| Find your kid’s online blog | Grades 3 to 12 | Kim Komando | |
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Parents concerned about Internet safety and their teen (or preteen)'s online information-sharing should read this article. It may sound devious to check up on your children, but the era of social networking makes it a must-talk topic. Your child or young adult may not realize the serious safety issues involved with having online space. Trying to "just say no" will not work on this issue. Have the conversation. Although this may not be a classroom issue, the negative sides of social networking tools are harming the positive tools for learning made available through the same technologies. Teachers may want to share this article with parents to help them get the dialog started. |
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| A Fun Alternative Way to Teach Children The Keyboard | Grades 0 to 2 | Georgina Farmer, Nail it Now | |
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| Acceptable Internet Use Policies Collection | Grades 7 to 12 | Virginia Department of Education | |
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The Virginia Department of Education has created a very usable collection of acceptable internet and technology use policies from schools, colleges, and universities. These are presented along with some general guidelines as to the information that an AUP should contain. Great resource for schools and districts that want to be clear with students, faculty and staff about on-line rights and responsibilities. Share this link with your teaching colleagues who use the internet and technology regularly in the classroom. |
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| Acid Rain in our State | Grades 5 to 8 | Microsoft | |
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| Advertising Campaigns That Have Made a Difference | Grades 7 to 12 | The Ad Council | |
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Throughout the 20th century, advertisements have influenced public behavior and opinion while leaving enduring icons and slogans in their wake. Explore some of these snapshots of American culture in this Ad Council site that provides printed and multi-media glimpses of its public service milestones - from war bonds, to Smokey the Bear, to Vince and Larry, the crash test dummies. View the examples in class and challenge students to design their own ad campaigns to address contemporary issues in America society. Introduce this site on the interactive whiteboard during a class discussion of a debate in current politics or while preparing for a debate in your own classroom. Allow students to explore the site with the intentions of creating their own propaganda for their debate side or for both sides if used in a more general discussion. This is a great way to get students to start thinking about persuasion in the media, and how politicians can use it. Excellent resource for a US government class! |
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| Alan and Danny's Puzzle Page | Grades 10 to 12 | Carnegie Mellon University | |
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These fairly advanced puzzles - posted by two professors at Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science - challenge students to construct and apply an algorithm or proof, or write a computer program to arrive at a solution. A new puzzle appears every few weeks, followed by a solution and related references.
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| Alta Vista | Grades 4 to 12 | ||
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| Analyzing Information Sources | Grades 9 to 12 | Cornell University | |
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Cornell University’s guide to evaluating online information sources would be a great primer for teachers who are not proficient web searchers. High school students will also find this site a useful way of separating the reliable research sources from those less trustworthy.
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| Annenberg CPB Channel | Grades 1 to 12 | CPB | |
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Professional development activities are just a mouse click away. This exceptional online library contains hundreds of educational videos, covering all grade levels and content areas. Search by discipline, grade, or keyword and complete a free registration to view the materials. Check out the broadcast schedule for a list of daily simulcasts. A high-speed connection is a must.
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| Apture | Grades 9 to 12 | Apture. Inc. | |
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Skills needed: Join the site and wait for verification email to log in. Enter your site/wiki/blog’s URL. You are actually allowed to enter many of these, but try ONE first! The site’s detector tool will then “sense” common blogging software, such as WordPress, and prompt you on what to do next. You must be familiar with embed codes and how to place them into your blog or website. Apture’s video tutorial will help (it also pops up along the Apture dashboard when you first go to your “Aptured” site/wiki/blog). Other the simple directions shown in pop-ups for using Apture in various blog and wiki tools. Instantly add the embed code to the most popular blog and wiki platforms with one click. The code generated is easily copy/pasted into your existing website/wiki/blog. Once the embed code is there, visiting your site/wiki/blog automatically brings up an Apture “dashboard” (small toolbar in the corner) for you to log in and add things to your site/wiki/blog. Highlighting text or another item automatically brings up the site (if a site name or URL) you wish to add. Other material can be located by clicking "add related media." Entering a search term instantly finds related Wikipedia or Washington Post articles, You Tube videos, Flickr photos, and more. Subsequent visitors to your site will see the icons next to any item you have “enriched” with Apture-linked media content. |
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| Art Rights – and Wrongs | Grades 4 to 8 | Thinkquest | |
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Try this student-created site on copyright and use of artwork in school and web projects as a great way to introduce elementary students to the basics of copyright an intellectual property. Teaching these habits early on is a great way to ensure compliance later on.
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| Assistive Technology in Schools | Grades 1 to 12 | WestEd | |
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| Attribute Trains | Grades 3 to 5 | Utah State University | |
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| Back in Time with Timelines | Grades 3 to 8 | ||
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This collection of downloadable templates provides great ideas for using Excel spreadsheets to create timelines across the curriculum. Visit the resource links for timeline content and interactive timeline tools.
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| Blog Basics for the Classroom | Grades 0 to 12 | TeachersFirst | |
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This comprehensive article gives all the details on using gated blogs safely in the classroom, including explanations of blogging basics, a TeachersFirst Step-by-Step on how to start one, complete reviews of several free blogging tools for teachers, and over two dozen ideas for how to use a blog with your students. Make "writing to learn" approachable and exciting. Don't miss the specially-honored TeachersFirst Class Blogs. You could use this step by step as the framework for a self-directed or "buddy" professional development project. Share it with your principal or professional development coordinator. |
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| Bloom's and ICT Tools | Grades 0 to 12 | Educational Origami | |
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Save this site in your TeachersFirst favorites! Keep the page handy as you develop new lesson ideas in the 21st century. Use this site as you create rubrics with project choices for students. This site lists MANY ideas of how to incorporate this site (and its ideas) into your classroom. If you teach teachers-to-be or mentor new teachers, help them envision technology as a real tool for learning instead of "fun." |
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| Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally | Grades 0 to 12 | Andrew Churches in Technology and Learning online edition | |
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This single web page is a treasure for any teacher who includes technology as a teaching tool. This listing, a taxonomy of technology tasks, provides a way to analyze and evaluate your uses of technology and the assignments you give to students, using the new Blooms as a taxonomy to analyze technology tasks. Before you plan an electronic activity or form your expectations, take a moment to look at what you are really asking your students to do. Have you pushed them beyond simple comprehension? Is there another way to do the task that will develop higher order thinking? Have you planned a sequence to move from lower to higher level thinking? Do your students' projects reflect more than fact-spitting and really CREATE..or does the glitz disguise a lotta LOTS? Since few teachers today ever experienced learning with technology, this page provides a new vision in deceptively simple form. Keep this page handy as you develop new lesson ideas in the 21st century. If you teach teachers-to-be or mentor new teachers, help them envision technology as a real tool instead of "fun." This is a MUST-have Favorite. |
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| Boolify | Grades 4 to 12 | Public Learning Media Lab | |
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Demystify effective web searches with Boolify! Finally, there is a tool to SHOW what changes to search terms do, in dynamic, visual form so students can SEE both terms and results graphically. Students can drag and drop color-coded puzzle pieces to add keywords and Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT. The search results are immediate and help students understand their results by visually illustrating the logic of their search. Each change to the search instantly changes the results. The search results are presented through Google's "Safe Search STRICT" technology, but like all search results, no filtering technology is 100% secure.
Use this site as a whole class research activity with an interactive whiteboard or projector. Students can volunteer key words, select operators, and see the search results. Grab screen shots of effective search term combinations and post them on bulletin boards as great examples of Boolean logic – add the students’ names for recognition of a job well done.
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| Bouncing Tennis Balls | Grades 6 to 8 | NCTM | |
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| Brainslider | Grades 8 to 12 | Hoadworks, Inc. | |
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| Bubbabrain | Grades 0 to 12 | Bubbabrain | |
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Looking for interactive review activities for your subject area? Use Bubbabrain's vast array of activities created for many levels and subjects. Registration is not required to play. When Game ID is checked (this is the automatic default for the site,) you choose a level ranging from Elementary to College (be sure to click the circle in the appropriate grade level) and then choose a subject area from the drop down box at your level. Subject areas vary by grade level and may include: telling time, government, family and consumer science, world languages, sociology, technology, and countless others.
Use these activities for review of concepts or terminology with your class on specific topics/subjects. Wish there were a review game for a missing topic? Request a teacher ID, and have groups of students create the questions. Enter the information for the game and students can review by playing their game or one created by another group. Share the student-created games on your interactive whiteboard or projector. |
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| Build a Scarecrow | Grades 1 to 2 | PBS | |
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| Building a School Web Site | Grades 7 to 12 | Wanda Wigglebits | |
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This is a well-written tutorial introducing HTML, site design, server issues, and many other topics. If you're interested in building your own site, or even if you just want to try a sample HTML page, this tutorial has both the detail and the tone to help. Privately published.
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| Building Learners Project | Grades 2 to 12 | TeachersFirst and TRIntuition | |
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Follow the progress of 100 TeachersFirst members as they collaborate and use a safe web2.0 tool with the support of the tool developer and TeachersFirst's teacher-friendly team. The 100 participants receive free, premium pilot accounts to use TRintuition’s workBench and our support to help them build learners in their classrooms. These accounts allow teachers and students to create online collaborative projects using the workBench’s visually-rich and user-friendly tools, possibly even collaborating with classes from other schools. Teachers who wish to join the project should read the details and sign-up from the blog. Learn more about the TRIntuition workBench from the TeachersFirst Edge review of this tool. |
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| Buying a Dream Car | Grades 9 to 12 | Microsoft | |
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| Camp Silos – From Native Prairie to Present, Our Agricultural Heritage | Grades 0 to 12 | Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area | |
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This web site is perfect for combining students' love of technology with standards in science, history, technology, information literacy and language arts. Especially unique are the interactive scavenger hunts and virtual field trips that allow students to step "out of the classroom." Partner students on computers for the scavenger hunt or take a virtual field trip together on a projector. |
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| Catch the leaves! | Grades 1 to 2 | Up To Ten | |
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| Children's Way WoogiWorld | Grades 0 to 5 | WoogiWorld | |
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Look around this website for a wealth of information to use in your classroom. Consider including an Internet safety tip of the week in your newsletter or classroom blog. This program does not necessarily need to be done school-wide, but can be enjoyed individually. Parents will need to sign up their own children to participate. Put this link on your homepage, even if your school is not participating as a whole. |
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| Cinco de Mayo Webquest | Grades 2 to 3 | Cheryl J. Cox | |
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Students will learn about the history of Cinco de Mayo and the Hispanic culture on this WebQuest. In groups of four, they work through seven different activities involving web research. Activities range from answering questions to making a piñata to sampling Mariachi music (some of the music links were not working at the time of this review). A list of books on Cinco de Mayo is also included. Be sure to visit the Teachers' Link. Have cooperative learning groups explore this site (and the activities) together. |
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| CIPA Children, and Privacy | Grades 1 to 12 | American Library Association | |
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The American Library Association’s ongoing coverage of the multiple privacy, access, and protection issues surrounding the Children’s Internet Protection Act offers a very thorough look at both the ethical and practical problems librarians confront on a daily basis. There are also examples of how local libraries – academic and public – are coping with these issues.
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| Citebite | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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TeachersFirst Edge entry: for slightly adventurous technology users. Imagine being able to give students (or parents)an exact link to a specific quote within a web page. This TeachersFirst Edge tool does exactly that. Why would you want to? Perhaps you want to send students to a certain paragraph for an activity: for reading comprehension, for reading a specific portion of text, or even for highlighting a literary device within a text or poem. Students will no longer waste time, announcing, "I can't find it!" or return to school saying they couldn't do the homework! No membership or cost required. Tool can be used in less than 30 seconds. Skills needed: Open TWO windows in Internet Explorer or any web browser. One should be open to citebite; the other to the web page you wish to reference. On that web page, locate and "highlight" the exact passage of text you want to "send" people to see. Copy/paste the passage into the quotation box at Citebite (copy, then change windows). Return to the target web page and copy/paste its actual URL into Citebite. Click "Make Citebite." Copy/paste the new url, indicated after "Your citebite link is:" Note: if the original quote is within a FLASH presentation, it will not copy/paste or generate a Citebite. See this example of a Citebite link to a tip about TeachersFirst Edge tools: http://pages.citebite.com/b1j4l1j7o0ndu
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| Combined Strategy for Internet Safety | Grades 0 to 12 | PTA | |
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This site contains a very brief summary of current issues concerning students and Internet usage. It provides current acronyms for Internet terminology, AUP's (Acceptable Use Policies) and discussion starters for parents who are interested in discussing Internet issues and responsibilities with children.
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| Common Craft | Grades 0 to 12 | Common Craft Productions | |
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Start by looking at "Most Viewed" and "Most Popular Right Now," but don't be afraid to search for other topics that have you wondering. You will definitely want to make this site a Favorite and tag is as "professional" information to keep you informed. Share it on your teacher web page to help out your parents, too! |
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| Common Sense Media | Grades 1 to 12 | Common Sense Media Inc. | |
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This site has current movie reviews from the parents' point of view: What current movies are appropriate? What ages are they appropriate for? In addition to current films, there are reviews of TV programs, new DVD's, games, websites, books, music, etc. The site uses its own rating system: "Appropriate for age," "Know your kid," and "Not appropriate for age." Along with written reviews and Q/A approaches, there are video clips and tips. Each category of entertainment has several recommended and reviewed items with age ranges. There is also a newsletter and in-depth articles on subjects of concern to kids and parents. Let your students' parents know about this site via your teacher web page or class newsletter. You may also want to share it with your school PTO or PTA. |
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| Complying with the Children's Internet Protection Act | Grades 1 to 12 | State of Wisconsin | |
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A summary of the steps which schools, libraries, and similar institutions must take to comply with this act's security provisions. A useful guide to librarians, administrators, or those developing web content for young people. Developed by the state of Wisconsin.
