Need a quick activity to enhance a literature lesson? Schools of California Online Resources for Educators amassed an activity bank of useful suggestions for teachers. Just click on the links at the left from this homepage, and you will find a wide array of teacher and student activities: Graphic Organizers, Journaling, Literature, and Rubrics. Although the site is intended for California teachers, most teachers across America will find the resources conducive to their state's requirements.
NOTE: SCORE Cyberguides announced that they are no longer checking links and maintaining these excellent resources as of April 2008 due to lack of funding. You will want to verify all links before using the cyberguide in class. You may want to use portions of this cyberguide in combination with other online resources. 9250
In the Classroom: Use these fabulous resources to introduce your students to new styles of graphic organizers. Find many new ideas and approaches at this website to use to differentiate your curriculum and keep your students interested in the topic. Allow students to choose among several types of graphic organizers to use for a project, rather than having the entire class use the same format. Many of these organizers can easily be created on PowerPoint slides or in Word using Autoshapes, then right-clicking to "add text." They also work well in Inspiration software. Collect electronic copies of organizers on your classroom computer or teacher web page for students to see as examples in the future.
Make current events an interactive experience with this "mash up" that plots and superimposes current AP news stories on a Google map or satellite image of the U.S. Click on a marker to read the full story. National news, sports, business, technology, and "strange" happenings are represented topics. 6370
In the Classroom: Use as source for creating a classroom "bulletin board" map of national news. Project to serve as discussion-starter for current events issues.
AstroViewer is an interactive night sky map that allows you to pinpoint constellations and planets. The online interactive sky map is free. You can also download the trial version of the sky map for free or purchase the license key to unlock a full download. The free online sky map uses controls for time of night, month, or year, or position on the globe to easily find objects in the night sky. A 3-dimensional view of the night sky provides details even for beginners of Astronomy to find stars, constellations, and planets. View constellations see from other parts of the globe. Forecast constellations that will be seen months from now or those from past months. The frequently asked questions answer the most common questions when using sky maps or looking at celestial objects. Download a PDF manual for using AstroViewer. Other functions available include a mini-night sky button or night sky view that can be added to your existing class website. The site requires Java. 9265
In the Classroom: Use an interactive whiteboard or projection screen to share this interactive “sky map” with your class. Identify the changes in constellation location through the months of the year. Track motions of planets across the sky as well as the differences between Southern and Northern Hemispheres. Use these in a presentation about the mythology or significance behind constellation names. Or turn down the lights and use the "night sky" as a writing prompt during a poetry unit.
Here's an introduction to American government that even the youngest students can appreciate. Divided into four grade levels, the site explains the structure and purpose of American government in age-appropriate terms for everyone from Kindergarteners to high school students. For example, there are four interactive games for your primary students (grades k-2)that make learning about our government fun. Have students learn states’ locations by placing them on the map. Color the USA flag, help Ben Franklin out of a maze, or find your way around the liberty bell. There are also age-specific activities divided into grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. This site requires Flash. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 1524
In 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!
Create maps -- for multiple reasons -- with ease. As you ‘travel’ through your geography or history course, create an ongoing map of the places you’ve visited and embed/post it on your blog or any webpage. Simply type in the title of your map, choose the land masses you wish to include, and then click on the correct boxes for your particular locations. When finished, click the You’re Ready box at the bottom of the screen. Now scroll to the top to see what your map will look like. The embed code (geek-speak term for computer gobble-dee-gook that tells your computer how to find and display the map you have made) for your map is ready to copy and paste into your webpage. You can find the embed code to the right of the map. There is also a button to Reset and Start Over. 9838
In the Classroom: Create a map to track where your students went on summer vacation (or have ever traveled). Create a map of places you have visited in a work of literature, or where students have written about going on fantasy vacations. Share the maps on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Have cooperative learning groups work together to create maps related to lessons in your social studies, history, or literature classes. Embed multiple student project maps in your class wiki along with student writings that accompany the maps.
