TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of May 5, 2013
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek - John Branch, New York Times
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): descriptive writing (37), disasters (36), journalism (67), snow (18)
In the Classroom
Include this story (or portions of it) during your science study of motion, gravity, or weather with secondary students. (Our check of reading level found it to be approximately 8th grade). Experience the text on a projector or interactive whiteboard to annotate figures of speech that tell us even more than some of the images. Read and analyze it as an informational text in English class. (it's viewable on tablets, too!). Discuss how the author uses media as part of the writing instead of as an add-on. For journalism and other writing classes, you may want to have your students read the accompanying article How We Made Snow Fall to analyze how the interactive and graphics departments at the New York Times worked with the text of the story to make the graphics and video a seamless part of the "reading". Challenge student groups to investigate a true story of a weather event or other actual occurrence through a combination of media and writing, explaining the science concepts along the way. Share their projects using one of the multimedia tools available from the TeachersFirst Edge. Expecting a snow day? Share this on your class web page for your literature or science class as a productive way to spend the day. Teachers of gifted can share this as an example of a project that can draw on a student's interests in science, art, and writing. Challenge students to try one. If you teach journalism, you could make the two articles an entire unit as you discuss the changing role of print vs. web-based writing in the 21st century.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Circuit Lab - Circuitlab.com
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): circuits (17), electricity (76)
In the Classroom
Share how to use this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Create circuits and share with others in the class. Assign specific circuits to be built with various elements such as diodes, resistors, etc. as part of a project or in testing student knowledge. Students can research when various circuits are required or applicable in real life.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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360Cities - 360 Cities s.r.o.
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): images (265), landforms (41), landmarks (17), virtual field trips (68)
In the Classroom
The 360Cities panoramic pictures provide a vivid visual experience to enhance any lesson. Students can search and view the panoramic setting of a reading passage or novel. Need to paint a picture for students about a historical topic? View the image on 360Cities. Activate schema with these vivid images. Bring Science to life as you explore the many natural wonders of our world and even space. Explore these exciting worlds through the panoramic pictures. Visit businesses and famous landmarks around the world for a free virtual tour. Looking for creative writing prompts? Use the images for poems or story starters. Teaching geometry? Have students locate geometric figures in the pictures. Provide students an image and challenge them to create a virtual tour as they explore the image. Use web 2.0 tools or the students' artistic talents to create travel brochures for the panoramic pictures. Record the tours as a screencast or present orally. Use the "how-to" section to have your students create their own panoramic pictures. Take a panoramic shot of your classroom to post on your website or blog. Use DSLR cameras or cell phones to create your panoramic pictures.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Smarty Games - smartygames.com
Grades
K to 4tag(s): addition (202), alphabet (59), colors (71), counting (94), digital storytelling (132), division (144), fractions (218), money (158), multiplication (182), parts of speech (48), preK (271), puzzles (173), subtraction (171), sudoku (13), time (115)
In the Classroom
Smarty Games is an excellent resource for classroom computers or your interactive whiteboard/projector as a center. Create a link on classroom computers for students to explore and play games to reinforce skills. Display games or interactives on your whiteboard. Use the interactive clock located under the time section on your interactive whiteboard to demonstrate telling time. Be sure to share this site with parents via your class website or newsletter as an excellent site for educational games at home. Kids will have so much fun, they won't realize they are learning!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wordmark.it - wordmark.it
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Share with students to use when preparing any presentation or document. Use this site when creating items for your class blog or website. Be sure to save this tool in your favorites to use for professional projects and lessons!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Art Projects for Kids - Kathy Barbro
Grades
K to 6This site includes advertising.
tag(s): artists (75), crafts (42), drawing (65), holidays (134), seasons (33), symmetry (40)
In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site to find art projects and inspiration to use throughout the year. Share with your school's art teacher as a resource for projects that coordinate with classroom content. Don't have an art teacher at your school? Be sure to save this site for lots of easy to incorporate ideas. Create art projects in the style of your favorite authors using links provided. Take pictures of completed projects and create an ebook using Ourboox, reviewed here. Ourboox creates beautiful page-flipping digital books in minutes, and you can embed video, music, animation, games, maps and more.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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UtellStory - utellstory.com
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): digital storytelling (132), images (265), multimedia (48), slides (52)
In the Classroom
UtellStory is a great way to enhance students' learning to create and share short stories about things that they photograph. Have students take pictures during field trips to use in a UtellStory report about what they saw and learned on the trip. Photograph steps of a science experiment. Or have students search for Creative Commons and Public Domain images to use as part of an audio slideshow biography about a notable person in history or tell the story of the water cycle or other process. Try using 4 Free Photos, reviewed here, or Compfight, reviewed here, to find free images. Create a UtellStory to use for review of classroom topics or to demonstrate how to perform different steps in a math problem. Have students enhance their learning and create UtellStory presentations by using the multimedia features demonstrating learning in any subject area such as Civil War Events, different characteristics of animals, etc. Create a UtellStory for your elementary classroom: upload a picture that each student has drawn and have students narrate the picture in their own words.Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
Includes teacher tools for registering and/or monitoring students
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Szoter - szoter.com
Grades
K to 12tag(s): digital storytelling (132), images (265)
In the Classroom
Capture a screenshot of websites or software and annotate with directions for student use. Have students label and identify objects in an image. Label parts of a plant, continents, landforms, etc. Practice new words in a different language by asking students to label and identify objects in that language. Create a storyboard using several annotated images as a story starter. Art students can annotate images to point out design elements or annotate images of their own work to talk about the creative decisions they made. Share annotated Szoter images on your class website or blog to tell about a field trip or class event.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
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Stop the Beetle - USDA
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): ecosystems (84), habitats (104), species (28)
In the Classroom
Identify what makes a species "invasive." Research the ecosystem in your area and identify why this pest can create loss of species there. Identify various invasive species found around the country and the world and the mechanisms that allowed them to become established in the first place. Create a campaign to teach people in the area how to identify and stop the spread of invasive species.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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America in Class - The National Humanities Center
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): abolition (6), american revolution (75), civil war (132), colonial america (102), colonization (16), democracy (16), native americans (80), primary sources (100), slavery (55), women (101)
In the Classroom
Use your interactive whiteboard or projector to help your class learn the background information and read the material through once. Work through the lesson together; then consider assigning groups of four students to go through the readings again, discovering the answers to the essential questions. Have students post the group's answers on a back channel chat program such as YoTeach!, reviewed here, so all groups can see all answers. Where answers differ, have students go back into the reading and cite evidence to support their answer on Today's Meet for all to see.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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