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Six Word Stories - Pete Berg
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): Teacher Utilities (216), writing (308)
In the Classroom
Have a contest and challenge your students to submit the best 6-word story after finishing a novel, play, or poem. Try creating some together on interactive whiteboard, brainstorming first to generate possible words from which to choose, then dragging to rearrange them into a meaningful story. Make a six word story "sidebar" at the side of your class where students can work together with a partner on the IWB to generate new stories as summaries for an act of a Shakespeare play or in response to a sonnet. In a journalism class, try this for a twist on headline writing. Introduce poetry writing by having your students try their hand at expressing an emotional experience in just 6 words. ESL/ELL students often create unusual combinations in writing; why not have them display their creativity here in an acceptable form? Share this site with world language teachers also.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Flubaroo - Flubaroo.com
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): assessment (143), quiz (64), quizzes (89)
In the Classroom
Users must be familiar with Google documents and forms. You must also have a Google account (FREE). Follow the demo and overview to become acquainted with this tool. This tool is best used by teachers for ongoing formative assessment. If allowing students to create formative assessments, be sure to create a separate class Google and Flubaroo account for use. Consider assigning groups to to make daily quizzes for the whole class to take as an ongoing formative assessment. Use for check point quizzes to check on terminology, general understanding, and to identify weaknesses in student understanding. Be sure to save this site in your favorites to use professionally to save time and keep your learning tasks organized.Comments
I would be curious to know how good you have to be with Google docs to be able to use this. Sounds like a summer project for me!Thinking, PA, Grades: 5 - 10
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Phrase Up - Phrase Up
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): figurative language (19), vocabulary (251)
In the Classroom
Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then students can use it independently. With grammar classes, you can find interesting synonyms, parts of speech, and definitions while finding ways to fix incomplete sentences. Great ideas for providing details or work with sentence variety accompany each entry. Improve your students' skills with similes and analogies. In writing classes, begin writing prompts with Phrase up results. Phrase up results can start and expand brainstorming in all subject areas. Create your own Phrase up collection with a collection of lists of science, math, and social studies vocabulary for the year. ESL students can learn the nuances of English by trying incomplete phrases and exploring the different ways words can be used. Have ESL or grammar students make simple posters of suggested phrase completions to show different word meanings or idioms used in a variety of ways. Be sure to include this link on your class website as a reference.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Big Huge Labs - Big Huge Labs
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): collages (17), editing (90), images (268), maps (222), multimedia (62), photography (136), posters (44), thesaurus (21)
In the Classroom
You can choose images from Flickr, Instagram, Dropbox, your files or provide a URL. This tool is so simple with very few steps for creating. Simply upload your photo, select from a few options, and then create.Check out the Big Huge Labs educator account. Easily pre-register students to avoid creating logins, view and download their creations; view the site advertisement free. You will find information about the Educator Account here.
Options here are endless. Find out what students understand about a concept by creating a 6 word story. Students find a suitable picture and sum up the concept in 6 words. Students can use the Motivator tool, reviewed here, to create. Place their creation on a blog, wiki, or web site and have students write about how their understandings of the concept have changed throughout the study of it. Create Badges for field trips and other activities. Use the Trading Card Maker, reviewed here, to identify what a student understands about a concept. Create trading cards of the many species that exist in the world or of places to visit, past leaders of nations, or states and other countries. Create vocabulary trading cards. Use social networking in the classroom? Create an Avatar to use on these spaces. Reading a book or viewing documentaries? Create Movie Posters to share information or to inform others about various times in history. Whatever you use this tool for, it is powerful for students to use a great image and word captions to display their knowledge.
Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Requires registration/log in (NO email)
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
Includes teacher tools for registering and/or monitoring students
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CNN 10 - Journalists and Educators at CNN
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): news (222)
In the Classroom
Choose whatever fits your curriculum or as a daily warm-up for current events. This provides a great alternative to reading news articles and is especially motivating for visual learners and students who struggle with reading comprehension. After your class views the video, use the daily discussion activities designed to promote critical thinking. You are also able to print the learning activities to assign as group work or for homework. There is even a news quiz. You may want to distribute copies of the transcripts for ESL students to refer to, for use as a research source, or to use for practicing reading comprehension for state exams and other assessments. Enhance learning by challenging cooperative learning groups to research one topic at this site and share their findings with the class by creating an interactive online poster (infographic) using Canva Infographic Maker, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour - Villanova University
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): artists (99), renaissance (38)
In the Classroom
This site is perfect to support coursework in Art History, Studio Art, and World History. Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then have students explore this site independently or in small groups. Be sure to include a link to this site in a hot list of sources concerning Renaissance art. Consider asking a group of students to do additional research about the Sistine Chapel and its fresco. Have students act as a virtual docent and record a screencast presentation using ScreenPal, reviewed here or Screencastify (Chrome app). Take still screen shots of the frescos to use in reports or other multimedia presentation format such as Animoto or podOmatic. This site is excellent for enrichment. Include it on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Origami Club - Fumiaki Shingu
Grades
K to 8tag(s): origami (15)
In the Classroom
Learn about the culture of Japan, geometry, and art with Origami. Use these video tutorials to create clever objects for holiday gifts while teaching mathematical principals about 2D and 3D figures, line, area, perimeter, and planes. Demonstrate how to create an origami object by projecting the site's animated videos directions. Stop and pause the video as students follow along. Save this site in your favorites on classroom computers so students can practice paper folding independently. Afterward, discuss the benefits of oral, visual, or animated directions. Ask students to describe the folding process with geometric terms such as fractional parts, symmetry, faces, edges, rotations, lines, triangle, angles, and shapes. Consider having students use a variety of multimedia presentation platforms to publish their personal version of directions. Have students create multimedia presentations that add narration to each fold with Thinglink, reviewed here. Alternatively, share video directions on SchoolTube, reviewed here, or TeacherTube reviewed here. Have cooperative learning groups create podcasts demonstrating how to create origami with sites such as PodOmatic, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Color Vision and Art - Michael Douma
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): 20th century (169), art history (104), colors (63), human body (98), newton (24), psychology (60)
In the Classroom
Color, Vision and Art offers students a unique opportunity to make cross-curricular connections and is a great starting point for individual or group projects. Students interested in Anatomy, Neuroscience, Painting, or Art History, will enjoy exploring this site independently. Each individual chapter comes with a selection of extension tasks from which students can choose. The "Exhibit" tab also offers suggestions for directing class discussions and provides tasks that initiate higher order thinking. Guiding questions about the neurobiological interpretation of color, will simultaneously develop student ability to analyze and interpret color used in art. Have students create a multimedia presentation to report about what they have learned using Google Drawings, reviewed here. Not familiar with Google Drawings? Watch an archived OK2Ask session to learn how to use: OK2Ask Google Drawings, here. Challenge students to find a reproduction of a painting (legally permitted to be reproduced), and include a narration about the artist's use of color. There are also interactive activities to demonstrate aspects of color theory. Project these interactive tools on an interactive whiteboard to the whole class and experiment with simultaneous color contrast, and luminance together. Use this site as the starting point for individual or group projects. This site is excellent for enrichment. Include it on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class, especially when they are designing their own multimedia projects and want to take advantage of color's subtleties.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Do Something.org - Do Something.org Team
Grades
7 to 12There are suggestions, resources, and support to empower young people and give them the energy to take action and make a difference. Whether their passion is to feed the homeless, end bullying, help even the playing field of educational inequalities, or many more needy causes, this website is chock full of easy to access information and strategies that encourage teenagers to decide for themselves how they can contribute their time and desire to make a difference.
