TeachersFirst: Week of October 4, 2009

Featured Sites - Week of October 4, 2009

RSS feed with this page.

Here are this week's features. Clicking the "more resources like this" link below each listing will present a list of our most recent additions for the same subject area and grade level .

The Science of Cooking - Grades 7 - 12 - permalink
Interested in the chemical changes that occur during cooking? Have food related cooking questions? Find your answer here on this free site. Learn proper food cooking techniques and identify the science behind them. Teachers should caution students to ignore the ads along the margin of the site. 10289

In the Classroom:
Identify the various techniques and science behind them. For example, browning meat is called the Malliard reaction. Understanding why this brings out the best flavor in the meat is interesting. Learn about sugar substitutes, its use in cooking, and relationship to flavor. Identify taste and how we are able to sense tastes at the molecular level. Follow discussion of techniques with actual use of the technique and resultant taste tests. During a cooking lesson, why not have cooperative learning groups try something they learned? Video their “experiment” and share with the class (and parents) using a tool such as TeacherTube reviewed here.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: food | cooking | taste | science of cooking |

Game Classroom - Grades 0 - 6 - permalink
Find free interactives in Math, Logic, and Language Arts using this colorful site. Choose your grade level (K-6) and then your specific topic. Some examples of topics include: Time and Money, Problem Solving, Reading and Comprehension, Range, Mean, Median, and Mode, Grammar, Literature, and countless others. Find help in the homework help section along the right side of the site. You may also do a more generalized search by using the links for “Popular,” “Math,” or “Language Arts.” Many of the activities have been created by other sites or educators (you may even notice some familiar characters, such as Big Bird). Some activities may have ads appearing beside them. Students should be advised to ignore these ads. 10284

In the Classroom:
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Make it a kinesthetic “center” for students to explore using your interactive whiteboard. Use these activities to strengthen skills, provide practice, and identify weaknesses. For example, use math games that teach graphing, analyzing, and counting. There is a wide variety of topics here, so be sure to peruse this site before your new unit or lesson! Using examples on this site, students can create their own homework help using a wiki, blog, or other site to help others. Allow students to “rate” the games using stars or smiley faces and comment on how the game helps them learn. Play a variety of word and other language arts games. Be sure to list this link on your class website or wiki for students to access both in and out of the classroom.

Math Apprentice - Grades 4 - 12 - permalink
"When will we ever use this?" Answer this question using Math Apprentice. Users choose a character and then begin their journey. Walk (or skateboard) to different work sites, buildings, or businesses. Learn how many is used every day in these work places: architecture, bike and toy makers, cafes, and more! Listen to a brief introduction of the concept. Solve problems or free play to identify math concepts in real life. No account or login is required. Some concepts are advanced but it can take the teaching of standards one step further and create better understanding. This site is a terrific example of STEM integrated learning. 10298

In the Classroom:
This is a great site to share on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have cooperative learning groups explore different careers or buildings and share how math is used at their locations. Why not have groups create a video using a tool such as Teachers.TV reviewed here or a podcast using PodOmatic (reviewed here), to share their mathematical discoveries! At the end of an introduction of a concept, use this site for specific math practice using a real life concept. For example, visit the bike shop to use math to determine pedal gear to wheel gear ratios and resultant bike speeds. Use as an individual activity, a team activity, or with the entire class using an interactive whiteboard. Follow up with a personal problem to solve. In this example, students can measure the two gears on their bikes (or their teachers bike brought into the classroom) to use the information for further understanding.

Virtual Pilot - Grades 6 - 12 - permalink
How good are your students at European geography? Lufthansa Airlines has created a game site that allows students to attempt to land their plane in the correct location! A location is provided, there are several red dots to choose among, and you simply click on the dot that you feel is in the correct location. Three levels of difficulty make the activity easier to differentiate. The first level shows a bunch of cities in Europe as starts. Students who guess closer to the target city get more points. The second level shows only countries. Students have to pinpoint the location of their desired city with a mouse click. The third, most difficult level, has students clicking on the continent of Europe, trying to locate countries and the desired city. Points add up quickly, even if players do not get the exact location, since more points appear for guesses closest to the desired city. What a terrific way to learn and remember cities (and countries) in Europe! 10303

In the Classroom:
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have cooperative learning groups try to figure out where the cities are located. See which team can earn the most points. Use this site to review European geography and capitals. Have international students play against Americans. Provide this link on your class website for additional practice.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: European cities | European countries locations | map |

Compfight - Grades 0 - 12 - permalink
Teacher's First Edge Review: For slightly adventurous technology users. Want a slicker way of finding creative commons pictures (pictures you are ALLOWED to use without copyright problems, simply by giving credit)? Compfight searches flickr pictures and finds those that can be used in other activities and projects. Enter text or tags, and compfight does the rest, providing thumbnail images for you to choose from.

