TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Jan 31, 2016

Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive

 

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Math = Love - Sarah Hagan

Grades
6 to 10
1 Favorites 0  Comments
 
Math = Love is a blog by a high school math teacher specializing in Algebra with a goal of making math fun for all students. Frequent posts detail specific lessons ...more
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Math = Love is a blog by a high school math teacher specializing in Algebra with a goal of making math fun for all students. Frequent posts detail specific lessons and student work along the way. Most posts include a link to download the lesson file. Choose the Free Downloads tab to find a large assortment of downloadable files for posters, bulletin boards, and forms for classroom use. Find specific topics by clicking on the tags on the right side of the page or use the search bar to explore the entire blog.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): blogs (66), charts and graphs (168), data (146), equations (119), logic (163), polynomials (20), pythagorean theorem (18), quadratics (26)

In the Classroom

Take advantage of the many free lessons and downloads on this site. Be sure to sign up to receive email notifications of new blog entries or follow her on Pinterest. Bookmark and save this site for use throughout the year. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration. Be sure to share Math=Love with your department and especially a new teacher.
 This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.

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PBS Kids Lab - PBS Kids

Grades
K to 4
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PBS Kids Lab has been archived, but continues to offer access to games, shows, and information on PBS KIDS, specifically for math and reading skills. Choose from the many activities...more
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PBS Kids Lab has been archived, but continues to offer access to games, shows, and information on PBS KIDS, specifically for math and reading skills. Choose from the many activities in the Lab Menu such as games, collections, and videos. Educator Resources include classroom and out of school activities to accompany site resources.

tag(s): addition (128), counting (60), data (146), estimation (35), game based learning (171), geometric shapes (135), measurement (125), numbers (119), preK (254), professional development (388), vocabulary (235)

In the Classroom

Create a link to learning games and activities on classroom computers. Post a link on your class website for use at home. Share information on the site with parents to assist them in helping their child with math and reading skills. Be sure to share the PBS Parents Play & Learn app that provides over a dozen learning games for parents to play with their kids, best of all, it is available in English and Spanish!

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World Affairs Council - Washington, DC - World Affairs Council - Washington, DC

Grades
6 to 12
5 Favorites 0  Comments
  
In today's world, we need to understand and get involved in global issues. The World Affairs Council (WAC) is online to help you do that. Click the titles on the ...more
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In today's world, we need to understand and get involved in global issues. The World Affairs Council (WAC) is online to help you do that. Click the titles on the top menu to read the history of the World Affairs Council (WAC) and their mission, find an explanation about their Academic Program and their annual contest called WorldQuest. See their Newsroom Newsletter and Podcasts that are published weekly. At the very top right click on the red play icon and go to their YouTube channel. Explore the drop down menu tabs across the top and find upcoming events, local WAC councils, and much more. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): africa (137), climate change (87), cross cultural understanding (156), ecology (99), foreign policy (12), germany (25), news (229), terrorism (41), terrorist (12)

In the Classroom

Thanks to instantaneous news shows and social media, the students of the 21st Century are very aware of global issues. That is not to say they understand them. Start a current events program in your class, you may want to look at Newsela, reviewed here, TweenTribune, reviewed here, or Flocabulary, reviewed here. Then turn to the World Affairs Council and their YouTube channel to get explanations about global issues. The topics are extensive; some are specific and some are more general like global warming (or climate change) and the failure of the global economy. All are current, and all will give your students a different perspective on the topic. With older students, each week you could put a different small group in charge of featuring a current event and ask them to research its history, and see if they can also find the topic on the WAC YouTube channel. Have those students create an annotated, narrated image including text boxes and related links using a multimedia tool such as Thinglink, reviewed here, to present to the class.
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Bystander Revolution - Take the Power Out of Bullying - MacKenzie Bezos

Grades
4 to 12
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Take a stand against bullying with practical ideas and information from Bystander Revolution. Choose the All Videos link to filter solutions from different perspectives, or filter by...more
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Take a stand against bullying with practical ideas and information from Bystander Revolution. Choose the All Videos link to filter solutions from different perspectives, or filter by specific problems or solutions. Most videos run less than two minutes in length. The presenters include well-known celebrities as well as "typical" students. Sign up for the weekly newsletter that includes a simple transformative task to complete each week along with other helpful tips and videos. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

tag(s): bullying (49)

In the Classroom

Use an interactive whiteboard or projector to talk to your class about bullying with these videos. Use this discussion to prompt a journal entry, skit, or other personal response on the topic of bullying and how to handle it. Exchange pencil and paper and use a blogging tool like edublog, reviewed here. Provide this link for parents to view at home with their students. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create their own videos addressing bullying issues. Replace paper and start with Story Map, reviewed here, for students to plan their skit. Share the skits on a site such as SchoolTube, reviewed here. Be sure to share this site with your school's counselors and anyone else who deals with students who are being bullied.