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| Computer Tutor | Grades 0 to 12 | BBC | |
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Share this site with your students with limited computer experience. This site would also be useful for young students learning the basics. We encounter fewer and fewer students with NO computer experience these days, but those who have had no exposure can feel quite “different.” You may want to simply mark this one in your Favorites for times when you encounter students (or even parents?) who need the help. Consider allowing them to access the site with a knowledgeable helper-buddy who will NOT grab the mouse but will be encouraging. |
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| ConnectSafely | Grades 0 to 12 | Tech Parenting Group | |
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This site is a discussion-opener on safe use of the "social web." Some of the tools included are social networking sites, virtual worlds, chat, cell phones, video-sharing, and more. There are tips and advice for just about any medium kids and adults use today, as well as discussion forums where parents can ask questions and share information. Each article and advice section can be emailed at the click of a mouse. You can also download and share printable version (site creators do ask that you not modify them and that you simply tell them if you do download and share). While some posts may not represent your point of view, the important thing is to open dialog. Include this link on your teacher or school web page for parents to access as part of a plan to work together. Consider using it as a hub for an evening discussion session with parents and students in a "round table" to air concerns and work together. Simply blocking or ignoring these tools is not educating or helping our kids. We want our students to grow into safe and responsible citizens both online and in person. If your school can involve and inform parents and students, you will have a better likelihood of using the new tools of the web in productive classroom settings, as well. |
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| Copyright and Fair Use | Grades 1 to 12 | TeachersFirst | |
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This is a collection of resources to help teachers and computer users understand the application of copyright and fair use laws to their work. Try these resources if you're unsure about how copyrighted materials can be used in the classroom. |
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| Copyright Bay | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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Here's a whimsical look at copyright that may be useful for those who need an entire tutorial on the topic. If you're looking for quick answers to specific questions, there are better sites than this, but it works well for a general overview.
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| Copyright Kids | Grades 3 to 6 | ||
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Copyright Kids is a copyright primer created expressly for students. It provides a structured introduction to various aspects of copyright and their implications for students, especially those using the web for research projects. This one could be a great classroom reference or an integral element of a unit on copyright issues.
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| Copyright with Cyberbee | Grades 2 to 12 | Cyberbee | |
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This highly interactive explanation of copyright laws helps students recognize and understand their responsibility in citing sources. Use as an introduction or refresher before assigning research projects. The site also contains teacher resources and tips on explaining copyright issues.
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| Creative Curio: The Color Wheel and Color Theory | Grades 5 to 12 | Lauren | |
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This blog post, written by a graphic designer, shares ideas and basics about color theory in very user-friendly language. The full blog holds many other ideas on graphic design principles, as well. Note to teachers: there are links to off-topic posts, but the discussions of design principles apply to web pages, print projects, 2D artwork, and more. There are also posts and discussions about computer design programs such as InDesign and Quark. Whether you teach art or advise the school newspaper, this "real world" blog by a professional can help students make connections between theory and authentic tasks. With younger students, share the discussion on an interactive whiteboard or projector to teach basic color terminology in art class, then have them design their own color schemes for a traditional art project, class wiki (great for portfolio sharing), or multimedia project in PowerPoint. You could even use basic shapes and colors on the whiteboard to create and "drag and drop" color swatches to illustrate the ideas. Middle and high school student groups could use this blog as a reference in designing brochures or web pages or critiquing publications in print or on the web. Have students take "screenshots" of web pages and analyze the colors used, posting the images and analysis to a wiki. Better yet, have more techie-students embed web content such as flickr photos within their wiki and analyze it in a caption below the "live" content. Assign an authentic graphic design task such as some of those mentioned in this blog. Teachers of advanced art students will want to share this link on their class web page for students to access both in and out of class as a reference and discussion starter. |
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| Critical Evaluation of a Web Page | Grades 6 to 8 | Kathy Schrock | |
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Use this lesson as an introduction to an Internet-based research project, Web hunt, or WebQuest. |
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| CSDSmarties | Grades 0 to 8 | Rachel Carter, Lisa, Linda | |
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Find ideas for your own classroom at this site. Save this site in your favorites, and check back frequently, as new material is added. Then try the lessons yourself. Don’t be shy about commenting back on the blog, but be sure to tell them you found them on TeachersFirst! |
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| Cyber Angels | Grades 1 to 12 | Cyber Angels | |
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This award-winning site focuses on Internet safety. Advertised as being the "the country's leading specialist on cyber crimes" (Boston Globe. March 10, 2000), the site offers downloadable guides of different levels for parents and students, training for schools, and a variety of information about how to protect oneself against cyber crime. There are downloadable student and parent Internet user agreements, brochures,and tip sheets. Some areas of the site are still being developed. As you start any class activity that uses the Internet, refer to the basics you learn from this site. Even if your school "teaches" Internet safety in another class, YOU need to reinforce it every time you have students online so they realize the universal importance of safety principles -- even with older teens. |
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| Cybersitter | Grades 1 to 12 | Ziff Davis | |
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| Cybersmart | Grades 0 to 12 | Australian Government/ACMA | |
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Share the activities with your students on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students work in cooperative learning groups to investigate various parts of this site. Challenge students to create online posters about internet safety on paper or do it together as a class using a tool such as Project Poster (reviewed here or PicLits (reviewed here. Or use another online poster creator, such as Wallwisher, (reviewed here). You may also want to share this link with parents via your class web page. |
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| Cybersmart Curriculum | Grades 0 to 12 | McGraw – Hill | |
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If you are teaching your students about Internet safety, cyberbullying, Web 2.0 terminology, and more, be sure to check out this site. If you are looking for a full "ready to go" lesson plan or a quick activity to use, you will find something here. |
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| Daily Grind | Grades 1 to 12 | Mr. McNamar | |
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This site offers one of the more articulate "teacher blogs" - usually interesting, seldom trivial, yet rarely whiny or preachy. Teachers who sometimes yearn for someone who can put things back in focus will often find this English teacher's posts helpful. This is an example of a blog for personal, rather than class use, with the intended audience being adults.
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| Dance Mat Typing | Grades 2 to 6 | BBC | |
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| Digital Vaults | Grades 3 to 12 | National Archives | |
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Use this site as an anticipatory set for a unit in history or on inventions. Share a collection of images or invention drawings on a projector or whiteboard and ask what the invention will do. Or use the site as the starting point for individual or group projects. After demonstrating on an interactive whiteboard or projector, have students use laptops or lab computers to "collect" resources related to their assigned inventor, decade, or era in American history. Check your school policy regarding accessing student email. 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. Students can use their log-ins to collect resources. |
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| DimDim | Grades 0 to 12 | DimDim, Inc. | |
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Skills needed: You should be comfortable exploring this website to see which features are free versus which features are offered for a fee. A fast connection for your computer is advantageous as you watch the various videos to learn about the site. After viewing the tutorials, why not experiment with friends or colleagues before embarking on a prestigious seminar. It is easy to use, however, the more you get acquainted with it, the easier it will be. You will need to impart knowledge of how to use this tool when setting up a conference with parents or colleagues.
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| Dr. Watson | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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Avoid the frustration of sending students to a site populated by dead links. Just enter a URL into this handy online and let it check to see if there are any broken text or image links on the page. Dr. Watson will also spell check a site, generate Word counts, and compute download speeds.
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| Easy Test Maker | Grades 1 to 12 | EasyTestMaker | |
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Use this handy online tool to generate tests using a variety of formats - multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true and false, short answers, and more. Just complete a free registration, then start creating and customizing your assessment. Follow the prompts to select font size and style, choose a format, enter each question and answer, and print the test and answer key. Your tests are saved online and can be easily accessed or edited from anywhere.
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| Eight Steps to Information Literacy | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This is a great guide for teachers interested in getting their students to use the web and related technologies creatively. You'll find a step-by-step process that lets students get organized before heading off on a project and encourages them to sort through their results before building a project. Great backgrounder for teachers getting started with web research.
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| Electric Teacher | Grades 1 to 12 | Cathleen Chamberlain | |
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This is a nice collection of on-line tutorials and related information on software frequently used in schools. The author has clearly "been there - done that." If you'd like to do more with the programs on your computer, start here.
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| Electronic Emissary | Grades 1 to 12 | College of William and Mary | |
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Have you ever wished that you had an expert to turn to when undertaking a challenging unit or lesson? Imagine a professor from Yale volunteering to work with your students. This free, web-based mentoring service does just that by bringing teachers and students in contact with experienced mentors in a variety of subject areas. Curriculum-based interactions take place via email, web forum, chat and teleconferencing and can range in length from 6-weeks to an entire school year, depending on the needs and interests of the students. The website includes summaries of completed Electronic Emissary learning projects, and information on how to get involved with the program as a mentor, student, or teacher.
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| Elementary Language Arts | Grades 0 to 5 | BCISD | |
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Many of these activities are perfect for your interactive whiteboards! These lessons are ready to go. Use the activities that are useful in your classroom to integrate technology into your Language Arts lessons. |
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| Elementary Mathematics | Grades 0 to 5 | BCISD | |
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Use these interactive lesson plans to combine technology and math for your class. Many of the activities are perfect for use on an interactive whiteboard. |
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| Elementary Social Studies | Grades 0 to 5 | BCISD | |
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This site offers wonderful lesson plans. Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these free and ready to go activities. There are printables, interactives, discussion topics, assessments and many other resources that are useful in any elementary social studies class. |
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| Ergonomics Simplified | Grades 7 to 12 | CergoS | |
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This plain-vanilla site explains the importance of good ergonomics in setting up computers for students. The information is presented clearly with a focus on creating a cost-effective method of constructing a computer setup that won't contort your students without. If you're responsible for any student's use of a computer, this is information you should know. Share this site with the educational technology staff at your school to ensure that your school's computer lab encourages good ergonomics. |
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| Every Stock Photo | Grades 0 to 12 | everystockphoto.com | |
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Find images to use in your classroom multimedia productions, on your web page, or on bulletin boards without violating copyright. Help your students find images to include in their own products. This site is a tool to search the web for photos with "Creative Commons" rights. This means that many are free and ask only that you let the photographer know where you are usng the photo. Some are NOT free. Note: YOU MUST read the rights and permissions information that accompanies each image, since the photographer sets his/her own requirements. The intent of the site is to share photos in an open, easily-searchable environment, but in accordance with these requirements. Help your students learn about copyright by SHOWING them the rights sections and modeling compliance. The search tool is easy to use. Use photos from this site in your PowerPoint shows, web page, blog, etc, but be sure to stop and mention where you found them and the thinking/reading you did to be sure you were in compliance with the rights granted. If you suggest the site for student use, model this process on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Then hold students accountable for demonstrating that they have done the same (make it a part of your project rubric). These concepts of copyright are challenging for young students (below about grade 4. You may want to "collect" some photos for their use and save them locally for them to choose from until they are ready to understand the more difficult rights issues. |
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| Figurative Language | Grades 3 to 5 | Teachersfirst | |
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| Find a Wi-Fi Location | Grades 6 to 12 | WiFi411 | |
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If you’re looking to stay connected while studying or on the road, this site allows users to search for wireless internet (Wi-Fi) connections by state, city, and country. Whether you’re looking for a bookstore, coffee shop, or hotel with wireless capabilities, this is a good place to start your search.
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| Finding Information on the Internet | Grades 8 to 12 | UC Berkeley | |
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This online tutorial provides students, teachers, and parents with guidance and up-to-date information on understanding search engines, using search strategies, evaluating Web sites, and citing resources. There is A LOT of information here, but it is organized into manageable subdivisions that teachers and librarians will find useful. It’s fairly high-powered content, so sift through it to isolate those specific gems that your students will need before they jump into a research project.
