classroom
Use these free rubrics with any grade level and any subject area. Note that in the free version you LOSE your work when you close the page, so make sure you have printed first!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The National Map - United States Department of the Interior
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): agriculture (53), climate (99), environment (246), geology (60), maps (220)
In the Classroom
Have your students work in cooperative learning groups to investigate the "dynamic maps". Assign each group a topic to explore (there are 7). Have the students research the information using the maps and then report their findings to the class, perhaps displaying examples on a projector or interactive whiteboard. In teaching any of the related subjects, using a projector to share a map will make the content more "real," such as displaying the butterfly layer in the map maker so students can see how the butterfly population their home state compares with other locations.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods - Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): design (77), graphic organizers (60), mind map (31), periodic table (47)
In the Classroom
Viewing this with the entire class will be more effective with the interactive whiteboard or projector. Teachers in any subject will find this site invaluable in teaching how to make strong visuals for oral or written presentations. What powerful evidence for multiple intelligences! Your visual/spatial students will LOVE this one, and others will learn to build that intelligence. Try these same strategies in YOUR PowerPoint presentations to communicate ideas visually, without being "powerpointless" at back to school night!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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