10280

In the Classroom:
Skills required: Users need to be able to use good search terms to find the best pictures possible as well as knowing where to save images on their computer. Be sure users know that credit must still be given to the person who took the picture and their name must appear wherever the image is used. Be sure to use Compfight correctly by changing the settings at the top. For students using images, it is recommended that the word "only" appears next to Creative Commons, the word "On" for Seek Original, and the word "On" for Safe Search. An image showing these settings can be found here.

Safety/Security: No login or registration is required. Be sure students understand what is and is not permissible due to copyright and how Creative Commons allows some extra uses. Students must give credit to the owner of the image.

Classroom use: Use in the classroom any time that an image is needed for projects, even if it is not put on a website for others to see. Be sure students are aware that any time another person's image is used, they must give full credit for it, even if that owner cannot see it. Student groups can use Compfight to collectively find the best image to use for a project. Have students create a multimedia presentation using Voicethread reviewed here. Voicethread allows users to narrate their collection of pictures. For example, students studying renewable energy can use compfight to find images of various renewable energy sources, then explain them on Voicethread. Teachers can collect images for use on their interactive whiteboard for sorting activities (monocots and dicots, producers and consumers, etc).

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: creative commons | image | pictures | search |

Letters About Literature - Grades 2 - 12 - permalink
This site accepts students' letters to their favorite authors, describing why they liked their book(s). Each student may write only one letter. Students can write to any author, living or dead. Each year, judging of the letters takes place in December. So this is a great site during the fall months! On the site, there are links to a teacher's guide for helping the students write the letter and lesson plans about the letter writing. 10301

In the Classroom:
Have your class read some of the award-winning letters from other years on the overhead projector, interactive whiteboard, or projector. Talk about what the winning characteristics are. Share the suggestions the site makes to encourage your writers to use clear and metaphorical language. Use this site to teach your students proper letter writing skills. Check out the Letter Generator for some ideas, reviewed here. Check with your administration to see what their guidelines are for submitting contest entries, particularly submitting names and addresses of students. The site is quite flexible about those types of requirements. Have the class share their letters and create a "referral" library for students looking for outside reading materials. Have your international students share letters about international writers to encourage broader reading interests. Why not use the letters to create a class online book of letters, using a tool such as Bookemon, reviewed here.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: letter writing | authors | response to literature |

WaterAid Splash Out - Grades 1 - 10 - permalink
Informative, Comical, and straight forward, this site (created by WaterAid), is full of water and sanitation information. The Adventures of Super Toilet have appeal for younger students and older students alike. Learn about proper hygiene, clean toilets, and safe drinking water. Some parts of the video clips such as "Splish, Splash, Flush" have some vivid images of actual people "poop." Viewing is not for the weak stomached viewer. Never the less, younger students should be fascinated by the content of the videos.

NOTE: Because of the nature of the videos and online comics, be sure to preview, before sharing them with your class so you can decide whether your students' maturity level can handle it. This site does have some information about fundraising and the company’s missions, but there is some real educational value here! 10245

In the Classroom:
Keep your students healthy and informed using this site! The Adventures of Super Toilet would be ideal for teaching a lesson to primary grade students (or older students) about good personal hygiene. The concepts are entertaining and create questions within the students' minds. It would help raise the students awareness of the sanitation process and the importance of being clean. This site would be especially useful during the flu season.

In the facts section of this website, you can see countries involved which would be the basis for a lesson in cultures of the world. Students could read about other countries and discuss how lives of other children are different from their own lives. Have students create a Venn Diagram, using an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here), to compare their own lives (and sanitation) to another country listed at the site.

Older students would benefit from viewing video clips as part of health, family and consumer science, or even world cultures classes. Older students would grasp the humor of the comic strips (but be prepared for the laughs).

SignAppNow - Grades 0 - 12 - permalink
Use this website to create simple and fast sign up sheets (online) for any classroom purpose. No account is needed. This site literally takes only 1-2 minutes to create an online sign-up sheet. Click on "Create a Sign-up sheet now" to begin. Enter the purpose of the sheet, the last date for sign-ups, your email (with an option to hide your email address from others,) and your name. Once created, use the link to post on a blog, wiki, or other site for others to sign-up. Additionally, you can send the link by email for others to use.