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Ourboox - Mel Rosenberg & Ran Shternin

Grades
2 to 12
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Publish ebooks in any language with Ourboox. Keep track of how many readers you have and read their comments. Sign up with email to get a free account, and get ...more
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Publish ebooks in any language with Ourboox. Keep track of how many readers you have and read their comments. Sign up with email to get a free account, and get started right away. Click Create, add a title, choose the style of your book (Square Book - a picture book with up to 15 lines of text, or a text-oriented book, more like a long story or novel). Choosing a Square Book enables the ability to have an image (JPEG, PNG). You can also upload animated GIFs or embed a YouTube Video. Ourboox will step you through the process of getting your book online and publishing it. The pages of the book will flip, and the tool has an accommodation for languages that read from right to left. It can take up to 24 hours for new books to process. Before starting on your own book, you may want to look at others' books to get ideas about the format.

tag(s): digital storytelling (142), ebooks (38), writing (315)

In the Classroom

There is no end to the ideas for stories! Now you can easily publish and share them with Ourboox. At the beginning of the year have students develop stories to tell about their summer and share with classmates. Enhance and modify student learning and technology use (depending on the project requirement) by having students create: a photo story for history, showcasing great people or specific historical events such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in the arts, create a photo story of achievements of various artists. In science, create a photo story of famous inventors or have students explain their understanding of cell division. ESL/ELL students can use the site to recreate folk tales from their home countries. Encourage your older students to use this tool for digital storytelling projects created in response to research or extra study. This is a great find for gifted students who want to include art work and use their creativity in productive ways. No matter the subject of the story, they all need to be planned before creating a book. Have students do this either with paper and pencil or try using a digital storyboard like Story Map, reviewed here, or Storyboarder, reviewed here. If students cannot have their own email accounts, consider using a "class set" of GMail subaccounts (managed by you), explained here. This tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. This would provide anonymous interaction within your class.

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Add Text - FlamingText.com Pty Ltd.

Grades
4 to 12
1 Favorites 0  Comments
 
Add text to any image or photo, using a web browser or smartphone, and share with no registration. Choose images from one of seven categories or upload your own. Change ...more
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Add text to any image or photo, using a web browser or smartphone, and share with no registration. Choose images from one of seven categories or upload your own. Change the color of the text or elect to add more text. Share using Twitter, Google+ (available with G Suite), or the URL given. At the time of this review, all images in the Gallery were appropriate for the classroom. However, we recommend to preview the images before you share with younger students.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): creativity (92), DAT device agnostic tool (143), digital storytelling (142), editing (93), images (270)

In the Classroom

Use Add Text to add captions to images to create memes or posters for your bulletin boards. Use this easy tool with students during back to school time as a way for them to get to know each other. Have students upload a picture of themselves doing their favorite activity and label it with amusing text or a favorite quote (or song lyrics?). Have them upload images that represent their interests and character traits. Print the images with text for a back to school bulletin board. Use after a field trip for students to write captions on the photos they took. Be sure to share the photos on your class webpage, blog, or wiki. Haven't started blogging yet? Check out TeachersFirst's Blog Basics. For other uses, have students practice new words in a world language class by labeling and identifying images in that language. Help ENL/ESL students learn English by labeling the images. Create writing prompts using several annotated images. Have students create annotated images to explain key terms in science class. In ELA class, make homophone or vocabulary images to show the correct word along with a picture that explains it.

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Comments4Kids - William Chamberlain

Grades
6 to 12
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We all know that having an audience for our writing makes us better writers. Comments4Kids provides that audience. There are four rules for commenting on others' blogs: be relevant,...more
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We all know that having an audience for our writing makes us better writers. Comments4Kids provides that audience. There are four rules for commenting on others' blogs: be relevant, be positive, comment only when you have something to say, and always use good conventions (grammar, spelling, punctuation). Explore 5 Smart Ways to get Comments4Kids on your blog, read the Rule of Return, and learn how one teacher manages his students' comments on others' blogs. Back on the main page, click the link to see how another teacher manages blogs and also testimonials from several different professionals about why creating an audience for writing is necessary. Then, start by adding your class blog or your blog to the registration area. Consider Tweeting the blog address under the comments4kids hashtag when you want your students to have a commenting audience. On Twitter, type in #comments4kids, to see the current activity.

tag(s): blogs (66), writing (315)

In the Classroom

If your students blog, you may want to consider using Comments4Kids to encourage them to do their best writing, proofread, and learn how to tactfully and meaningfully comment on others' writing. You might want to consider using the hashtag #comments4kids in your Tweets. Read the 5 Smart Ways To Get Comments4Kids page to learn more. If you are interested in blogging but never have, you might want to check out TeachersFirst's Blog Basics For the Classroom. You also may want to use prompts from Thought Questions, reviewed here, as an easy way to get kids writing blogs. There are many other ideas for your students to blog about such as having science students display photos and information about lab work or research findings of a famous scientist. Language arts students can write about the main character in a book. Have literature circle groups create one blog to present the book and its different characters. Create blogs for current events, biographies, or explanations about curriculum topics such as plants.

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