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| Fine Tuna | Grades 4 to 12 | Spoiltchild Design | |
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Teachers First Edge review: for ANY user able to COPY and PASTE a URL. Add annotations to ANY image and share the combined image and notes by URL using this simple online tool. Imagine being able to comment on an advertisement image, critique a work of art, or even explain propaganda techniques found in online images or sales sites. You can upload an image (such as a shot from a digital camera) or use one already on the web. Help develop students' critical eye by using this tool and sharing the annotated images by email or by URL. Here is a sample annotated web image created by the TeachersFirst editors. Recipients of shared images can reply and add comments of their own. No membership required. No special skills needed except knowing how to find an image on your computer for upload or how to find the URL of a web image. Just RIGHT-click the web image to find its direct URL ("Properties,""Get info," or "copy image location," depending on your computer). COPY (CTRL+C) the URL, and you are ready to paste it (CTRL+V) into Fine Tuna to add your commentary. Be sure to SAVE each addition, whether note, insert, or drawing element, then click "Send for review" to email or copy the exact URL. Tip: Be SURE to save completed URLs for finished work into a document or mark them in favorites for later access. It may be wise to also email them to yourself (or the teacher). Once you share and close the image, the only way to "find" that URL is in the web browser history on the computer where you viewed it (IF you can find it!). |
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| Flash card maker | Grades 2 to 10 | American Girl | |
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Enter your own questions/answers or words/meanings in this flash card maker. Options include being able to print them out or study them online. Learning support teachers will love this option to encourage study skills. A good study-at-home option for you to show your students! Be sure to read the "Take Note" message regarding the required plug-ins and cookie enabling for this site to work. |
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| Flickr | Grades 5 to 12 | Flickr | |
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TeachersFirst Edge entry: for the more adventurous technology user. This site allows you to upload and share images in an online location. It is not specifically an education site, so it has the drawback of possibly including "inappropriate" content. As a teaching tool, you can upload picture collections and "tag" them with a unique keyword so students can access them for various activities, such as creating sequenced "comic strips," making annotated posters, including photos in blogs, and other electronic projects. This is a great way to make the photos accessible for the students to use. Note: use the DIRECT URL to the specifically-tagged photos ("photosynthesisproject") or create a collection for each project. Join the site for free (and make sure you turn OFF all the "send me emails" features). Place photos online for all the projects you expect to do with students. They will remain in place for future years. If you wish to, remove them from "public" viewing when you do not need them. Note: You MUST be the actual copyright holder to upload photos to this site, so use your digital camera, NOT downloaded photos from the web! Skills needed: taking and saving digital pictures, location and upload of photo files, "tagging" them so students can a find them, copying the URL of the tagged group or of the collection, changing the attributes of your uploaded pictures, finding other tools on TeachersFirst or elsewhere to use the photos. |
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| From Cave Art to Your Art | Grades 5 to 12 | Sanford | |
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Demonstrate the skills and steps on an interactive whiteboard or projector, or simply allow your "digital native" students to work through the directions. Since no two computers are alike, it is strongly recommended that you or a student-assistant try a "practice run" to make sure your computers have all the right plug-ins and permissions. Then watch your students go to town!
Share the products on a projector or burn them to CD. We were unable to find information on the site about copyright and whether you have permission to share them on a web page.
This is a TeachersFirst Edge entry, though it is not difficult to use. Skills needed: drag and drop video elements, follow directions in Help, downloading files, unzipping and saving (directions provided) |
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| Fun Photo Box | Grades 0 to 12 | FunPhotoBox | |
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Teachers First Edge Review: For somewhat adventurous technology users. Create amazing photo effects, animations, magazine covers, and more with this free site. Choose the effect, upload a picture, and save to your computer for use anywhere. Ads appear throughout this site. Be sure to warn students to only use the tabs along the top and choose the photo effects under each tab. Skills needed: Users need to be able to find and upload a photo on their computer or find the direct URL of an image on the Internet. Younger students would need a lot of assistance navigating this site. Adjust the picture using the easy to use tools (experiment to master them). Once the effect has been applied, you need to know where you are saving the picture and how to give it a meaningful file name to be found later.
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| Gajitz Science | Grades 6 to 12 | Gajitz | |
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See remarkable and astounding scientific discoveries and inventions on this amazing site. Categories of science include Earth and Nature, Energy and Power, Medical Marvels, New Materials, Quantum Leaps, Space and Time, Science Fiction, and Weird Science. Young scientists will be amazed, engineers inspired, and even the disinterested will find accomplishments to make them curious. Even middle school girls will find something that they like about science on this site. There is some advertising, but the science images and information outweigh it. Share selected discoveries or a science-in-real-life scenario at least weekly on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Watch the site for real world examples of your current unit or award extra credit to students who lurk on this site to find such connections. Just as your social studies colleagues assign students to write up a current event each week, you can assign students to write a blog post or brief explanation of a recent find on your class wiki. Be sure to include this link on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class, and be sure to include it in your emergency sub plans for students to find and explain an accomplishment of a real scientist found here. If you do a unit on science careers, this is a definite source for student projects. Why not have students create a Glog on a branch of science that interests them after exploring this site? Read a review of Glogster here. |
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| Get Net Wise | Grades 0 to 12 | Internet Education Foundation | |
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This is a great compilation of information on internet safety, covering many hot topics including safety for your children, protecting your personal information, stopping unsolicited email, and keeping your computer safe. The section on Safety for Children is especially appropriate for parents of school age children and includes an Internet Safety Guide, Tools for Families, a place to report problem sites and occurrences, and further web sites for children. Computer literacy teachers and those responsible for teaching INternet safety in any course will find the information wuite helpful. Sections are divided by age-ranges so information is age-appropriate. Share this site in your classroom newsletter or on your teacher web page to help parents protect their children, themselves, and their computers. Some of the safety information is directly aplicable in your classroom technology-based lessons, as well. |
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| GetTech | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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| Glogster EDU | Grades 0 to 12 | Glogster | |
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Skills needed: Join the site (free). Premium service will be available in the future, but this review is for the free version. Registration requires teacher email. Once registered and confirmed by email, teachers can establish up to 200 student accounts without student emails. Take time to view "new glogs" within the EDU area to get some ideas. Skip making a profile, if you wish.
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| Grades 2 to 12 | |||
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Use this most-popular search engine because it ranks results by a unique combination of popularity and reputability, making the most reputable/popular sites appear in the first page of results. Don't stop there, however. Learn to use the Advanced searching tools, such as searching for definitions (add definition to your search terms), or even a timeline display of results, where applicable. If you ask students to research a person or any topic that has chronological elements, such as a historical event, an arts movement, a biography, an author, etc, add view:timeline as an additional search term, as in thomas edison inventions view:timeline . Try it! For more Google tricks, do a TeachersFirst keyword search on google for other resources and ideas for using Google. |
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| Google Calculator | Grades 5 to 12 | ||
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Don't have a calculator handy? Check out this tip sheet that details Google's built-in calculation feature. In addition to basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, the tool can also compute advanced math functions, convert one set of units to another, and perform calculations using built-in constants.
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| Google Docs | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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TF Edge entry: If you have not heard about them, Google's online collaboration tools are a must for slightly adventurous technology users and for those in schools where students are allowed to log into their own accounts for web services. With Google Docs, users can create, edit, reformat, upload, and share documents they've created in WORD or other office applications. They can also look at their editing history. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets with anyone or with a selected group. Groups share editing capabilities, making collaboration much easier. Users can publish newly created, uploaded, downloaded, or revised documents and spreadsheets as well as making links to them on personal blogs. Easy directions and familiar-looking pages make exporting and importing documents simple; Google also helps users keep them organized. A "tour" and simple to understand directions make this site easy to use. Have your students set up collaborative groups for projects, lab data, and more. Or set them up yourself, giving them specific passwords to access their "space." Skills needed: join Google Docs, take the tour, experiment with collaboration tools, upload and download files. |
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| Google Earth | Grades 3 to 12 | ||
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While it requires an internet network connection and installation of the software, Google Earth is one of the slickest geography teaching tools to come along in many years. Want to see Washington and L. A.? No problem. Want to navigate from London to Liberia? Just click. This site's ability to combine satellite imagery and map data gives it huge possibiliites as a teaching tool. Teachers can store "placemarkers," then project the site in the classroom, "flying" from point to point during a lesson. If you teach geography, this one's well worth the time required to master it. Requires a free download, but it's great fun. It is also a great option to give context to literary and current events locations so they become "real."
It is worthwhile to explore some of the bulletin boards for users who have already stored placemarkers you might use, such as the locations of all the Shakespeare plays! |
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| Google Guide | Grades 5 to 12 | ||
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Google has pulled together descriptions of how to use some of the new features available by just using the search box. In addition to searching and finding driving directions, users can now check arrival times, do math problems, check the routes of packages, see travel conditions, obtain stock quotes, get definitions and more. At the bottom of the page, searchers can link to more shortcut offerings, including Google Guide's Cheat Sheet and Google Guide's Coffee page. Show your students how to quickly find definitions and do simple math problems in an instant! |
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| Google Language Tools | Grades 4 to 12 | ||
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This Google feature allows international or ESL/ELL students to search for specifically designated pages (i.e., newspapers) in their own languages (i.e., French or Swahili) produced in specific countries (Ivory Coast or Kenya). Options include setting the interface to any language, getting on-the-spot translation, and also viewing the home country Google interface (i.e., www.google.cg – Republique du Congo) without having to import language scripts for the computer. Could be used as an exciting tool in the foreign language classroom! You may have to talk to your network adiministrator on filtered school district networks, if they have blocked translation tools to prevent students from "doing" assignments via these tools. This is a challenging choice to make: enable cheating vs. enabling a valuable learning tool. |
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| Google Maps | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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Google Maps simplifies planning a trip, showing a map, or any of several other tasks. This makes it a great tool for teaching geography concepts, because you can plan a lesson using local data and landmarks. Best of all, you can zoom our and see how your neighborhood fits into the rest of the world - even zoom from one place to another. It's a free site, and it requires no downloading. If you teach geography, this one's a must. It is also helpful for showing students WHERE a story or news event takes place. Type or paste in an address and click "search maps." If you click Satellite or hybird versions of the map, you will see actual satellite images of the terrain
Teach map skills by showing students their own community. Zoom in on their street or on the school. This site and its more sophisticated cousin, Google Earth, are great on an interactive whiteboard. Unlike Google Earth, Google Maps does not require software installation. |
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| Gridcosm | Grades 6 to 12 | SITO | |
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Share selected images on a projector as writing prompts or to open a "what is art" discussion. You could also use the images simply as examples of montages before a hands-on project, though this approach misses the clickable depths of each image. Teachers should be aware that this site does not limit image content, so some nudity may occasionally appear in the images. Check you art program's guidleines for such images and/or maintain teacher control over which ones are shown in class, if this will be a problem in your shcool. |
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| Guide to Effective Internet Searching | Grades 1 to 12 | Bright Planet | |
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Even the best of search engines can return frustrating results if your search strategy isn’t right. Subtitled "Deep Content," this site offers an extensively detailed guide to Internet search strategies and techniques. While there’s enough detail here for serious academic research, the essentials of this site would make a great introduction to web searching for secondary students.
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| Help Teens Be Savvy Surfers | Grades 6 to 12 | American Library Association | |
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A great resource for teachers to use with technology-wild students who need to use solid evaluation criteria to ground their internet usage decisions. You can print out the file as a handout or use the links as part of an activity prior to starting a research project. |
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| High School Mathematics | Grades 9 to 12 | BCISD | |
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Do yourself a favor and check out this free website when planning your high school math, business, or "life in the real world" classes. Get your interactive whiteboards or projectors ready to utilize these complete activities. |
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| High School Science | Grades 9 to 12 | BCISD | |
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Do yourself a favor and check out this free website when planning your high school science lessons. Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these ready-to-go activities. |
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| High School Special Education | Grades 9 to 12 | BCISD | |
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The portfolio idea is a great one for documenting student progress and involving them in the process. If you work with special ed students, consider expanding this lesson plan into an ongoing portfolio throughout the high school years. The portfolio could also be useful for transition planning, as the student can show accomplishments to potential employers to explain job skills. |
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| History of Recording Technology | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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The design of this privately developed site shows its age, but users will find abundant content and visuals here. It just takes a little work. The site covers the evolution of technologies ranging from the earliest wax recordings to today’s DVDs. Along the way, users can learn about the people and processes that have helped sound and video recording develop. Teachers may want to guide their students’ use of this site. This site is a little text-heavy, but would be a great way to show the progression of the music industry over the modern era. Share this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector as an introduction to this unit or as review. |
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| History of the World Wide Web | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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This is a chronological history of the World Wide Web intended primarily for programmers, marketers, and people who earn their living working with the web. Parts of the history may be useful in explaining web behaviors, or they might be helpful to a student researching the web for a class project. This site could be used to supplement a class about technology, or a class on the history of communication. If assigning research projects, this would be a great reference to provide for students. Note: the site seems to be under a lot of construction, so verify that it is in working order before providing it to students. |
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| Homework High | Grades 5 to 11 | Channel 4 | |
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Students – ages 11 to 16 - can solicit the help of a virtual librarian on this British site that offers an "Ask Jeeves" style of homework assistance. A teacher-monitored live advice session is offered during evening hours (U.K. time - roughly 2pm-5pm Eastern time). While this site does not have all of the answers, and the search method can be a bit awkward (correct spelling is a must!), it is still useful as a resource to point students in the right direction when they need more information about a topic. Bookmark this site on your classroom computer or suggest that parents make it available to their children as an at-home reference. |
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| How Everyday Things Are Made | Grades 6 to 12 | Stanford University | |
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Try this one as an add-on for an inventions or technologies unit, or take a “slice” as a science illustration. |
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| How Things Work – CD Players | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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It’s all text, but this description from a physics professor at the University of Virginia should remove all doubt about how your CD player makes music. Try this one as a supplement to an inventions unit or a discussion of digital recording.
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| Hyperstaffs | Grades 1 to 10 | Staffordshire University | |
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| I Keep Safe | Grades 0 to 12 | I Keep Safe Internet Safety Coalition | |
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Teachers, plan professional development using the free videos at this site. Perhaps on Parents' Night, you can showcase internet safety using the wonderful, engaging resources located at this site. Or encourage your PTO/PTA to host an Internet Safety evening for all parents.
