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return to subject listingStoryToolz - Chuck Heintzelman
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): creative writing (122), readability (5), stories and storytelling (40)
In the Classroom
Enhance and modify student writing by having them use StoryToolz. First, share it with students with a projector in your writing class to generate ideas for stories, possible centers of conflict to map out the new tale, and show them how to use the tool. Use the readability section with any writing to determine appropriateness for use with students. Have students paste their writing in the readability section to determine if their writing is at an appropriate grade level or to note information such as words per sentence or use of various parts of speech. Paste into the cliche buster to point out ho-hum wording and overused expressions. Suddenly, students may begin to write more complex sentences or use more vivid language. Be sure to include a link to this site on your class webpage and classroom computers for use throughout the year. The readability portion of the site is a great resource for ESL/ELL and Special Education teachers to help determine the appropriateness of reading materials.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Calkoo - Trinity Capital
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): addition (128), area (52), calculators (37), division (98), fractions (159), measurement (126), multiplication (122), percent (58), quadratics (26), subtraction (109), volume (34)
In the Classroom
Calkoo is a great free tool to replace expensive graphing calculators that many students may not have. Calkoo works well on computers, mobile devices, and interactive whiteboards. Use this site during a unit on careers, economics, or financial literacy. Include it as part of a measurement unit. Share during Family and Consumer Science units to explore the cost of living and have students put together a mythical "budget" for living in their chosen career. Have students send you on a vacation and include calculations for the currency converter, fuel cost calculator, sales tax for souvenirs, and more! This is a great site to support many experiments in science. Calculate acceleration, velocity, and time, or use the mathematics category to complete problems. Use this tool in social studies class for quickly calculating years or months from important timelines or when figuring out geographical distances. In English or L.A. classes, quickly figure out the life span of authors or how long ago a story took place. In health or science classes, use the BMI calculator or get other accurate measurements. Visit Calkoo and select a calculator to meet your needs! Include this site on your class web page for students and parents to access as a reference. The various languages make this tool very useful for ESL/ELL students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Multiple Intelligences Posters - Marek Bennett
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): back to school (63), comics and cartoons (54), multiple intelligences (7)
In the Classroom
Print and share posters to get your colleagues and students thinking about their own multiple intelligences. Be sure to maintain the attribution and copyright information on the posters. Explore with students learning about their own strengths in learning. Hang the posters in your classroom. Share information during parent conferences and professional development. Share posters on your board during back to school information sessions to help parents understand different types of intelligences. Encourage students to create comics of themselves using their most comfortable "intelligence" and use it as a locker decoration or on a class bulletin board during the first part of the school year. Use one of TeachersFirst's many comic/cartoon tools reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Quadblogging - David Mitchell
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): blogs (66), communication (136), cross cultural understanding (157), writing (315)
In the Classroom
If you never blogged before, you might want to check out TeachersFirst Blog Basics for the Classroom. Have your students choose a question from Thought Questions reviewed here. Have students respond to the question, and then have them ask the reader to respond to their writing and answer the question from their point of view, too. The benefits go beyond just writing. You can also build cultural understanding and world language skills through blogs. Help your students become aware of environmental issues or how to live "green" for our planet. Try Greenlearning.ca, reviewed here, or choose something from the Environmental News Network, reviewed here, for students' Quadblog projects.Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
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PDF Mergy - PDF Mergy
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): classroom management (128)
In the Classroom
PDF Mergy is an excellent resource for combining multiple ideas for lessons. Save fraction handouts, continent maps and worksheets, or plant identification activities all together as one file. Remember that copyright still applies to any copyrighted pdfs you combine! Save student reports in PDF and combine to put the entire class' work in one single document. Save project receipts in one easy to find file, the possibilities are endless! Want to make a cool flippable book from your combined pdf of student writings? Try PDF to Flipbook Converter, reviewed here to turn the PDF into a flippable online book.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Compress Now - compressnow.com
Grades
K to 12tag(s): images (271)
In the Classroom
Bookmark Compress Now (or save it in your favorites). Use this site throughout the year when working with images. Compress images for use on web pages to make pages loading more quickly. Use when emailing images to make sure they will get through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Pulitzer Center Lesson Plans - Pulitzer Center