This new travel blog site is intended for travelers to document their trips to locations worldwide. The site is in "beta," which means that they are still working out kinks and adding features. Although it would be nice to think that teachers can use the site for their own travels, it is far more likely that you will use it to share "real world" experiences from places around the world to make the maps and textbook images come to life. You can search Blogabond by geographic location using the world map (click Maps) to find markers indicating blog posts ( little speech bubble icon) and pictures (little camera icon) from worldwide locations. 8795
In the Classroom: Find some travel bloggers who are visiting the places you are studying and share the pictures and posts on a projector. If you teach a foreign language, you can also find posts from people in other languages as they visit the U.S.! Of course you will want to preview to be sure the blog content is appropriate for the classroom. Your students would love to comment as a class and ask questions of someone "on location" in the continent/country of interest. Create a TEACHER log-in to do this as a group to protect student safety "talking to strangers." Your school filtering may block all URLs with the word "blogs." If this is the case, you may want to use your home computer to select a few specific travel blogs that are school-appropriate and support your curriculum and request that they be unblocked.
TeachersFirst Edge Review: for slightly adventurous technology users. This simple and free online tool allows you to brainstorm ideas – no special software! Bubble.us features some highly interactive abilities: saving your mind map as an image, sharing (emailing) your work with a friend, printing your organizer, creating colorful mind map organizers, embedding your work into a website or blog, and working with friends. You are able to "play" at this site without registering; however registration is necessary for saving, embedding, emailing, and other features. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
Here is an example of a bubbl.us map embedded in a page. Click and drag on the background to read more, or try the zoom controls:
1207
In the Classroom: Skills Needed: If you intend to save, email, or print your organizer you must join the site. Registration is free, simple, and requires an email address. You can start using the “membership” immediately and without confirming the email, though, which makes it quite convenient. Tip: rather than using your personal or work email, create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Experiment with the small icons on each “element” to change colors, drag, make new connections, etc.
Once registered (if you choose to do so), you will be taken to the work area. A box marked "Start Here" can be clicked on to type the subject of your mapping activity. By clicking Enter you create a new level (branch) within the map. By clicking Tab you create an additional branch on the same level as the current word. Save and set sharing (read-only or open access) in the area at the right. You can “send” a read-only link via email or copy the embed code from the Menu at lower right), but you cannot find the URL directly from your map. "Send" it to yourself via email to copy the actual URL. You may want to have your class accounts all be “friends” with you for easy sharing or simply have them "email" their finished work to you using the menu button.
Safety/Security Concerns: Check your school policies on student email subaccounts (Gmail), if you plan to have students use Bubbl.us on their own. You may want to use a teacher account and allow students to use it under your supervision. Be sure to obtain written parent permission before posting ANY student work online. Fortunately, there are no “see others’ work” links or other easy access to inappropriate content.
Possible Uses: There are countless possibilities at this mental mapping site. Demonstrate the activity on an interactive whiteboard or projector, and then allow students to try to create their own graphic organizers. Use this site for literature activities, research projects, social studies, or science topics of study. Use this site to create family trees. Have students collaborate together (online) to create group mind maps or review charts before tests on a given subject.
Some student project ideas: Have students... organize any concepts you study; color-code concepts to show what they understand, wonder, question; map out a story, plotline, or LIFETIME; map out a step-by-step process (life cycle); map a real historical event as achoose-your-own-adventure with alternate endings(?) based on pivotal points; plan a “tour” for a “thought museum.”
Use this mapping website as an alternative to a traditional test, quiz, or homework assignment in literature or social studies: have students demonstrate their understanding by completing a graphic organizer about the main points. Be sure that they RENAME it before they start work to an individual name so you know who did it (they could EMAIL it to you!) or have them print their results to turn them in. See more ideas in the embedded example above!