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| Ideas Wisconsin | Grades 0 to 12 | University of Wisconsin System | |
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Check here for well-developed lesson plans for a specific topic you'd like to teach. Or scroll through the offerings for your grade level and subject. Complete directions for each lesson plan will guide you through how you can use it in the classroom. Share the interactive or photos on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Save this site in your favorites to visit often for some new ways to freshen up the content in your class. |
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| Identifying High Quality Sites | Grades 5 to 8 | CyberSmart! | |
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| Identifying High Quality Web Sites | Grades 6 to 8 | Cybersmart | |
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| in Bflat 2.0 | Grades 3 to 12 | Darren Solomon from Science for Girls | |
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Test this site to be sure you can open it at school. Then turn up your speakers and open this site on a projector or -- even better -- interactive whiteboard to begin a music class, discuss key signatures, pitch, or instrumentation, and allow students to mix and remix their choice of sounds in harmonious blend. In science class, use the various sounds and an oscilloscope to teach about sound waves and the physical nature of sound. Challenge your musically gifted students to create a very simple version of this musical "machine" by recording and embedding videos of their own in a class music and technology wiki. Upload the videos to a school-friendly site such as SchoolTube reviewed here or TeacherTube reviewed here to avoid filtering issues. Set up a simpler face-to-face option by allowing student "conductors" to "turn on and off" multiple instruments and objects in your music classroom all playing the same pitch. |
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| Intellectual Property in the Information Age - A Classroom Guide to Copyright | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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This site from the University of San Francisco offers a review of copyright dos and don'ts for classroom activities. Users will learn what they can and cannot do with copyrighted works, including resources found on the web. Good introduction for those planning a web project or interested in using web materials in their classes.
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| International Society for Technology in Education | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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International Society for Technology in Education promotes appropriate uses of technology to support and improve teaching and learning.
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| International Technology Education Association (ITEA) | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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The International Technology Education Association (ITEA) is the professional organization for technology, innovation, design, and engineering educators. Their mission is to promote technological literacy for all by supporting the teaching of technology and promoting the professionalism of those engaged in this pursuit. ITEA strengthens the profession through state and national legislative efforts, professional development, membership services, publications, and classroom activities.
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| Internet Blocking in Public Schools- A Study on Internet Access | Grades 1 to 12 | Electronic Freedom Foundation | |
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| Internet for Classrooms: Online Practice Module: Microsoft PowerPoint | Grades 2 to 12 | Susan Brooks and Bill Byles | |
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Are you wondering how to incorporate more technology into your classroom or have your students use it well? This is a good site for basics on using PowerPoint. It has exercises for both the teacher and the students, as well as student project assignments. PowerPoint can be a powerful tool if it is not overused, and it is a simple technology even young students can use for projects. This "how-to" site stays up to date with new information as new versions of PowerPoint appear. The tutorials build in difficulty, so there is always a new skill you and your students can learn wehn you need it. Not only is this site full of actual examples you can use with students, it also has a wide variety of links to other PowerPoint sources, including some completed shows you can download and use. Share it as a reference on your teacher web site or mark it as a Favorite on TeachersFirst so you can find those tips easily when you need them. |
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| Internet Safety Education Foundation | Grades 3 to 12 | ||
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Share this resource with parents at open house or conferences. They will thank you for it! |
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| Introduction to Web 2.0 | Grades 9 to 12 | Joshua Porter | |
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MySpace, Xanga, FaceBook, Moodle, blogs, Flickr, wikis, podcasts, and more! Is geek-speak Greek to you? If you have not heard the term yet, you will soon: Web 2.0 is the term for the new generation of web-based collaborative tools and other uses of the web. Your students use them in MySpace and Xanga, but these are just two small pieces of a much larger picture. If you are technology-curious or want to know what your students are talking about, take the time to read this explanation by one of the movers and shakers of web 2.0. The discussion includes some tech jargon and some of tuhe underlying philosophy behind it--not a "light" read in some spots, but it makes sense. The page is actually created with one of web 2.0's tools: Squidoo. Read for your own professional knowledge to stay ahead of the tech game, or share this site with mystified-but-curious parents and administrators, as well.You could even assign your computer students, tech ed classes, or techie students to use this site as a reference for a research project on the future of the web. Gifted classes would find it particulaly useful. The reading and conceptual level is definitely hgh school to adult. |
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| Inventing Entertainment - the Edison Recordings | Grades 6 to 12 | Library of Congress | |
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Much of the content in this Library of Congress site about Thomas Edison and his phonographs is beyond the scope of middle schoolers. However, there are sound recordings from the original machines that let students listen to the product of Edison's work, and the basic biographical information will be useful for those studying inventors. Explore this one in some depth; there's a lot here. Download some of the sounds and recordings from the database, and use them as part of a learning center during a unit on Inventions & Inventors. Have students listen to the recordings (make sure to include headphones) on classroom computers, writing a short reflection afterwards about what they heard and what their impression was. Students could also compare and contrast the quality of the recordings, noting the vast differences in technology between then and now. This would be a very interesting resource for a US history classroom! |
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| Inventing Modern America: Invention Connection | Grades 4 to 10 | The Lemelson - MIT Program | |
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Use this wonderful resource during your inventions/inventors units. This activity helps students to understand the connections between numerous inventions and forces then to think about unusual commonalities between unlike objects. This invention activity is perfect for an interactive whiteboard. You may want to have a separate window open to "look up" some of the more esoteric inventions that show up, since they may not be familiar to you and your students. |
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| Inventors of the Industrial Revolution | Grades 5 to 12 | TeachersFirst | |
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This unit, completely revised in late 2007, provides an on-line introduction to inventors and inventions of the industrial revolution in England and the United States. In addition to information on key inventors and their inventions, there are interactive activities designed for student involvement, timelines, and an interactive quiz. An extensive list of "invention links" lets students learn more about inventions and inventors.This unit is written for middle and high school but is also adaptable for upper elementary. See the lesson ideas page for ways to use this on your interactive whiteboard or with students working on their own. There are several ideas for projects and competitions to engage, challenge, and assess. You will definitely want to share this link on your teacher web page as a review tool, as well. |
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| Jog the Web | Grades 2 to 12 | Jog the Web | |
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Skills needed: Registration is free and requires a password and email address. Once validated by email, click "Create a New Track" and enter a title and description. Find all of your tracks on your page. Click on each to edit descriptions or add steps (these are the web address url's of the pages you are adding.) Easily delete your tracks by clicking on the trash can icon next to each track. |
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| Keyboarding Sites | Grades 2 to 9 | Mann Middle School | |
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This site offers a compilation list of MANY keyboarding sites. Although TeachersFirst doesn't usually highlight a "list of links," our editorial staff found this one to be spectacular! At the time of this review, the list included over sixty sites that offer FREE keyboarding activities. There is quite a variety; you may want to spend a few minutes exploring your MANY options. Some are more elementary: spelling basic words or easy enough for young students. Others are complex and geared towards middle school and beyond. Some of the activities are actual lesson plans, while others are educational interactives. Nearly all of the sites require Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. Use this site for your students to practice keyboarding. Set up a learning station at a computer cluster for students to "try their hands" at the keyboard activities. If individual laptops are available, demonstrate the site on an interactive whiteboard or projector, and then have students try the activity or lesson themselves on laptops. Save this site in your favorites. Be sure to list this site on your class website for students to practice keyboarding both in and out of the classroom. Allow them to choose their best tool for learning and use it consistently. Maybe track improvement to compare the various tools? |
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| Kids Search Engines | Grades 2 to 6 | Search Engine Watch | |
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This resource provides a concise overview of special search engines aimed specifically at kids. Also includes helpful tips for enabling filters on major search engines. Note: search engines are continually being devoured by other search engine companies, so even the reputable folks at Search Engine Watch occasionally have links to sites that have suddenly changed names!
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| Kids' Vid | Grades 3 to 8 | Mike Keating | |
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Start the activity by showing the student-produced videos on the web site. Use the resources on the site for a whole class jig-saw exercise. Assign small groups the task of learning one aspect of the process and then reporting and showing it to the rest of the class. Share the knowledge by creating working groups, which contain an expert from each aspect of the process. Use one of the many class ideas as practice activities for students to learn the finer points of video production before they start their masterpieces.
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| KidsClick! | Grades 1 to 5 | Ramapo Catskill Library System | |
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Send your elementary students to a safe search engine that guides them to quality, age-appropriate sites. A group of librarians designed this site to address concerns about young children surfing the untamed Web. While limited in scope, it does address more than 600 subjects. Search by keyword or letter.
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| KidsCom | Grades 2 to 8 | Circle 1 Network | |
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This site bills itself as a safe and fun digital playground for kids. The site boasts several sections that encourage communication and discussion on the internet among children. "Make New Friends" allows you to make friends all over the world as pen-pals, or express your opinion on a bulletin board. "Chat and Buzz" encourages students to think (and respond) to questions or topics. Check with your administrator to be sure that your school allows students to set up individual accounts on on-line sites. Then make a shortcut to this site on your desktop and use the various activities as a center.
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| Learn 2 Type | Grades 5 to 12 | ||
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Improve your students keyboarding skills with these free typing tests that give instant feedback on speed and accuracy. A great site to use as meaningful "filler" in the computer lab.
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| Learning Photoshop 6 | Grades 1 to 12 | Trainingtools.com | |
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Trainingtools.com offers a very complete, nicely illustrated guide to using Photoshop 6 in this online tutorial. The site is particularly useful because the content outline is always available, and the content is presented a single screen at a time. This tutorial will be particularly useful for those not familiar with Adobe’s unique approach to user interface.
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| LearniT: Technology Videos | Grades 4 to 12 | Nortel | |
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For teachers or students who have not had the opportunity to learn technology skills from a real person, these video tutorials can be very helpful. They can also fill in gaps in basic computer knowledge. Topics range from Internet safety and Netiquette to more advanced video production, digital imaging, and web page creation. For your students doing independent projects, for basics before you launch into a full-class technology production, or even for teaching yourself as a teacher, these tutorials are approachable and fairly up-to-date. Make sure you choose the right level(s) for your students, since they may have better skills than you think. You can differentiate easily with the multiple skill levels available. This one takes a longer time to open, so be patient. Include this link on your teacher web page or in Favorites in your computer lab or on a classroom machine for students to use as a reference. This can be a great help for students who move in and do not have the same background knowledge as the rest of the class or as a challenge to your techno-whiz or gifted student. These also can make excellent ready-to-go projected tutorials a substitute could show in preparation for an upcoming project. |
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| Leaves Change Color | Grades 2 to 6 | Education World | |
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| Linktionary | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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Network architectures aren’t typically the stuff of K-12 curricula, but more teachers are now being required to understand at least the fundamentals of computer network topologies. With that in mind, we pass this one along both for its depth of content and its organizational structure, which seems ideally suited for those who are entirely new to the topic. There’s a lot of content here, and the organizational structure makes specific topics easy to find.
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| Literary Scavenger Hunt | Grades 9 to 12 | Microsoft | |
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| Living Internet | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This simple but comprehensive site is one of the most complete on-line guides to the Internet, its history, its capabilities, and some of its more famous, and infamous, personalities. The site is very plain-vanilla, but does a great job at presenting a comprehensive treatment of the internet. This site is a good starting point for an individual research project or class room discussion on the origins of the Internet. Consider creating a list of questions based on the site and allow students to navigate the site in search of the answers. |
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| Magic Writing Slate | Grades 1 to 2 | Alphabet Soup | |
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Practice "writing" numbers and upper/lower case letters while improving mouse skills. Select the practice mode, change your "pen" color, copy the example, and clear the slate with a click of the mouse. A nice "filler" activity for the computer lab.
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| Mailinator | Grades 6 to 12 | ManyBrain, Inc. | |
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Teachers First Online Tool: Frustrated at creating sub accounts with your gmail account for more than 100 students? Try Mailinator as a possible solution to the problem. Make student accounts for the web 2.0 tools you would like your individual students to use. Create a "spoof" email account from one email account (preferably the teachers gmail.) Use this "spoof" account to enter when creating web 2.0 accounts. Mail can be viewed online for any verification if necessary. The bonus? Less spam when signing up for other sites!
Use your teacher gmail account to create different Mailinator accounts for each student by sending an email to the "spoof" account. For example, a student sends an email to gottalovebio@mailinator.com. Magically, your "spoof" email address has been created. Use this "spoof" email all year long for any web 2.0 tool you wish to sign up for. Find emails sent to the "spoof" account by viewing on the mailinator site (type in your "spoof" email address) or following an RSS feed (use a feed reader to view them all.) Important Note: emails must be read within a few hours as they are then permanently deleted. Caution students not to use these email addresses for anything important as it is not a regular email address. Use only for creating logins and registrations for other web 2.0 tools. Stumped with coming up with a unique name. Possible name choices are given on the site (refresh to see more options.) Be sure to read the FAQ's to familiarize yourself with the service and answer any questions you may have. Check to be sure this is not blocked by your school. If available on a teacher computer, consider cycling each student through your computer to get them signed up while being monitored. Record their "spoof" emails in case these are needed later and students forget. Be advised that these email accounts are public. If the same email address is entered on the site by someone else, those emails will be viewed. Despite this, use the service to quickly enter students to use the variety of cool online tools found on the Internet today. |
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| Make Beliefs Comix | Grades 2 to 12 | Bill Zimmerman | |
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This one is ideal for an interactive whiteboard or projector. Demonstrate the tool on the whiteboard or projector and allow the class to create a strip together before you share the link on your teacher web page. Have students create strips as a quiz or other assignment and email the links to you. No more papers to carry around and grade! Build a collection of comics on different curriculum topics to use as anticipatory sets/activators or to spark discussion. Have younger students make comic strip greeting cards for Mother's Day. The possibilities are endless. |
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| Make Your Own Kaleidoscope | Grades 2 to 5 | KrazyDad | |
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This is just too clever to pass by! Have fun creating your own virtual kaleidoscope by tossing the URL from any online image into the form, moving it around, and seeing just what you get! So what's the educational purpose? Students can practice the procedure of copying and pasting a Web site address. In addition, you can point your students to online images that relate to curriculum topics.