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): africa (137), careers (139), china (62), debate (37), earthquakes (44), ethics (23), food chains (17), hiv/aids (16), india (25), journalism (72), media literacy (102), water (101), women (137)
In the Classroom
Use the lesson plans on the site as a resource for discussing and debating global issues. If there is no time to complete a full unit, explore resources from each topic for ideas to use in your classroom. For example, try the ideas on interviewing individuals who migrated to the United States offered in the How Did I Become the Person That I Am unit. Share this site with students interested in journalism careers as a resource for learning more about the profession and some of its members.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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CurriConnects Book List - Colonial America and the Revolution - TeachersFirst
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): american revolution (81), book lists (161), colonial america (95), independent reading (85)
In the Classroom
Make history more real during your unit on Colonial America and/or the Revolution. Have students choose a book from this list and present their impressions from it in the form of a blog post from the times. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Tumblr, reviewed here. Collect the links to all the student posts on your class web page for students to browse and gather a "human" experience of history.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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History Labs - A Guided Approach to Historical Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom - UMBC Center for History Education
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): african american (109), american revolution (81), civil rights (194), civil war (134), colonial america (95), colonization (20), great depression (28), iran (8), jefferson (18), kennedy (19), native americans (91), roosevelt (12), slavery (75), washington (25), womens suffrage (44), world war 2 (149)
In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site for use with any American History topic as a complete lesson or to offer another angle on current lessons. Enhance learning by having students create a simple infographic sharing their findings using Venngage reviewed here. Before beginning a unit, have students brainstorm or collect ideas on a collaborative bulletin board like Scrumblr, reviewed here (quick start- no membership required!).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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New Bedford Whaling Museum - New Bedford Whaling Museum
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): 1700s (36), 1800s (72), colonial america (95), marine biology (25), whales (11)
In the Classroom
The museum's exhibits focused on the Arctic and on the migrations and habitats of whales are useful from a historical perspective. Consider using early maps and photographs from the exploration of Arctic regions to compare with current maps for a discussion on global climate change. Use information about current and past whale habitats to illustrate the impact of ocean changes on the largest of its inhabitants. Students doing independent research will find the individual images of the museum's extensive collection useful as well. Have students act as curators for an imaginary special exhibit, perhaps creating a map using MapHub, reviewed here, to add points of interest with display markers featuring text, photos, and videos. to show the artifact locations and tell the stories of their "artifacts." (Simplify adding images by inserting them using the online URLs of the artifact images from the museum catalog. To find and copy the URL for an online image, RIGHT click on it to "Copy Image URL" or "Get Info," depending on your browser and computer type.)Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Words of the World - The University of Nottingham
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): cross cultural understanding (157), vocabulary (235), vocabulary development (90), word study (58)
In the Classroom
Words of the World is a great site for some quick vocabulary building, but even more it is a window into words as vital components of culture and history. Share these videos on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) for a quick lesson on the background and meaning of several words. Use it to talk about how words can also define a time period in history or a concept that is vital to a particular culture. Explore language as PART of a culture as you study different countries. Find out what words are unique to that culture. Use this site as an example, then challenge cooperative learning groups to create their own word background videos of culture-connected words and share them on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here. Share a link to videos using links provided on your class website for students to view as a word of the week. Challenge students to use the word of the week in class discussions or other written work throughout the week.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Documentary Tube - DocumentaryTube.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): video (257)
In the Classroom
Discover the power of documentaries while studying point of view, primary and secondary resources, and debate skills. Examine the aspects shown in documentaries and help students find structure to provide an unbiased research project. Challenge existing knowledge in many areas. Help students become active thinkers and become involved in current events. Sharpen your own understandings.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Documentary Storm - 2013 DocumentaryStorm
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): video (257)
In the Classroom