The online list is FREE, however if you request a downloadable XLS format, it is for a FEE ($1.00 at the time of this review). 10281

In the Classroom:
Use this site for sign-ups for projects, events, special occasions, club activities, finding students interests, field trips, and more. Use to sign up for bringing in goodies, donated items, tasks, parent volunteers.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: online tool | sign-ups | sign-up |

A Book and A Hug - Grades 0 - 12 - permalink
This well-designed website has books for 8 levels of readers from picture books to adult-level subjects in 17 general categories. Search using the advanced search function or browse through the favorites. Look for fiction or non-fiction, parts of series, and best of all books for reluctant readers. All books feature a summary and also an illustration taken from the book. The descriptions of the books are very enticing and often include quotes from the text. 10297

In the Classroom:
This is a great source for finding and showing students how to find independent reading. Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Since students often ask for books like Harry Potter, for example, put this link on your class web page. Show students how to click on the keywords once they find a category they like. When students ask for another book in the same series, this is a great place to start looking. Allowing reluctant readers to search and find their own book is a way to build investment in their reading future. Encourage students to write their own reviews of favorite books not found here. Use the site for a lesson in citing sources and punctuating quotations.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: finding books | outside reading | booklist | literature |

Visual Complexity - Grades 6 - 12 - permalink
View interesting graphics of data that students will find fascinating. Search visuals in subjects such as Art, Biology, Food Webs, Music, and more. Each visualization has a project description, link, and other information. Caution students that ads appear on pages and these should be avoided. 10287

In the Classroom:
Share the graphics on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use data visualizations to ask questions about interactions among the parts shown. For example, use any of the food chain visualizations to look at the interactions in the chains and identify roles of organisms. Ask students to use the whiteboard tools to explain how the visual “shows” the underlying information. Be prepared for less visual students to struggle while more visual students thrive using such a tool. Share the interesting map graphics in geography class. Use this at the beginning of a discussion and identify the organisms in the chain to uncover the relationships. Use the graphics for creative writing projects (displaying the graphic on a whiteboard while students react in writing). Ask your gifted students to choose a graphic they particularly enjoy as an inspiration to create one of their own.

For similar resources, click the appropriate keyword: data | visual | maps |

Many eyes - Grades 9 - 12 - permalink
Teachers First Edge review: For adventurous technology users. Looking for data for analysis and comparison? Use this great site for existing data sets and visualizations to explore, analyze, and form conclusions. Click on links to explore data sets, visualizations, comments, or topics. Use the search box at the top to search specific topics or subjects. Create your own visualizations by using an existing data set or uploading your own. Registration is not required to create visualizations (you will be named as anonymous.) Choose from the following possible visualizations of data: scatterplot, network diagram, matrix, bar or bubble chart, graphs, tree maps, histograms, word trees, tag clouds, or maps. 10216

In the Classroom:
Skills required: Determine the data set to use, choose words or parameters, enter a title (required,) tags, or description, and publish the data. Easily share your visualizations by using the embed code in a blog, wiki, or other website or by emailing a link. Users will need to know how to manage embed codes and use in sites of choice. Create comments for other visualizations. Create an account to be able to find your visualizations and leave comments in your name. Registration requires an email account and verification may take up to an hour once submitted. 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.

Safety/Security: Some content in this area may be inappropriate for your classroom. Always preview before assigning. If an existing data set is to be used, provide a link to the specific visualization and monitor student work. If students are to create data sets for submission, consider creating a class account that can be used by all students for submission. An extra email address or one created for this purpose can be used to create the login. Preview all visualizations before publishing. Model how to use this site safely on your projector or interactive whiteboard so students can learn how to think and act wisely online. Be sure to discuss what are considered quality and appropriate commenting of other students or users visualizations.

Ideas for Use: Use a single data set to with different visualizations so students can see the power of different visual tools in explaining and interpreting numbers. Find data sets that can be used to analyze trends, make comparisons, or apply information in a meaningful way. For example, begin a lesson in a Health, Science, History, or Math class while previewing this visualization. Use it to generate questions, ideas, and direction for student groups to research more information. Examples include change in diet in past generations, energy expenditure and input, health related issues concerning diet, differences in diets of other cultures, different types of food molecules and how they are processed by the body, etc. Create whiteboard presentations using the visualization and related information to share information with the rest of the class. Have a data set that students are having difficulty identifying trends? Try using this tool in order to view different visualizations to make meaning of the data.

Want to see what else we've been up to? Check out our recent additions.