Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This is a great maths puzzle site where you must add, subtract, multiply, or divide with a set of four numbers to equal 24. The two rules include do not cheat and click done when you want to quit! Choose from many modes including an easier version, timed games, and battle mode.
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tag(s): mental math (23), operations (100)

See "edu-ese" from the point of view of noneducators reading this glossary. Discover the explanations of terms used in education especially the "hot, new" ones. Read explanations that give examples and perspectives from those not immersed in education on a daily basis. Useful both for insiders to see how others look at education and for parents to sift through the lingo, this site continually updates its offerings. One handy extra is the abbreviations section. You can also suggest a term for inclusion.

tag(s): parent conferences (22), parents (60), professional development (231)

Pursued is an engaging street view game using Google Maps. Begin with the first level as you look around an unknown city. Use your surroundings to guess the city. Each correct guess moves you to a new level. Once you reach the "top," you can unlock additional levels by liking the game on Facebook. Additional packages include European Capitals, US State Capitals, and others. Submit your own game as an advanced user using prompts and tutorials provided. As the name states, this activity involves helping a cartoon character who is being pursued. Although it is a cartoon, the opening scene shows the cartoon character being put into what appears to be a trunk. The activity is extremely engaging, but be certain that students are mature enough to handle the content!

tag(s): capitals (16), cities (20), continents (31), countries (69), cross cultural understanding (140), map skills (60), maps (229)

Teach students how to develop close reading skills with Actively Learn. Choose from over 150 commonly taught texts that include embedded Common Core aligned questions and multimedia. Choose from any public domain texts or any article from the Internet and be guided through creating your own Common Core aligned questions. Also, embed your own multimedia or images. Reading "school texts" becomes much more personalized when students are able to write notes, questions, or respond to their reading directly on the page they are reading. This is like the old way of using paper and pencil to annotate the text in the margin. Others can respond to questions and notes written by peers reading the same text. Actively Learn makes it easy to set up an assignment by having a "help" button for each area that will show a video for help, or download a PDF to read the instructions. Not only will you find poetry, drama, and stories, but also nonfiction for the sciences and the humanities. The introduction video requires Flash. The rest of the site does not.

tag(s): guided reading (39), reading strategies (53)

Data drives instruction. Managing data drives you crazy. This free tool will assess students, manage data, and analyze results to make your instruction better. Easily create rubrics. Describe your indicators and include standards. Find rubrics in the library to copy and make your own. Print rubrics, save as a PDF, or download as a spreadsheet. Share your rubrics in the library for others to access. Does breaking down data make you break down? Analyze assessment results by individual students, class, item analysis, or standards. Email students and their families the results or download rubrics to print. Add comments to rubrics for qualitative analysis. Award badges (stickers) to reward students and provide positive feedback. An accompanying, free iPad app allows you to collect data on the fly and add it to your account. The demonstration video requires Flash, the remainder of the site does not.

tag(s): assessment (117), gamification (76), rubrics (29)

750 Words is a private place to write your thoughts, clear your head, scrawl a rant, or brainstorm ideas. You might ask yourself, why not just blog? Blogs have a "keep private" button, and if you forget to click it who knows who will be reading your most private thoughts. This program is based on the idea that getting your thoughts on (digital) paper every morning can clear your head, focus your ideas, and organize and energize you for the rest of the day. Inspired by the book The Artist's Way, and its hand-written "Morning Pages" exercise, the creator of this program converted that exercise to our 21st century tools. If you care about such things, there is also a point system where one can compare constancy of writing and words written with others.

tag(s): brainstorming (17), gamification (76), journals (18), process writing (39), writers workshop (31)

Create text-based adventure games and interactive fiction using Quest! No programming language required. You can also play games already designed by others. Choose the "play" option from the top of the web page to view and play games such as The Mansion or Shipwrecked. Play games online or download to your Windows computer. Design your own games online using your web browser or download software to your Windows PC to work offline. Create an account in Quest to begin creating activities. View the video tutorial for an overview of the activities and creation processes. Create rooms and objects or tasks for each room. Create more complex games by following complete instructions found in the web browser version of the game system creator. Add sound files and even videos to games in addition to tasks. An option allows players to choose their own endings to games. There is a documentation wiki and a forum to get help. This site may require some tinkering around to figure it out! But it is well worth the time. Note: since games available for Play are created by the general public, you will want to preview for appropriateness.

tag(s): interactive stories (19), process writing (39)