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| Meet the Graphs | Grades 3 to 4 | TeachersFirst | |
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| Meltdown at Three Mile Island | Grades 9 to 12 | PBS The American Experience | |
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While the site uses the "watch the video and discuss" model, the questions listed in the teacher resources section would be appropriate for a more general discussion on nuclear power. There is a nice map showing the location of nuclear power plants in the United States. The Shockwave animation explaining the meltdown might be useful in a science class discussion on nuclear energy, and would display well on an interactive whiteboard. |
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| Microsoft Security and Privacy | Grades 1 to 12 | Microsoft | |
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The recent rashes of e-mail borne viruses and worms make a visit to this Microsoft page almost a necessity. Surprisingly usable, the site offers tips, patches, and suggestions for maintaining computer security in home, office, and school environments. This is a useful resource whether you’re already infected or simply want to avoid becoming infected.
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| Middle School Language Arts | Grades 5 to 9 | BCISD | |
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Browse the selection of lesson plans for those that match your curriculum. Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these ready-to-go activities or adjust them for your needs. There are printable worksheets, interactive activities, discussion topics, assessments and many other resources. |
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| Middle School Mathematics | Grades 5 to 9 | BCISD | |
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Enjoy this free selection of lesson plans. Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these ready-to-go activities. There are printable worksheets, interactive activities, lessons using the web, discussion topics, assessments, and many other resources. |
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| Middle School Science | Grades 5 to 9 | BCISD | |
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Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these ready-to-go activities. Partner with teachers of other subjects for some of the interdiscplinary options to help kids "connect" with the new concepts. |
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| Middle School Social Studies | Grades 5 to 9 | BCISD | |
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Do yourself a favor and check out this free website when planning your middle school social studies lessons. Get your interactive whiteboards ready and utilize these ready to go activities. There are printable worksheets, interactive activities, discussion topics, assessments and many other resources. |
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| Middle School Special Education | Grades 6 to 8 | BCISD/ Colleen Schaeding | |
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Team up with the math and language arts teachers on this project or teach it in a computer literacy class. Get your interactive whiteboards ready to introduce these ready-to-go activities. Use the whiteboard for editing drafts, if you have one available. Then have your students share finished real estate ads on a projection screen or interactive whiteboard. |
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| Milestones of Flight | Grades 6 to 12 | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | |
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From the Smithsonian, the site is simple: it is a chronological timeline of the history of flight. Each point on the timeline links to a full page description of the craft (plane or spaceship) with photographs. Sometimes you need complexity, but sometimes you just need a simple set of graphics. This site is the latter, but it does it so well! The timeline is marked by thumbnail pictures of each flying machine. Clicking on the machine brings you to a complete desciption of the craft and its significance. Of course this is part of the complete National Air and Space Museum site which is crammed full of interesting stuff. But this section cuts to the chase: what machines flew and when? |
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| Napster and Copyright | Grades 6 to 12 | CNN | |
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The Napster court case provides a great entreé to the issue of copyright and why students should understand it. This CNN special report highlights some of the copyright issues in the case.
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| National Biological Information Infrastructure | Grades 1 to 12 | NBII | |
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While there's a wealth of information on this government site about biology and things natural, teachers will be most interested in the library of photos of living creatures large and small. These images are downloadable, and each has rights information included. Try this one as a well-indexed source for your next natural science computer or web project. |
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| National Institute of Standards and Technology Virtual Museum | Grades 9 to 12 | NIST | |
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Investigate modern accomplishments in technology through these exhibits of technology accomplishments. Tech Ed and science teachers of all disciplines can highlight these accomplishments as real world connections to classroom learning or ask students to research the application of their classroom learning in the technology world. Of certain interest are topics that explain our systems of weights and measures, the technology time line, and the and stone wall test as a real world application of scientific method for practical purposes. Use this as a starting point for a research project or share portions on a projector as you begin units on different science and technology topics. |
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| Nerds 2.0.1 | Grades 6 to 12 | PBS | |
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This second installment in the PBS Nerds series chronicles the evolution of today's computers from their early mechanical ancestors in World War II. There are also biographies and profiles of key figures in the development of computers and computing. If your curriculum includes the history of computing, don't miss this one. |
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| NetSmartz Workshop | Grades 0 to 12 | National Center for Missing & Exploited Children | |
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If you know you will be using the Internet during class or assigning it for outside work, consider sharing some of the safety lessons ahead of time using a projector, especially with elementary and middle school students. Secondary English, information literacy, or computer teachers should consider requiring teens to report on an Internet safety topic as a research project as you are trying to both teach and USE research skills. This site could be a good topic-finder and starting point.
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| New to Technology | Grades 1 to 12 | Intel | |
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| Non-Profit Prophets | Grades 9 to 12 | SBC | |
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Originally begun by SBC Corporation, this site offers strategies that high school students can use to help non-profit organizations in their communities meet their mission and get their message out. Though the site’s activities originally centered on creating web site for non-profits, much of the methodology also could be used to assist these organizations in other ways. Teachers and parents will find lots of ideas for developing student outreach projects here.
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| NOVA Wings of Madness | Grades 6 to 12 | PBS | |
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Flying has always fascinated us, and flying failures are sometimes more interesting than successes. Students will know all about the Wright Brothers; they are unlikely to have heard of Alberto Santos-Dumont. The interactives are terrific and the paper airplanes would make a good hands-on activity. The readings about Santos-Dumont would also make good selections for a reading teacher trying to find motivating readings to teach comprehension strategies. |
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| NS Teens: Making Safer Online Choices | Grades 5 to 12 | National Center for Missing and Exploited Children | |
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Teachers, you will find plenty of resources for teaching net safety to teens when you click on ‘teaching materials’ at the bottom left of the homepage (this takes you to the sister site – NetSmartz Workshop). Videos, fact sheets, lesson plans and activities await you there.
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| On Guard Online | Grades 0 to 12 | U.S. government | |
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Use this extensive resource site to teach students and their parents how to be smart cyber users. Students can create public service announcements or create messages to display on wikis or class blogs. Create infomercials and share them using a tool such as Teachers.TV reviewed here. Want to learn more about how to create and use a class wiki? Check out the Teacher’s First Wiki Walk-Through reviewed here. Another idea: create mini posters either in conventional or digital format (Use an online poster creator, such as Wallwisher, (reviewed here) to display throughout the school or on a district website. Teens could create a cybersmarts campaign for use in your local elementary schools. Service club advisors or technology/media specialists may want to initiate a family internet safety night using some of the resources from this site and other sources. |
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| On the Job Math | Grades 2 to 4 | ||
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This activity provides many opportunities for differentiation. Provide students with choices in style or mode of graphing, math operations used in the word problems, or style of illustration. |
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| OneWebDay | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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"The mission of OneWebDay is to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life." Started in 2006, One Web Day is a day for awareness of the power of the Internet and activities to highlight its use in positive ways. While part of the mission of OneWebDay is a sort of "Earth Day for the web," a chance to highlight and preserve the things that make the web a healthy place to learn, work, and share -- all in an ethical way. Schools may want to take the day (or the closest school day)to highlight how much we benefit from the web and how students and families can use it safely and positively. Some ideas to celebrate the day: Send class emails to the web sites you find most useful to thank them for their contributions to your class' learning. Find a school web site in another town or country and email the webmaster to relay a "hello" to a classroom there. Make a class wiki to share all the positive things you gain from the web---and invite parents to join in, too. Have students keep a web "diary" for 24 hours, noting every time they use or benefit from someone else using the web (even the weather man on TV gets his/her information from the web!). Predict how many "web contacts" your class will have, then add them up to see how close you came. Plan a OneWebDay event for your school and share it on the OneWebDay site or with the local press. With primary grade students, take the time to point out which activities you do in class come from the web (these children see "the computer" as the genie of all things and do not distinguish between the web and a CD game). Make a giant "web" out of yarn and "connect" everyone on the playground. Send an email from your class to the principal, telling him/her about OneWebDay. What else can you think of? |
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| Pandia NewsFinder | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This Dutch search engine's newsfinder offers a pleasantly uncluttered, powerful resource for finding international reporting on a wide variety of topics. The system offers more than a dozen topic areas, and also permits searching on specific terms or events. This is a great resource for studying comparative reporting.
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| Parental Control Software | Grades 0 to 12 | Consumer Search | |
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The online magazine article (updated 2006) is actually a compilation of several reviews of Internet filtering tools for parents to use on home computers. Read the full article or skip to the "Fast Answers."
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| PBS Kids Internet License | Grades 1 to 5 | PBS Kids GO | |
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At the beginning of the year, make this an introductory computer-use lesson for elementary students. Introduce the site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then have students navigate the site on individual computers or set-up a learning station.
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| Picnik | Grades 0 to 12 | Picnik, Inc. | |
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TeachersFirst Edge entry: for slightly adventurous technology users. Fancy photo editing for no cost—that’s what Picnik is all about. You can even do simple fixes, such as removing “red eye” or cropping the tree trunk off of your head! No downloading is required, and there are no tools to install. In fact, you don’t even need to register. However, if you want to manage your photos, you will need a quick registration. Also, for non-English speakers, choose from a list of language options in the drop-down menu at top right. It’s very user-friendly, so the techno-babies will feel right at home. Skills needed: You need to know how to locate and upload photos from your computer. You can also get images from anywhere on your computer, the web, webcam, your Flickr, Facebook, or other photo storing account. Click on Get Started Now or click on the Start Picniking tab in the upper right corner. |
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| Pics4Learning | Grades 1 to 12 | Tech4Learning | |
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This impressive collection of thousands of copyright-friendly images – graciously donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers - is a wonderful resource for teachers and student needing good quality, educational photos for projects and presentations. Browse by topic or use the site's search feature. Includes a nice collection of related lesson plans, organized by subject.
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| Podcasting Legal Guide | Grades 6 to 12 | Creative Commons | |
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Just because you can record a person's voice doesn't mean you can publish it on the web. Here's a site that outlines the basics of U.S. laws regarding copyright and publicity as they relate to user-created podcasts. You'll learn about which things are OK, which require permission, and other pointers to consider when creating podcasts for school or educational uses. If your class is set to "publish" their recorded exploits, working through this site with them would be a great introduction to the "rules of the road" for journalists in general. |
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| Podcasting with Your Students | Grades 1 to 12 | Smithsonian Institue | |
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If you have never used podcasting with your students, but wanted to, this site will help you get started. Although this site is mainly informational, it is a great starting point to learn more about podcasting. It gives a good overview of what it is, how to do it, and how it works in the classroom. It uses examples from projects related to the Smithsonian Institute, but it is easy to see how they are adaptable and applicable to other topics and subject areas. The site also provides several links to use to create your own podcasts! Another great tool for creating FREE podcasts is PodOmatic (reviewed here). Podcasting is part of teaching today, and this site helps you to become more comfortable with the concept and the technology. Use this site to educate yourself about this newer technology. Since the example given is from elementary students, it is easy to see how "being perfect" is not that important. This is a great way to try something technical in the easiest way possible.
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| Poll Junkie (beta) | Grades 0 to 12 | eppyjerk.com | |
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Use this site to create polls for your students (or have students create their own). The polls are embeddable in your wiki, blog, or class website. The site is still in beta. You can create a name, an expiration date for the survey, questions (multiple choice, yes or no, and ranking), and input your email address to be informed as results come into the site. Rather than using personal email accounts consider creating a teacher Gmail account and set up subaccounts for up to 20 students to register (by code name or number). Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Registration is not required to use this site. There are some advertisements and external links at this site (all appropriate at the time of this review). So if you allow students to use this site on their own, be sure to watch carefully. Use this site to collect data for math activities and graphing. Use it for people to rate student-created projects or for social studies projects about elections, or other social issues. Have students make wiki pages on an issue and include a poll and then graph the poll results in math class. Poll parents and grandparents on your class web page to involve them in decisions or use their experiences to help students understand times “long ago.” |
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| Pop Portraits | Grades 6 to 12 | Ann Ayers, Coral Spring HS (FL) | |
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Launch a new way of teaching, then share this idea at your next department meeting. Include the completed portraits in a back to school slide show or share them on your class web page or wiki! Be sure to have students annotate their portraits, as well.
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| Powerpoint is Evil | Grades 1 to 12 | Edward Tufte | |
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Edward Tufte is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the use of visual images to convey statistical and quantitative information. In this short article, he launches a salvo at the power of powerpoint to misrepresent, overcomplicate, or otherwise distort information and information flow. It’s a bitter pill, but one that any teacher who uses this technology should take at least once.
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| Primary Resources for Interactive Whiteboards | Grades 1 to 5 | Topmarks | |
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MANY of the activities require FLASH. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. |
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| Prints and Photographs On Line | Grades 1 to 12 | Library of Congress | |
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Welcome to the Library of Congress’ photo archive. This site offers a searchable database containing thousands of photos all almost any subject. History and social studies teachers will find this a rich resource for “what was life like then?” images, old maps, and other printed matter. Note that not all of these images are guaranteed “copyright free,” but this collection was established largely for educational and research uses, so most images are freely usable in that context. Use the images on this site to create a "picture walk" in your classroom, introducing any number of the topics hosted. Select 10-15 of the more powerful and diverse images, hanging them up in different locations around your classroom. Have students rotate around the classroom every 30-45 seconds, jotting down what they observe and infer about each image until the entire class has completed the circuit. After the class is back in their seats, have a class discussion based on what they observed and what this says about historical events. A great way to get students thinking about the content in a way that's more personal and lecture-less! |
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| Project Poster | Grades 0 to 12 | 4Teachers.org | |
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Use this terrific online tool for your students to create posters or short reports in a poster format. Create lessons, worksheets, or class pages and instantly publish them online using this free Web Poster Wizard. The teacher sets up an account (for free), and follows simple directions so students can upload images and write about their project or pictures. The site even includes management tools so you can keep separate classes of students and see their work by class.