This latest redesign of the Lascaux tour offered by the French government takes viewers on a video tour of the famous French caves. As you walk along, pop-ups label the drawings being viewed. An outline map on the right lower side of the screen shows the path the "walker" is taking, and also demonstrates where the viewer is at any given part of the tour. In addition to the video walk, information about the caves appears in "Chapters" which students can click on. The original version of this site is in French. The left sidebar offers the options of viewing the site in French, English, German, or Spanish. This link automatically opens to the English version of the site. 10408
In the Classroom: Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Since many of the functions work on mouse-over -- not click -- you may want to use a human being to operate the actual computer mouse, since many whiteboards do not “know” where you are mousing until you click! Then have students explore this site independently or in small groups. This is a great addition to French or Art class. Challenge students in your class to narrate an image orally in French as they present it on the big screen or have them create their own narrated “cave paintings” using a tool such as Voicethread, reviewed here.
Powered by Google Maps, this site allows you to look at comparisons of various census data across the US. Simply enter a zip code, click Go and choose among the following data sets: Age Distribution, Ethnic Distribution, Population Statistics, Household Statistics, Housing Units, Vacancy Rates, and others. The location is shown on a Google Map for viewing of surrounding areas and the data is shown in a bar graph. Additionally, the weather is shown for the area selected. Create a snapshot of the graph using the print screen function (pc) or using apple - shift - 4 (mac.) 10220
In the Classroom: Choose various areas in a region or scattered around the US to look at different census patterns. This real world tool can make studying graphs or data analysis more meaningful to your math students. Use this information to determine other factors to research such as environmental, job opportunities, and other factors. Find past data and compare to present data. Using a snapshot of the graph, have students create a multimedia audio presentation using Voicethread reviewed here.
This site, created especially for children who need to understand information collected during the census, offers five main areas: State Facts for Students, Program Overview, Teaching Materials (K-adult), Reference Materials, and Highlights. The state pages include a generalized lesson plan and pertinent information for each state. The City map section under reference materials is especially interesting as it shows city growth from 1790 to 2000, although the information is a bit slow to load since it's in PDF format. The teaching materials section includes activities and downloadable, printable census kits for classroom use from kindergarten students to adults. This site requires Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 9749
In the Classroom: Use this page when studying various states; students can make a quick comparison between targeted states with the facts ready to read all on one or two pages. If you teach data anysis and graphing in your math class, this data provides real world information for students to use in math exercises, spreadsheets, and graphs. You could even use it in Google Docs spreadsheets (reviewed here
If you have ESL and ELL students, check out the special ESL pages found under the teaching materials section. The easy to read materials include glossaries, exercises, and excellent maps, perfect for geography lessons.
Cogito - Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth
Grades 7
to 12
This powerful site will challenge your brightest students and get everyone thinking. Designed to spark interest of young scientists and thinkers in real world issues, this site is run by Johns Hopkins' famous program for gifted youth. Find feature articles on current research, Nobel laureates, and hot topics such as global warming. Explore the links for MANY outstanding sites not specifically for "education" as much as for real-world investigation and learning. 8023
In the Classroom: Teachers with high level, AP, or gifted students will want to explore this site during the summer months for inspiration and resources to use throughout the year. If your gifted program requires individual projects, send your students here to find ideas and to get energized! Even "regular" teachers, especially in the sciences, will want to share some of the current research topics and interviews that fit their curriculum. If you are looking for ways students and environmental clubs can get involved, check out the "Get Involved" section in the Sites and Tools menu.
One simple way to use the Interviews in a regular science classroom would be to have students research and act out an interview with a "mock" scientist, explaining what he/she does in order to expose students to the many fields included in the sciences.
TeachersFirst Edge entry: for ANY technology user. Dabbleboard (still in beta) allows you to make whiteboard drawings and graphic organizers in an online space you can share with others. Since more than one computer can "work on" the whiteboard at a time, students in multiple locations can add to the board at the same time -- or come back to a saved board to add to it later. The whiteboard includes freehand drawing, basic shapes (some that even pop in when you come close to drawing that shape), text tools, and simple colors. You can also upload images, drag and resize anything you draw or type, etc. If used as a whole-class activity, such as on an interactive whiteboard, you can save it by clicking SHARE, copying the URL so you can put the link on a class wiki, teacher web page, or blog so students or the class can revisit and change it later. The tool requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
In the Classroom: Skills needed: Join the site (free), but only if you wish to be able to SAVE dabbleboards. You can share them in real time without joining, but they are lost once you quit. Joining requires an email address. Use your memberships email or check school policies before allowing students to sign up using email. Another option is to create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
Once you join, watch the quick video tour or play with the tools. Be sure you can locate tools to draw, resize, delete, drag, and group/ungroup items. Try uploading an image (make sure you have the RIGHTS to use it!). Your uploaded items remain in your library for later use. Note that to add text you simply click in the whitespace and start typing. It is easier to change text size and color BEFORE typing. To keep a board, simply click NEW. The old board will become part of your library at the left of the screen.