tag(s): charactered (86), Project Based Learning (28), service projects (17)
In the Classroom
Do you believe that kids can change the world? What are you doing about that? If you have been thinking about involving your class in some type of community service and project based learning, but need some direction, DoSomething.org is a phenomenal place to "shop" around for ideas. Perhaps you may want to start by showing the film, Pay It Forward, or with a writing prompt, "If you were given time in school to come up with one idea that could be put into action right now by people your age that would make this school or this community a better place, what would it be and how would you put your plan into action?" Have students share ideas in small groups, then introduce them to DoSomething.org by projecting it on your classroom whiteboard or projector, viewing some of the short videos, and using the power of the internet to empower them to act now. Challenge students to collect Internet resources for their cause using Wakelet, reviewed here, where they can add a cover image, background, collaborate with others, and chose the layout they prefer. Next, enhance learning by asking your students to create an interactive infographic using Canva Infographic Maker, reviewed here, to explain their ideas about their cause and how they would put their plan into action. Club advisers, school counselors, and teachers of gifted can use the empowering resources of this site to inspire students to ACT.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Treasury Direct Kids - U.S. Department of the Treasury
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): advertising (23), financial literacy (92), posters (44)
In the Classroom
After presenting the basic info on this site, view the posters under the tab Art of Debt. Discuss and then have students make online posters parallel to the old ones they see displayed here. Use an online poster creator, such as Padlet, reviewed here. Have them make their own graphs of funds and debts based on their own finances using ChartGizmo, reviewed here. Use this site when teaching percentages; have students do problems figuring the interest on today's debt. Introduce them to the concept of buying a bond today and have them calculate its accrued interest and how many years it will take to gain face value. Have students in a team create modern-day videos using a tool like Vmaker, reviewed here, to advertise and sell savings bonds. Share the videos using a tool such as SchoolTube, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Teacher's Portal - American Bar Association
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): bill of rights (39), constitution (104)
In the Classroom
Use the lesson plan suggestions to meet the mandate for instruction on Constitution Day, but be sure to check out the other resources for lessons on civics, government, current events, and the Constitution itself. The section called "Dialogues" provides resources to engage students and community members in discussion of fundamental American legal principles and civic traditions.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Smartboard in the Classroom - Eduscapes
Grades
K to 12tag(s): iwb (29)
In the Classroom
Explore the sites provided to use as classroom resources in the computer lab, on classroom computer centers, and on your interactive whiteboard. The lessons/interactives could be used to enhance a unit on simple machines, dinosaurs, vaccines, panda bears, tornados, and much more. If an interactive whiteboard is not available, complete the activities in the computer lab or on laptops.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Image Detective - Library of Congress
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): logic (166), photography (136), scientific method (49), world war 1 (86)
In the Classroom
Share the photos on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use the series of steps on this activity to teach students the skills of observation, deduction, and drawing intelligent conclusions. Have students do this activity in pairs in a computer lab. The steps are available to use on paper or printable in pdf format, so students can select their own mystery photos and create a similar activity away from the computer. ESL/ELL students can benefit from using the steps in this process. Images will help them understand material better, and they can also create their own presentations. Have students bring and exchange mystery photos; see if the conclusions they draw match the family stories the photo owners have. Science teachers can use this photo activity to teach about scientific method and, in particular, making observations. Start with the offerings on this site, then try it with more "scientific" images.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Penzu - Alexander Mimran and Michael Lawlor
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): communication (122), DAT device agnostic tool (129), journals (22), writing (308)
In the Classroom
A class journaling program has limitless possibilities. Engage students in discussions using a topic from current events, current social issues, independent reading, literature, and more. Any class using a journal can use Penzu. For example, science lab write-ups or the problem of the week in math. Penzu can even be used for homework. Just think, no more lugging heavy boxes full of notebooks around! In language arts, students journal daily and harvest from their musings and ideas to create a short story or a poem. They can even use Penzu to develop their brainstorms and rough drafts. For social studies classes, students can write posts and ideas about famous people or daily life in a time period being studied, then create a "diary" for the famous person in Bookemon, reviewed here or a poster using Genially, reviewed here about daily life. For either of these ideas, once they are ready to present their final project, have them share it with their peers and others, and consider adding other media. See more ideas for student blogging/journaling at TeachersFirst's Blogging Basics for the Classroom. Share journals with parents as appropriate by URL. Be sure to respect student privacy before sharing.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Independence National Historic Park - NPS.gov
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), constitution (104), philadelphia (10)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Fort Caroline - NPS.gov
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), florida (12)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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How the Pilgrims Lived - Amy Ridenhour
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), pilgrims (12)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/colony/index.cfm TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mayflower Compact - Amy Ridenhour
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), pilgrims (12)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Cape Cod National Seashore - NPS.gov
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), pilgrims (12)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Plimoth Patuxet Museums Digital Resources - Plimoth.org
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), native americans (128), pilgrims (12)
In the Classroom
Share this and other sections of the TeachersFirst Colonial America tour as part of your study of the colonies so students can see what these historic locations look like today.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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