Some uses for this simple tool: book reports (take a digital photo of the book cover), biographical posters of famous people (images from the web), "all about me" posters, posters about community members such as veterans of World War II whom students interview and photograph, author posters, fictitious character studies, science posters on processes or terms with accompanying digital pictures to illustrate, etc. The possibilities are endless. Once students know the tool, they can use it over and over.
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| Protopage | Grades 0 to 12 | Protopage | |
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TeachersFirst Edge Entry: For very comfortable technology users who need more sophisticated capabilities than your TeachersFirst home page. This online tool creates a highly visual "home page" that can incorporate multiple elements simply by dragging and dropping them in place. Not unlike Google's personalized homepage, the elements look like little sticky notes or boxes, but there is far greater flexibility and a wider variety of content readily available. You can also make the page local (simply use it as the "home" on your classroom computer), shared by a select group (passworded), or completely public. You can easily make a theme or unit page for quick access of resources, complete with directions. How would you use this in your teaching? Create a set of RSS feeds for current events or a specific curriculum topic such as weather and make them available for an in-class activity, complete with directions. World language, world cultures, or geography teachers can profile a location on the globe, complete with local weather and news. Make separate tabs for separate activities. Students can access them by password or publicly from outside of class, as well. For primary grades, make simple instructions right on the desktop for a computer center activity. Use color coding of the instructions to differentiate for different children (Sam, I want you to do the yellow one). If your school permits students to set up accounts on web services, have groups make Protopages on an assigned topic, collecting and organizing resources, images, and information: "A Protopage Guide to Cells" or "Shakespeare's Times." Gifted and highly-able students will go crazy! |
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| QUICK: the Quality Information Checklist | Grades 3 to 6 | HDA and CHIQ | |
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By teaching young students how to evaluate web pages early, this site helps create critical consumers of information. By clicking on items arranged in a circle on the screen, students go on to further explanations, examples, and quizzes about the main points of web evaluation. This site would be great on a projector as a teacher-centered lesson, returning to each point as you build the understanding throughout the year. Use one point at a time as you show students various websites throughout the school year. Simply open this site prior to sharing a site with the class. You can use the points here to "evaluate" the source together. Be sure to include it as a reference link on your teacher web page, as well. Parents will appreciate it and students can "show" their parents how to judge sources. |
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| Robot Café | Grades 4 to 12 | ||
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Robots are one of the most popular of the “science cult” activities because they combine both computing and mechanical design challenges. Robot Café is a “portal” site offering topical listings of hundreds of resources and information on building robots and using them in education. Science teachers interested in starting a school robot project will find a wealth of information here, including a lists of parts resources and competitions. Students will also find many ways to feed their own individual interests.
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| Robotics: Sensing, Thinking, Acting | Grades 6 to 12 | Tech Museum of Innovation | |
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The Tech Museum of Innovation's online interactive exhibit about robotics includes fascinating history about robots seen from different angles. A video of Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University discusses the components of a robot. Another section of the display examines ethical questions about the line between humans and robots and includes audio files of scientists responding to the questions (requires Quicktime). Site visitors can also respond.If you think you can't be creative with robots, take a look at the robot artists' section and view their creations. Finally, you can try driving your own robot in a virtual simulation. This section requires the Shockwave plugin. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.. Explore the world of robots as part of a tech ed, gifted, science, or physics class. Be sure to include some of the discussions of ethics and technology as part of your unit. This site would also provide excellent background research for debate topics on technology and ethics. Note: the site was started prior to the 2003 Mars lander problems. Be sure to talk about what we know now about those robots, as well. |
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| Robots.net | Grades 9 to 12 | ||
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While we’re not experts, Robots.net appears to be a robots site for those who already know what they’re doing. Written for those with some engineering expertise, the site offers a collection of articles posted by members, an index of projects (but without much explanation) and a members’ area. Those looking for advanced ideas or solutions to robotics problems may well find leads here. If you teacher tech ed, gifted, or physics students at an advanced level, this might be just the site they will love to reseacrh and create independent projects. |
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| Rubric Builder | Grades 0 to 12 | Landmark Project | |
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This free, online tool was created by a veteran teacher for you to be able to create your own rubrics. Search for rubrics already made by others using the keyword search. Ex. enter "persuasive" to find loads of persuasive writing rubrics. You can create an account for free, then access rubrics made by other teachers ("clone" them to edit and use one that is close to what you need). You can also start from scratch. The rubric generator creates a printable version you can come back and get every time you need it. More techno-savvy users can also copy the html code for their finished rubric to put on another website. When you first arrive, you won't see much without joining, though you can use the search feature to see examples. Once you join the site, mark it in your Favorites and include the "access code" you made for yourself as part of the notes for the Favorite, so you will remember what you used! You can share rubrics with teacher-colleagues and save lots of time! You can also edit them after use, if you discover that you need to change scoring or wording. |
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| Rules of the Road | Grades 2 to 5 | PBS | |
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Kids can earn a "Web License" by taking this interactive quiz that covers topics like downloading, meeting people on the net, passwords, and Internet safety. After successfully answering the multiple choice questions, a personalized license can be printed.
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| Safe Kids | Grades 1 to 12 | safekids.com | |
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Include this site on your teacher web page for students and parents to access as a reference. Share the printables with parents at open house or conferences. As you introduce web-based activities in your classroom, pause to rmind students of these safety rules, even if someone else is supposed to "cover" them in their classroom. Parts of this site require the use of myspace, so be sure to preview it and match the requirements to your school's regulations. |
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| Safe Teens | Grades 7 to 12 | safekids.com | |
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This site is the teen partner to safekids.com. Its additional offerings include a wonderful cyber-dictionary parents can use when they are totally puzzled by acronyms their children are using in email, chat rooms, and text messaging (Note: the language is realistically what some teens use---asterisks replace "bad" words, but the abbreviations could teach the timid more than they want to know). Highlights for teens include tips about safe blogging, warnings about grooming, general Internet safety info, and accompanying info for parents. A link to blogsafety.com allows users to report abuses and suspicious behavior that might occur on blogging or social network sites. Links to current articles about Internet misuse keep the site current. Use this site as the starting point when teens have questions about blogging, cyber safety, and correct Internet behavior so they know what to watch for should something unethical occur. Be sure to share it with parents via your teacher web page or at open house, as well. As you begin web-based activities in class, take the time to repeat the basics found here, even if another teacher is supposed to "cover" this topic. |
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| School Spreadsheet Safari | Grades 5 to 12 | Thinkquest | |
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Use this interactive Think Quest site, designed and constructed by kids, to introduce your students to the spreadsheet. Includes an excellent introduction to spreadsheet parts and vocabulary, an interesting history section, examples of interdisciplinary uses of spreadsheets, suggestions for classroom activities, and interactive review activities. Even if you don’t use this site with your students, you may get some great ideas for incorporating spreadsheets in your curriculum. Teachers can either have students work on this thinkquest in cooperative learning groups or together as a class. If working on this as a class, open this site on the interactive whiteboard or projector to share. If working in groups, save the site as a favorite on classroom computers to allow students to access it easily. This site makes for a really great activator or introduction to a unit on organization/organizing ideas. |
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| SchoolTube.com | Grades 0 to 12 | Lightspeed Technologies | |
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Skills Needed: no special technological skills are necessary to search the site or view the videos. If you wish to upload your own SchoolTube video, you must register as a user at the site. Registration is free. Create and save your edited videos where you can find them on your computer. (Windows Movie Maker or iMovie are great, free tools for video). Then upload to SchoolTube. You can share the video via link or by embedding it in another web page (see sample below).
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| Science News for Kids | Grades 3 to 12 | Society for Science and the Public | |
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Use Science News for Kids as a great reading and reporting assignment. Students can find an area and article of interest to read, summarize, and report to the class. Have students create commercials about their topics. Video and share using a site such as SchoolTube reviewed here. Students can use these news articles to find additional relevant information on the internet. Students may find these topics to be great self-study topics. Use the question sheets when assigning articles for class reading as a guided inquiry. Teach reading comprehension using these factual articles on your interactive whiteboard, asking students to highlight key words and generate a “main idea” sentence using them. |
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| Science, Art, & Technology | Grades 9 to 12 | Art Institute of Chicago | |
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This Art Institute of Chicago site is an intriguing resource for high school fine-arts teachers looking to supplement their curriculum by studying science and technology’s application in the art world. The site can also be used by chemistry and technology teachers looking to expand students’ understanding of science’s real life applications. The site has multi-media lecture resources, as well as lesson plans on a range of topics, including the Chemistry and Physics of Light and color, and chemical oxidation’s effect on paint color.
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| Scoring PowerPoints | Grades 4 to 12 | Jamie McKenzie | |
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This website provides teachers with methods of evaluating PowerPoint presentations. Although the material is lengthy, there is some good information included. At this website, you will find rubrics, diagrams, examples, explanations and other information. If your students are creating PowerPoint presentations, use this tool to create a useful and practical assessment. Avoid the pitfalls of being "charmed by glitz" when your students use technology. This site will help you and your students look for appropriate substance. Be sure to include this link on your teacher web page all year long for students to use as a reference when doing multimedia projects. |
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| Screentoaster | Grades 4 to 12 | Screentoaster SAS | |
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Teacher's First Edge Review: For serious technology users. Create videos of how to use a website or application as well as your thoughts as you are navigating through simulations or sites. This free site records your voice and captures what is on your screen as you work on your computer. Screentoaster works with any type of computer platform. View screencasts made from other users which can be helpful in learning a new technology tool. Here is an example screencast of how to use screentoaster. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. Skills needed: Users should know what they are trying to show before making a screencast. Click on the "Demo" button to learn more about making a screencast as well as visit the "FAQ" section for additional help. Click on "Start Recording." A Java applet will begin to load and must be approved before being able to screencast. Many school districts have settings on computers that restrict pop-ups or applets from loading. Check with your technology department. Set your video and audio settings next. Click "Record" or Alt-S to start. When done, watch your recording, upload to the Screentoaster site, or upload to You Tube. To continue to edit your screencast, download the video (as an .avi) to edit with movie software.
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| Search Engines | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This handy tool helps clear up the search engine confusion. It clearly and simply matches research needs with appropriate online resources. Point your students to this site before starting them on a research project.
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| Short Stories of Science and Invention | Grades 6 to 12 | Today in Science History (Stories are from Charles Kettering) | |
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This site is an index of stories that have been spoken on radio shows by Charles Kettering. Kettering was head of research for General Motors and held over 140 patents. One of his standout accomplishments was the development of Freon as a refrigerant.
This site would be a helpful alternative text in the science classroom. Use this site for research projects or explaining some famous inventions. Extend reading into an online journaling project or even a classroom blog or wiki. Not comfortable with wikis? Have no wiki worries – check out the Teacher’s First Wiki Walk-Through reviewed here. The opportunity for collaboration, reflection, and eventually creating their own stories of their projects is wonderful. Have cooperative learning groups create multimedia presentations. To show what they have learned from this site, challenge students to create an online graphic to share using Tabblo reviewed here. Have groups create news reports and share them using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here. |
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| Skype | Grades 0 to 12 | Skype Technologies S.A. | |
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Skills Needed: Download and install the Skype software. If you are not allowed to install software on school computers, ask to have a single laptop available that is Skype-capable so you can borrow it or else explain to your principal that you are planning a series of Skype visits in your classroom so your techies will install it in your classroom. You will need a computer with built-in or separate microphone and speakers and optional webcam. If you plan to use a webcam, you must know how to start it. You will need to set up a free Skype account (requires email) and password. Keep a record of what you use for email and password! A single teacher-controlled Skype account will work in most school settings.
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| Smarter Surfing | Grades 1 to 12 | Sree Sreenivasan | |
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Improve your students' online research skills with this helpful guide to using Google. Features of the search engines are explained (did you know that the search box can be used as a calculator or that you can receive email Google news alerts when a phrase you wish to track shows up in the news?), and searching tips are provided. You’ll have fun with this one.