Safety concerns: Once shared, any dabbleboard can be seen and altered by others who know the URL. You will not have any record of who makes changes, so student-to-student "vandalism" is possible. Do not make student drawings "public" unless this is within school policies. Clicking "Make public" will add that dabble board to the public library. Others can copy any "public" work. Note that sharing by URL does NOT make a board public unless you click "make public."
Ideas for using this tool: Assess prior knowledge as you start a unit by generating a class dabbleboard. Save it under your class/teacher account to re-access throughout the unit, adding new topics and content. Make the URL available from your class web page for students to use as review or for learning support teachers to reinforce what has happened in class. Have student groups map out the content of projects. Encourage visual prewriting for the students who "think in pictures." Have students create review organizers or drag and drop activities to share with classmates. Brainstorm together over time or distance by letting students add ideas from home or collaborating from another school. Save your visual notes from a faculty meeting to reopen next time. Allow students to use a dabbleboard as their visual during speeches. Map the sequence of steps in a chemical reaction. Then share the URL for absent students to "see" what happened in class. Annotate design principles directly on top of an uploaded image or have students submit their own analysis of an image by sending you the URL for their dabbleboard. Have young students use a dabbleboard to draw out ideas before they can even write entire sentences. This one has endless possibilities!
Looking for information about the Earth? Interested in scientific information about the environment that can be used by others interested in the issue of balancing preservation and consumption? Want the attest articles on environmental topics? Click on the buttons to find up to date information about "Biological Diversity," "Water," "Climate," and "Land." Click on the headline across the top of the map to read current articles (powered by RSS feed from Google News) .Use the embed code to embed a widget in a blog or wiki. This site is powered by Google Maps and Google News. 9973
In the Classroom: Use the information to stay up to date about issues concerning the environment to add relevance to your lessons or for project based learning. Share the maps on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Students can research issues and write blog posts or wiki pages about new information that is timely and relevant. Students can also create other multi-media projects or other traditional projects to display information.
This is a site for earth science teachers. It offers a collection of resources, professional development opportunities, and a huge archive of data sources for earth science activities. The site itself assumes significant technical capabilities on the part of the user, especially for the use and implementation of the data sets. This site could be a gold mine for teachers with the appropriate technical skills 3949
Try this site if you’re looking for a just-the-basics set of current weather graphics. The images are similar to those found on the commercial weather sites, but without all the advertising. The drawback: you need to draw your own conclusions from the images; there are no printed forecasts or commentary. It’s good for what it does, but what it does is limited. 4465
This incredible resource is not just for history fans! The comprehensive and well-organized site includes a timeline of events, a glossary, battle outlines, biographies, and thousands of images and maps. Topics include ancient history, the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and much more. A true gold mine for history teachers and students. 4984
In the Classroom: The great resources offered by this site include the primary sources collection and the vast amount of multi-media presentations offered. Search this site for resources you can use in your own classroom - the video collection would be particularly helpful to supplement information from the previous and current century.