With documentaries challenge your students' understanding of food, history, politics, or people. Use to provide another point of view which might not be available in traditional text books. Use to explain primary and secondary sources, as well as an example of a way to extend thinking. Provide a documentary as an example for your students to do an in depth research project. Use documentaries to challenge knowledge, create new knowledge, and learn.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Lantern - Media History Digital Library
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): cultures (132), decades (7), journalism (72), media literacy (102), movies (51), radio (20)
In the Classroom
Sometimes it's easier to "set the tone" for a particular moment in time by including images from popular culture. Students can see what regular people were interested in: what movies they watched, what they listened to on the radio, what TV shows they enjoyed (and the fact that they WATCHED TV, not YouTube!). Using some of these images, stories, and other material from this archive to supplement the study of a time period or an event in history can flesh out what life was like "back in the day."Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Active Textbook - Evident Point
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): digital storytelling (141), ebooks (39)
In the Classroom
Upload any PDF document to create an interactive book for class use. Create one together as a class as you move through a unit or topic, adding images and ideas your students suggest, creating a class "book." Use in a flipped classroom to deliver course information. Have students convert any document to PDF format using PDF Converter, reviewed here. Extend student learning by assigning several student groups the same PDF and have each group create their own multimedia versions as they learn more about the topic. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Genial.ly, Animatron, Vibby, and Glorify. Make a digital bookshelf of all the versions and invite the class to vote for the best. Challenge your gifted students to enhance the "standard" class text with additional material they discover by going deeper and learning about related topics. In lower grades, create teacher-made ebooks for your young readers, perhaps adding audio of your own voice reading the text.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Ultimate Titanic - UltimateTitanic.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): 1910s (7), 20th century (59), disasters (36)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for information and ideas for teaching the Titanic as part of an early 20th century history lesson or as enrichment when reading any novel about the Titanic. Use the materials available here to talk about the difference between primary and secondary sources. Use the site's timeline as a starting point and then redefine learning by challenging students create their own multimedia Titanic timeline (with music, photos, videos, and more) using Timeline JS, reviewed here. Create a newspaper using a site such as Printing Press, reviewed here, extending learning and telling the details of events of the Titanic.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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TeachersFirst's Resources for John F. Kennedy, Jr. - TeachersFirst
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): kennedy (19), presidents (121)
In the Classroom
Whether you focus on Kennedy for one class or spend an entire unit on U.S. presidents, the ideas included within the "In the Classroom" portion of reviews will launch discussions and meaningful projects for student-centered learning. Find more presidential resources in TeacherFirst's Resources for American Presidents.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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9/11 Memorial & Museum - Learn - National September 11 Memorial and Museum
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Check the teacher lesson plans for ideas. The plans range from kindergarten to grade 12. Incorporate some of the interactives as part of your class commemoration of September 11. Have students record their own video or audio interviews. Try Spreaker, reviewed here, with adults who recall the day and add them to a class or school wiki memorial. Add a Speakpipe widget, reviewed here, to your wiki page so visitors can add their own recollections. If you do not have time to spend more than one class period on 9/11, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum will provide rich experiences and material for discussion. Be sure to allow your students time to talk and ask questions about this disturbing day in history.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Match the Memory - Curtis Gibby
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): puzzles (143)
In the Classroom
Create matching games for words that begin with the same letter, color, or numbers for early elementary students. Use with older students to review concepts such as matching landforms, state capitols, or vocabulary terms. Have students (or groups) create matching games for others to play as review. in world language class, have students create games to reinforce vocabulary. Create a matching game with pictures and videos from recent field trips or class activities for students to share with parents. Learning support teachers can help students create their own memory games as a review activity. Encourage students to use a matching game as followup for oral presentations to keep their audience involved.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Learning Disabilities - Great Schools
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): adhd (28), autism (13), dyslexia (11), learning disability (22), preK (254), professional development (393), Special Needs (53)
In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site as a resource for understanding and finding resources for learning disabilities. Share articles and information with parents during conferences. Use this site as a resource during professional development sessions.Comments
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