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| Spezify (beta) | Grades 0 to 12 | Spezify | |
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Get an overview of any web search visually using Spezify. Spezify is a search engine that provides both visual and verbal results for the search terms you enter. It pulls in images from Flickr and anywhere on the web as well as print excerpts, and (coming soon) video. Click on the image or text box you wish to read just as you click on text in search results lists. Visually display the "big picture" on any topic. Searching "edison inventions" brings up pictures and articles for visual learners, ELL/ESL students, or non-readers to get the gist of the topic at a quick glance. Spezify also suggests possible additional search terms and related topics across the top of the page as white text within the narrow black stripe. If you click the plus sign (+) next to one of these terms, it will add that term to your search, narrowing the results. If you click on the word itself, Spezify will search that term instead (not adding it to your previous search). There does not appear to be any specific ranking (as Google has) or sorting of the results by reputation, popularity, etc. No "about" information is provided to explain how Spezify determines which results show first. The tool is still in beta and provides a way for you to provide feedback, as well. NOTE: as with any online image search, you should be careful what you enter as search terms, since Spezify will pull up images without any "filter." Use Spezify on an interactive whiteboard or projector as you introduce a new topic in science or social studies or when the class asks "What is ____?" . With very young students or non-readers, use Spezify to help them find information they can understand and to inspire them to try to read some of the short text excerpts alongside the images. Activate students' prior knowledge as they recognize the images and remark, "I didn't know Edison was the one who invented that!" Visually show the "big picture" on any topic. As you teach research skills, try a comparison of Spezify results with Google results for both functionality of the search engine and reputability of the results. NOTE: Preview any search terms you plan to display in class if the terms could possibly bring up inappropriate images. You may need to adjust your terms. Of course your students know what they are supposed to do if something inappropriate comes up when using a search themselves, right? If you have not discussed this, now is the time! |
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| Sprout: Let's Grow | Grades 1 to 2 | PBS | |
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| Stickies | Grades 1 to 12 | Tom Revell | |
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Tired of having yellow sticky notes pasted all over your desk? This free downloadable PC software can unclutter your desk and make your life easier. The program is small (less than 600 kb), easy to use, and oh so helpful.
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| Student Web Publishing - Empowering Students | Grades 1 to 12 | Franklin Institute | |
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This site provides a quick guide for teachers who are beginning to explore web publishing with their students. The site discusses privacy issues, outlines group development policies, and even gives advice on personal web page publishing. The site also offers links to additional resources, for those who want to dig into the topic more deeply. Use this site as the starting point for individual or group projects. Have your class work together to design their own web page as a final project for a unit, or design a page for the class as a whole. |
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| Study Guides and Strategies | Grades 0 to 12 | Joe Landsberger | |
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This site is one to save in your favorites! There is so much here, it is hard to know where to begin. The language offerings provide opportunities for ESL and ELL students to learn study skills in their native language. This site could also be used in world languages classes.
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| StudyCard Studio | Grades 4 to 12 | Digital Meadow | |
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Mac owners will want to check out the "lite" version (free) of this downloadable program that makes study card stacks based on teacher or student notes. It’s further evidence that the Mac, while now a “minority platform” retains a strong library of useful educational software. If your school uses MACs, you may want to get permission to load this software ( the free version) for students to create their own study cards, especially your learning support students who may be more motivated to study with such an electronic "aid." |
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| StumbleUpon | Grades 8 to 12 | StumbleUpon | |
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Teacher's First Edge entry: For slightly adventurous or curious technology users. Want to "stumble upon" some great sites? Use StumbleUpon to browse websites without having to enter search terms and click through search pages. Choose categories that you are interested in. These can be updated at any time. Choose hobbies, interests, or teaching subjects. When the StumbleUpon button on the tool bar is pressed, StumbleUpon presents a website to fit your interests. Simply click the thumbs up "I like it" or the thumbs down symbol on the tool bar to "teach" StumbleUpon what you like. StumbleUpon seeks out interesting pages you might otherwise not see. The more you Stumble and indicate your preferences, the more Stumble Upon will refine its understanding of what you like. On the StumbleUpon site, you can see your favorites, as well as the top rated websites, videos, and photos from their many "stumblers." Firefox or Internet Explorer is required. The best use of this site is for teacher research. Hit the Stumble button once or twice a day to find new ideas and new sites for teaching. Skills needed: Join the site (free, but requires email). Download and install the tool bar for Firefox or Internet Explorer and create your "identity." Click the Stumble button. Though you may not get websites relating to just one specific topic, many in your field or interest group will come up. Bookmark these for later use. LOG OUT of Stumble Upon when you are not at your computer to avoid unauthorized use.
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| Swivel | Grades 7 to 12 | ||
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TeachersFirst Edge entry: For the most adventurous technology users. This new start-up web 2.0 tool (born Dec 2006) is "a place where curious people explore all kinds of data." Users register to join (free) to upload and/or manipulate data of all kinds: from comparisons of "What a Couple of Hundred Billion [dollars] can buy," to sports stats to election stats to less school-appropriate topics such as drinking. Why risk it? You will find terrific examples (and non examples) of how data can be shared visually, manipulated, and reported to help explain a concept. You can upload you own datasets, tag them, and see how others collaborate. Even simpler, you can browse graphs already made on the site, mark them as part of "your" stuff (Favorites) and visit them on a screen to discuss which graphs provide meaningful data and what they show, exactly.
Any teacher using this site should register under the his/her own name and limit use to areas that have been previewed before class to avoid inappropriate content. The best use is by marking items as Favorites and beginning your class visit in your Favorites to avoid "popular" content that might be awkward for parents, students, and you to justify in a classroom. If your students have been collecting data (sightings of migratory birds, lab experiment data, daily temperatures, etc), you can upload them and manipulate them on this site, comparing to other data uploaded by others. Teachers of math, statistics, science, even reading can use and teach data analysis from graphs. Share this one with your "geeky" teacher friends and figure it out together!
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| TeachersFirst's Summer Sparklers | Grades 0 to 12 | TeachersFirst | |
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This collection of editors' choices from TeachersFirst will spark summer excitement for parents and kids alike. Whether your want to create something, ignite new learning, or hold on to what you already know, you will savor these safe, reviewer-recommended resources. Be sure to share with your friends, neighbors, and family. Teachers will want to share this page with students departing for summer break. Summer will never be "boring" again! Share the link to this special collection via your class web page, newsletter, or email to all your students as they depart for vacation. You will help parents and students alike. Avoid the "summer slide." |
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| Teaching Copyright | Grades 6 to 12 | Electronic Frontier Foundation | |
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Use when teaching essay writing and how to cite sources. Plan a unit on plagiarism using the resources on this site or incorporate them into your existing research units. Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then have students do the activities on this site independently or in small groups. The culminating activity here is a trial; plan to use this with the entire class with each member having a distinct role. Why not video record the trial? Share the video using a resource such as Teachers.TV reviewed here. |
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| Technology and the Future | Grades 6 to 12 | Privately published | |
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This is a collection of annotated columns about technology issues over the past fifty years or so, and how society has coped with them. There’s a surprisingly wide range of subject areas, and the implications of some of these innovations has been vast. Try this one when making connections between the scientific and social implications of inventions.
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| Techtutorials | Grades 1 to 12 | TechTutorials.com | |
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This site offers a compilation of tips, resources, ideas, and add-ons for popular software. The site offers a range of basic computing tips, as well as soft-ware specific advice. It provides a good starting point for stumped software users. Share this site with the technology coordinator for your school district. If you or a student are trying to teach yourselves a specific or specialized software program, these tutorials may be just what you need. |
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| Texas Information Literacy Tutorial (TILT) | Grades 9 to 12 | University of Texas | |
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This site requires a registration; check with your administrator to be sure that your school allows students to set up individual accounts on on-line sites. |
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| Texas Instruments Education Center | Grades 1 to 12 | Texas Instruments | |
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Long known for its support of educational programs, TI’s teacher activity exchange includes items for K-16, with a predictable concentration on math and science activities that relate to its many models of calculators. Click on their Professional Development section for more resources to help you as a teacher, including free online courses.
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| Textalyzer | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This useful tool enables teachers and student writers to objectively analyze writing samples. Just copy and paste a piece of text into the analysis window, and receive a detailed report on sentence length (average, minimum and maximum), most frequently used words, complexity factor, readability, and average syllables per word. The tool can also be used to evaluate the text complexity of a Web page. Just type in the URL!
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| The 2005 Webby Award Winners | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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| The Babbage Pages | Grades 9 to 12 | University of Exeter | |
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English mathematician, economist, and inventor Charles Babbage was a pioneer in concepts which led to the development of today's computers. This site from the University of Exeter helps to tell his story. If your students are interested in the history of computing, Babbage is a name to include. This page may seem a little plain vanilla, but the information is well organized and worth a look.
Use this site as an “activator” to introduce a unit or lesson on inventions or the history of computing. |
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| The Day I Was Born Webquest | Grades 4 to 6 | ||
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Students will use the this online project to discover everything that was happening on the day they were born. After they research and record news headlines, songs, authors, movies, and other information that was current on their birthday, they will use the information they've discovered to write a biographical essay to share with the class. There are also some fun links thrown in that calculate how old you are in days or explain the meaning of your name. Tecahers can chose to register their class as part of this web-based project and share what they learn. Use the entire project to learn about culture in history and about family and community, or choose selected portions or links as a research project of thier own. |
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| The Digital Millennium Copyright Act | Grades 0 to 12 | ||
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The Educause web site offers this summary of the DMCA, along with an explanation of some of the proposed changes and up-to-date information on the latest exemptions and interpretations. There are also links to a variety of information sources on copyright and digital technologies. This site is quite sophisticated and not likely to be useful to students below 11th or 12th grade, though all teachers should know wbout copyright and electronic resources. Educase offers these articles for those who have a serious interest in reading the "real stuff" instead of oversimplified interpretations. Not advisable as "light reading." |
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| The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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This one’s just for fun, but it’s an eloquent statement about the dangers of technology used inappropriately. Technology teachers and those who help teachers with technology will likely find this a great illustration for questions about when technology is appropriate.
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| The Inside Story | Grades 2 to 5 | Microsoft | |
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Non-fiction writings are not frequently on the list of student favorites, but this activity may inspire your students to gain a new appreciation for this genre. Using common objects in the classroom, students are encouraged to visit pre-selected Web sites to "find the inside story" about each one. After responding to a series of guided questions, assembling the facts, and synthesizing them into a PowerPoint show, each group of student "experts" must present their findings to the class. Downloadable worksheets and a PowerPoint template are provided along with a helpful list of online sources. Aligned to National Standards.
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| The Internet and Children – What Works? | Grades 1 to 12 | NTIA | |
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This report on the Children’s Internet Privacy Act from the National Telecommunications Information Agency focuses on practical ideas that can have a meaningful impact in managing children’s access to the web while avoiding unnecessary restrictions on others. School technology staffs will find its “lessons learned” and “best practices” sections particularly interesting.
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| The Journey Inside | Grades 4 to 8 | Intel Corp. | |
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Intel's tour of the inside of your computer has reappeared in the Web world. Use it for an interactive, highly visual look at what goes on inside the typical PC. This one can be a useful introduction for both students and teachers. |
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| Think.com | Grades 2 to 7 | ||
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This free website - geared for elementary and middle school students - offers a protected virtual environment where kids can create interactive web pages to display their work and participate in on-line discussion groups. Teachers can use the resources on this site to post assignments and articles, communicate with students and parents via free email, or develop a Parent Page. Detailed information outlining security issues related to access, content and children’s privacy is provided. Created by Oracle.
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| ThinkQuest | Grades 4 to 6 | Thinkquest | |
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This site introduces the new junior version of ThinkQuest, an international contest for student created web sites as end products of collaborative research and creative work by students in multiple locations. Students use the internet and guidance of a coach to create original and high quality web pages on a wide range of topic categories. The student-produced products also provide excellent teaching resources in your subject area. Serve as a coach and enter a team in this contest as the ultimate technology based interactive teaching tool for interdisciplinary study or as the culmination of a major research project. |
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| ThinkUKnow | Grades 0 to 12 | Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre | |
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Click on Parent and Teachers resources to access lesson plans and resources that teach alongside the Cyber Café. You must register to access these, but it is painless. Interact with the content of this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector with your entire class to generate a class discussion on this important topic. |
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| Tiny URL | Grades 0 to 12 | Gilby Productions | |
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This very simple little tool allows you to copy a LONG URL (web address), paste it into this web page, and get back a very short URL that fits far more easily on your teacher web page, in your handouts, or on your blackboard for students to enter. If you make a map in Google Maps, an online graphic organizer, a set of online flash cards, to anything else that allows you to share my emailing or copying a URL, this tools will save you from endless errors or emails full of ten-line URLs. Be sure to show your middle and high school students how to use it, as well. This will solve the problem of URLs that get split and no longer work when the text wraps around to another line. |
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| To Excel is Elementary | Grades 1 to 5 | Kathy Adkins | |
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If you'd like to involve your students in graphing activities, but think that Excel is just too difficult for them to grasp, check out this site that is filled with ideas on how to use Excel in the elementary classroom. Explore the "Classroom Strategies" section for examples and benchmarks for each grade level.
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| TokBox | Grades 0 to 12 | TokBox, Inc. | |
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Skills needed: Join the site (requires email) and immediately begin to explore the tools. You need to know how to enable your webcam (“allow” the site to access your camera and mike). It is also helpful to be able to use the set-up tools offered on the Tokbox site for setting video and audio levels—just the first time you use Tokbox. Once you join, you will see a screen for using an IM service. You can skip that and skip accessing friends from your email. Skip the profile and go to “Start or join your first video chat. “ALLOW your webcam and mike to be accessed by Tokbox. Once you see yourself on screen, click “Share” to copy the link to your chat. Paste it in an email or Tweet, wait for your contact to click and join, and Voila, you are on video chat! You will probably need to click the little tool icon and “configure audio and video” to be heard well. Your guest at the other ends does NOT need to join Tokbox but will probably need to do the tools adjustment, as well.
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| Touch Typing | Grades 3 to 12 | ||
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It's like an electronic version of those old typing texts that emphasized drill and repetition …but this interactive site offers a few additional perks. Turn up the sound on your computer to "hear" your mistakes, motivate yourself with the visual "speed indicator," or copy and paste your own text into the display window. Bookmark this site for easy access in the computer lab.