TeachersFirst Edge Review: for slightly adventurous technology users. ePals, a global community, offers students the chance to connect with other students around the world (200+ countries). The free student email feature is one of the most useful features of ePals, since complete teacher moderation is available. You may be able to convince a more conservative school administration to permit student email using this tool. This site is the largest worldwide community for global collaboration. Don't worry about the language barrier, there is built-in language translation! This content-rich site also offers lessons, interactives, printables, and more. The "Focus Areas" include Biodiversity, Black History, Election/Inauguration, Geography Central, and Human Rights. In addition, you can click on the "Projects" link to find several ready to use projects (Habitats, Maps, Natural Disasters, Water, and others). Click on "ePals Tour" to view an informative video clip about the site, downloadable brochures, and more. This site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat. Get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 10090
In the Classroom: Skills Needed: Navigating this site is rather simple. Simply click on one of the tabs across the top of the website: Home, Focus Areas, Projects, Connect, Forums, How-To, and ePal Tours. Parts of this site require log-in. Registration does require an email address. The site does offer SchoolMail, the leader for FREE "kid-safe" email.
Safety/Security Concerns: A lot of safety features are already put into place at this site. The SchoolMail (email service offered at this site) offers monitored mail, instant translations, spell-check, anti-spam filters, and virus protection. To learn more about the safety features at this site, check out the ePals Tour link.
Possible Uses: This site offers an amazing assortment of class activities and possibilities. Collaborate with schools in Africa (or 200 other countries) for a geography project. Have your students find ePals to correspond with and practice writing skills in English or in a language you are studying. Use the ready to go lessons and interactives at the "Focus Areas" and "Projects" links. Get additional ideas for projects, by visiting the "Projects" link or propose one of your own based on ideas from TeachersFirst suggestions you read in other reviews, lesson plans, and articles. After viewing one of the informative videos, challenge your students to study one of the topics available at this site and create their own videos. Use a tool such as TeachersTv to share the video clips reviewed here.
Use this interactive site as a review game for recognizing and locating each of the fifty states. The game provides instant feedback and the opportunity to rethink an incorrect response. Great for independent practice. 6238
Imagine that you are lost at sea with only a sextant. Could you figure out where you are? By applying logic, simple math skills, and knowledge of Greenwich time students can solve the problem of finding longitude and pinpointing a location. Background information, hints, and animations are provided. 5823
With 35,000 pages to explore and more than 60,000 flag images, this site probably contains the most extensive information about flags of the world than anywhere on the web. Pages are ordered by country for easy access to flags, or pages can be accessed by clickable maps. Search the site using its search engine for flag information. Click on the Links and Related Links to find additional information about countries and their map histories. Note: These links take you off this main site and some of those sites may contain ads that may be insecure. Vexillology (study of maps) enthusiasts have known about and contributed to this site for years. Classroom teachers can now reap from the informational rewards. This site does include some advertisements and custom flags for a fee. 9460
In the Classroom: Social studies teachers, definitely save this site in your favorites for your state and country reports. Use the information provided for research projects.
Here's an introduction to American government that even the youngest students can appreciate. Divided into four grade levels, the site explains the structure and purpose of American government in age-appropriate terms for everyone from Kindergarteners to high school students. For example, there are four interactive games for your primary students (grades k-2)that make learning about our government fun. Have students learn states’ locations by placing them on the map. Color the USA flag, help Ben Franklin out of a maze, or find your way around the liberty bell. There are also age-specific activities divided into grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. This site requires Flash. Get it from the 
This latest redesign of the Lascaux tour offered by the French government takes viewers on a video tour of the famous French caves. As you walk along, pop-ups label the drawings being viewed. An outline map on the right lower side of the screen shows the path the "walker" is taking, and also demonstrates where the viewer is at any given part of the tour. In addition to the video walk, information about the caves appears in "Chapters" which students can click on. The original version of this site is in French. The left sidebar offers the options of viewing the site in French, English, German, or Spanish. This link automatically opens to the English version of the site.
This site, created especially for children who need to understand information collected during the census, offers five main areas: State Facts for Students, Program Overview, Teaching Materials (K-adult), Reference Materials, and Highlights. The state pages include a generalized lesson plan and pertinent information for each state. The City map section under reference materials is especially interesting as it shows city growth from 1790 to 2000, although the information is a bit slow to load since it's in PDF format. The teaching materials section includes activities and downloadable, printable census kits for classroom use from kindergarten students to adults. This site requires Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the 