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| Trading Card Maker | Grades 4 to 12 | ||
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TeachersFirst Edge Entry: for more adventurous technology users. Create photo trading cards using images you upload or store on Flickr. Imagine having your students create study aides about famous people using images they draw and scan or photos of themselves impersonating the famous people, such as presidents, explorers, authors, and more. If you celebrate reading by having an "author's tea," why not follow up by asking students to make trading cards for the authors they "met"? Use a similar approach for famous historical figures or even for geometric shapes you photograph with the digital camera. If students write their own "biographies" of the shapes to study from, they will learn for sure! They can even trade each other for favorites. Skills needed: join the site (free), upload and tag your photos. type information, print cards. This is also an excellent idea for special occasions for special people: mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, school nurse, school secretary, school custodian, favorite aunt, or anyone else! Be sure to print onto cover stock and laminate (if possible). What fabulous (and memorable) gifts. |
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| TryEngineering | Grades 2 to 12 | TryEngineering | |
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The lesson plans are detailed and simple to follow. The interactive games will have your students' talking about the activity long after class is over. Share the link on your teacher web page so they can visit over and over. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity for students to ask questions to real-live engineers, as well. Bring the real world into your classroom. |
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| Type Me | Grades 2 to 6 | Kaboose, Inc. | |
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This slightly different twist on traditional keyboarding drills can help students have fun while increasing speed and accuracy. The goal is to rescue falling letters or words by correctly typing them before they crash. Choose from three versions with adjustable skill levels.
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| U.S. Copyright Office Home Page | Grades 1 to 12 | Library of Congress | |
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Links to full text of copyright law, Congressional discussions on copyright revision, and numerous PDF files on specific or technical topics related to copyright.
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| Ultimate News Links | Grades 6 to 12 | ||
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This is a huge collection of media links - newspapers, electronic media, and specialty publications - sorted by country and subject area. Some are in English, others in native tongues. An excellent resource for hard-to-find information.
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| Video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English | Grades 0 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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This site could be used in many capacities: sharing students’ work online (with parental consent, of course), sharing this video clip at in-service trainings for teachers to use both professionally and personally, providing the link on your website for families to view and use at home, and many other possibilities. |
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| Video: Podcasting in Plain English | Grades 0 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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If you aren't familiar with podcasts, watch this short video and try to think about ways to use podcasting with your students. Have cooperative learning groups research a topic relevant to your class and create a podcast using a simple tool such as podOmatic (explained here). |
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| Video: RSS in Plain English | Grades 0 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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This is a great site for professional development. Once you set up a reader, you can subscribe to topics that fit in your curriculum: Google blog searches for inventions for your science class or current events feeds about the continent you are studying in social studies, for example. Administrators might consider sharing this time-saver with teachers during a training. With middle school students and older, share this video on an interactive whiteboard or projector (don't be surprised if they teach you MORE about the RSS options). Then have students set up a reader on an assigned topic to fit your curriculum or collaborate to set up a reader for the entire class. |
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| Video: Social Media in Plain English | Grades 0 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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If you are looking to learn more about various social media, check out this short video. Learn more about the "flavors" you could use in your own classroom. For research projects have students create a blog, wiki, or even a podcast and compare the pros/cons of each in terms of communication and safety. Create podcasts using a tool such as podOmatic (explained here). |
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| Video: Twitter in Plain English | Grades 5 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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This is a great site for professional development and further understanding of the current microblogging "twend": Twitter. Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use Twitter in the Classroom (with parental permission). Have students create writing prompts and share them on Twitter. Have your government students follow the "Twitter News" of politicians they can find on Twitter. Have students in science class follow the Twitter Feeds like Science News. Challenge students to create their own virtual collective Twitter scavenger hunt. The possibilities are endless! You can also use Twitter as a springboard for discussions about the changes in the political landscape and society with the advent of social networking tools. Ask them: are there any negatives or cautions to sharing your life on Twitter? |
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| Video: Web Search Strategies in Plain English | Grades 4 to 12 | Common Craft | |
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Share the video clip on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students apply the tips from this video during independent or cooperative learning research projects. |
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| Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology | Grades 1 to 12 | University of Maryland | |
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This site from the University of Maryland and Verizon is more than a how-to. The site provides two different modules that highlight studies, information, examples, and other content for those interested in using technology to teach in a web-based format (online or distance education). The content ranges from the theoretical to the practical and is definitely worth exploring. Share this site with teachers who are just starting to explore online teaching and learning. |
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| Visual Blooms | Grades 0 to 12 | Mike FIsher | |
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This wiki is all about applying Blooms Taxonomy to learning tasks using web 2.0 tools. If you know you would like to challenge students to APPLY new knowledge, for example map skills, look at the Applying page for ideas and tools to use. Participate in this wiki project by making comments and suggestions in the Discussion tab. The offerings for each level are far from exhaustive, but that is exactly the point of this teacher-to-teacher wiki: to involve you and your professional judgment, too. Follow the sidebar link to Blooms Rubrics (a separate but related wiki) to find examples (links) of rubrics teachers are using to assess different visual Blooms projects. As you launch into more and more student-centered learning projects and want to be sure you are getting your "bang for your web-buck" in terms of learning and thinking, this resource can get your thinking juices flowing. Mark this one in your Favorites, and make it a goal to try one of the tools at each level of this visual Blooms taxonomy during this school year. Take advantage of work and experience done by teaching colleagues by viewing rubrics, tool suggestions, and more on this site. Before you try a tool, you can learn more about it by reading a review on TeachersFirst. Search the tool name on our keyword search or browse through our Edge reviews for detailed suggestions about implementing the tool in your classroom safely and within school policies. |
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| vixy.net (beta) | Grades 0 to 12 | The Vixy project: Takuma Mori | |
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Skills needed: locate the online video and copy the URL. Open the Vixy site and paste the URL into the converter. Click to convert to AVI for windows or Mpeg4 for Mac, then download the file. Save the file to your local computer, then transfer to your portable device (USB or CD). The complication: Windows will require the DivX plug-in to play as an offline video file, such as in Windows Media Player. There is a link from Vixy to download it, but you may not be allowed to install it on your school machine. You could bring the install file to school on CD and ask your tech department to install it for you, if your machine does not already have it. |
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| Way Back Machine | Grades 0 to 12 | Internet Archive | |
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Has your favorite website gone MIA? Do you get the messages, "This site has moved" or "This website cannot be displayed?" If so, this website, Way Back Machine, will be of great assistance to you. The website pulls sites from Internet archives so you are able to look for clues how to find those websites when they "disappear."
Use this helpful site to find those "missing" websites that you used previously in class. |
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| Ways ESL/EFL Teachers Can Use Google.com | Grades 6 to 12 | Charles Kelley | |
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Search like a librarian using the hints on this page! This re-do of a Google search page helps searchers know exactly what they’re searching and what types of answers they can expect to receive without understanding the complexity of Boolean search terms, etc. Especially valuable are tips on how to search precisely and, at the same time, avoid certain results such as bookstores or pages with only commercial intent. Use of the wildcard search "*" is explained so that it seems easy and useful. Searching sentences, phrases, and other collocations is simple after looking at this page. There is also a link to the original Google search page. Not only ESL teachers, but also all instructors looking for specific types of info will find ways to make their searches more fruitful and economical. Show your high school students doing research how to use these search features to save time. |
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| Web Junction – Librarian Resources | Grades 1 to 12 | Library of Congress | |
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| Web Wise Kids | Grades 6 to 12 | Web Wise Kids | |
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Share the parent information on your teacher web page or in a classroom newsletter, especially if you ask students to use the Internet for homework assignments. It is easy to avoid the advertising or donation areas of the site and use the important information. |
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| Webmonkey: HTML for Kids | Grades 6 to 12 | Wired.com | |
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Kids can learn the basics of HTML and create their own websites with this user-friendly resource. A tutorial clearly explains things like code, graphics, and layout, and examples are provided in the "playground" and "gallery" sections. Throughout the site, links for parents and teachers offer planning tips and suggestions for using HTML as a learning tool. While the goal of this resource is to create an actual website, caution should be observed! Check your school's policy on student Internet use before beginning a website project.
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| Webopedia | Grades 9 to 12 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. | |
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When you hit a computer technology term that even your students don't know, Webopedia comes to the rescue with explanations of computers, the web, and all the jargon that go with them. This site also provides links to other computer-education resources and information. Include this site on your teacher web page for students and parents to access as a reference. |
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| Webquest 101 - Putting Discovery Into the Curriculum | Grades 1 to 12 | TeachersFirst | |
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Here's an extensive tutorial that explains what a webquest is, why it can be useful in the classroom, and how to create your own webquest on a topic of your choosing. There are lots of examples, and links to our ever-growing collection of sample webquests.
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| Welcome to e-Divide! | Grades 6 to 12 | ThinkQuest | |
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This is a Thinkquest contest winner. Thinkquest sites are created by students, but the winners have been judged as exemplary in a major international competition. As could be expected, the site is easy to navigate and well designed. The information might be especially useful for students taking computer or technology courses as a way of helping them recognize how difficult access to technology can be for others in less developed countries. It could also be a great discussion-starter for an economics or social studies class considering globalization issues. |
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| Welcome to the Web | Grades 1 to 12 | Teaching Ideas | |
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This British introduction to the Web was designed for young children, and that makes it perfect for most adults’ first venture into cyberspace. The site offers a step-by-step introduction, taking very small steps indeed. Technology teachers may find this one useful, and the site would also work well for a parent-and-student introduction to the Web.
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| What's Underfoot | Grades 9 to 12 | Intel Innovation | |
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While not a complete lesson plan, teacher can use this lesson idea and format as a model for other inquiry-based science projects based on local circumstances and resources. |
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| Wiki Support for Teaching and Learning | Grades 0 to 12 | Tony Whittingham | |
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This is a TeachersFirst Edge entry: for the more adventurous technology user. This wiki is actually an online course page with explanations of how to do podcasts, how to design electronic instruction using podcasts, blogs, wikis, and more. The site apparently is part of a course in New South Wales, but the content would allow you to move step by step through building a "wiki book" of instruction and several other projects. Skills needed: Navigating a wiki (like any other web page), independent viewing of videos and listening to podcasts, reading and following instructions.
Consider using this wiki as a challenge/framework for an individualized or team professional development plan. If your team can create a wiki book, you can set one up for your students to add to and edit, as well. Suddenly the options open up. Maybe your students can create a wiki book on an explorers, planets, or causes of the civil war? Perhaps your physics class can create a wiki review book that can remain for next year's class? Remember that TeachersFirst has wiki basics and links to a FREE wiki tool in our Wiki Walk-Through. |
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| Wiki Woman: How a Web Tool Saved My Career | Grades 0 to 12 | Edutopia | |
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Do you ever think you are the only veteran teacher who is tired of doing the same thing in your classroom? Do you wonder how to take on a massive change and learn new technology tools to implement the change? This article in Edutopia magazine (online and print) features Louise Maine, one of TeachersFirst's review team members, and tells the story of the changes she made to her teaching style after 20 years in the classroom. The companion article , also in this Edutopia issue, provides specific how-to-do-this advice on making a class wiki the center of your class. Louise used the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through and our Wiki Warranty template at the start of her journey, and look where the path has lead! Take the time to read this article to build your own confidence to make a big change in your teaching -- one step at a time. Better yet, share it with your colleagues as the starting point for a teacher-conducted inservice where you work together to implement change. Not allowed to conduct your own inservice? Take the article to your principal and ask for a pilot cohort within your school to work on wikis together, starting from this article and the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through. All you need is the confidence to ask. If Louise can do it, you can, too, no matter what grade/subject you teach. |
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| Wired Guide | Grades 4 to 12 | Wired Guide | |
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Billed as a help resource for new computer and Internet users, this site offers a collection of tips and instructions on how to accomplish simple computer tasks like cutting and pasting, creating browser bookmarks, etc. It's by no means an exhaustive resource, but could be helpful if you're a newcomer who needs help with the basics.
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| Wired Safety | Grades 1 to 12 | Parry Aftab | |
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Some portions, such as the cyberbullying "quiz" are easy for students to complete on their own (on laptops or in a lab) and follow up with a discussion. Take some time to explore the various areas of this site so you'll know where to look when questions come up and can address internet safety every time you use computers at school, rather than as a separate "lesson." Share the printables with parents at open house or conferences. |
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| Wireless Security | Grades 1 to 12 | Rutgers University | |
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Though rather thick with techno-jargon, this site provides a detailed look at privacy and access problems related to maintaining a wireless network. Wireless security is an important concern for schools, businesses, and homes operating wireless networks. This site provides helpful information on the security options available for operating these wireless networks.
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| Writing for the Web | Grades 1 to 12 | ||
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| Zamzar | Grades 0 to 12 | Zamzar | |
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Have you ever wanted to save a document as a .pdf or make changes on .pdf documents? This online tool allows you to convert files to different formats, including conversion of .pdf files to Word documents and Word to .pdfs. You can also convert music, video, and photo files to different formats of your choice. This is a VERY useful tool. Select the file to import, the change to be made, and receive a file in the new format at your email address after registration. The documents are editable after conversion. Images will not be as "editable" as text. The text comes in within a text box, but can be edited.
Share this site with fellow teachers. Be aware that many school email systems block certain file attachments. You may want to send the converted files to a home email address and bring them to school "on a stick."
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