TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Jan 18, 2015
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
Visualizing Cultures - MIT
Grades
8 to 12
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We see cultures through our own eyes, a lens that is influenced by our own frame of reference and experiences. Another way to learn about cultures is to view them ...more
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We see cultures through our own eyes, a lens that is influenced by our own frame of reference and experiences. Another way to learn about cultures is to view them through the eyes of others through an examination of images created by others. Visualizing Cultures brings us images from Asia, many not widely circulated before, that illustrate historical events such as the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Black Ships, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Each set of images is accompanied by narratives, lesson plans, and printable handouts to provide context. While we may have seen photographs of Hiroshima's devastation, we can now view the story through the eyes and drawings of Japanese survivors.
tag(s): asia (68), china (62), cross cultural understanding (157), japan (56), perspective (11), visualizations (11)
In the Classroom
Perspective taking is an important skill in learning about other cultures and other time periods. To Western eyes, these images will provide a fresh look at historical events. It is important to note, and to help students understand, that the images are uncensored and may depict a way of seeing others that, to us, may seem racist or disrespectful. Screen the images to determine how they might be best used to help students see the world through others' eyes, and how to manage a discussion of these themes.
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Fractions, Decimals, Percents: Interactive Teaching Resources - S Riley Teacherled
Grades
3 to 6
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Discover a collection of resources for the teaching and learning of fractions, decimals, and percentages. These resources will work on your interactive whiteboard, most tablets, iPad,...more
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Discover a collection of resources for the teaching and learning of fractions, decimals, and percentages. These resources will work on your interactive whiteboard, most tablets, iPad, or a regular computer! This site does seem ideal for BYOD classrooms, but they do mention that some of the activities run slow on a standard Android browser. An app (non Internet) version will be available soon for a small fee. This review is for the free portion of the site. At the time of this review, there were 15 free resources to explore. Some sample topics include Fraction Bars, Decimal Compare, Percent to Fraction, Decimal Lines, and more. Some activities require flash which is not supported on all browsers.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Teach through your students' favorite form of learning, technology! Introduce concepts on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use this site at a computer learning station. Provide this link on your class website during your fraction or decimal units. Challenge students to transfer learning to physical manipulatives and explain concepts in their math journals.
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Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes - Lowell Milken Center
Grades
5 to 12
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The Lowell Milken Center discovers, develops and communicates the stories of Unsung Heroes who have made a profound and positive impact on the course of history. Click Programs on the...more
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The Lowell Milken Center discovers, develops and communicates the stories of Unsung Heroes who have made a profound and positive impact on the course of history. Click Programs on the top menu and select Unsung Hero Projects to learn about everyday people who became heroes by standing up to adversity in their lives. Each project features information about the hero and the storyteller. Some projects include links to student-created web pages and videos. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. Start your own Unsung Hero project using the ten steps provided to include inspiration from start to finish. This resource also includes Lesson Plans.
tag(s): character education (76), heroes (22), Project Based Learning (25)
In the Classroom
Share stories from the Unsung Heroes project on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Discuss traits that make a hero and find inspiration to search for heroes in your everyday lives. Use this site as a starting point for individual or group projects. All types of classes can complete a project about an unsung hero. P.E. classes can find out about veterans, surfers, or car accident victims who have lost limbs and used their challenges to make a difference. Math and science students can complete an Internet search for high school inventors. Students could also search through old Scholastic Scope magazines for articles about young people who have overcome adversity. Instead of a paper and pen written biography, extend students' learning by using Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about a hero they have chosen. Modify student learning by challenging them to create an annotated image of a hero including text boxes and related links using a tool such as Google Drawings, reviewed here. Google Drawings allows you to annotate an image with links to videos, text, websites, and more. Not familiar with Google Drawings? Watch an archived OK2Ask session to learn how to use: OK2Ask Google Drawings, here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Copy Paste Character - Konst & Teknik & Martin
Grades
K to 12
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Copy Paste Character offers a large assortment of characters to use with any text. Choose from characters within a favorite set such as music notes, smiley faces, or mathematical symbols....more
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Copy Paste Character offers a large assortment of characters to use with any text. Choose from characters within a favorite set such as music notes, smiley faces, or mathematical symbols. Click on any symbol then paste into your document. View other sets such as graphic shapes, punctuation, and emojis using the drop-down box. Registration is not required, but it is an option if you want to create and save sets for future use.
In the Classroom
Bookmark this site to easily find symbols for use on your class webpage, newsletters, and lessons. Share with students as a resource for finding characters and symbols for use on any project. Add this link to your class website for students (and families) to access at home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Bookopolis - Kari Ness Riedel
Grades
1 to 7
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Bookopolis is more than an online social reading club for children ages 7-12. It has an education portal to keep track of and review a reader's work. Scroll down the ...more
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Bookopolis is more than an online social reading club for children ages 7-12. It has an education portal to keep track of and review a reader's work. Scroll down the landing page to find Bookopolis recommended books, popular books, book of the week, and reviews from other readers. Bookopolis includes digital reading logs, reading log prompts, and suggests places to find comprehension questions about the book. Through the educator dashboard, monitor and comment on the reader's writing and reading logs. The activities and features on the site are aligned with many of the Common Core Reading and Writing standards. There are several video tutorials on getting started and how to use the dashboard. The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
tag(s): book lists (161), book reports (28), classroom management (128), guided reading (32), independent reading (85), reading comprehension (141), remote learning (61), social networking (68), Teacher Utilities (146)
In the Classroom
Create your account with one of several social media programs, or your email, teacher name, username, and some basic information. Create your dashboard by adding a class and class name. You can create multiple classes. From the teacher dashboard on right menu choose Teacher Resources to view the several teacher video tutorials to get started. Click the class name to add students; student accounts can be created manually or by importing an XLS or CSV file. Students will automatically be "friends" with other students in the same class, but can also invite students from different classes. Share this site with students (and parents at back to school night) using your interactive whiteboard or projector. Students also have video tutorials; show students the video tutorial "How to Add Books" to get them started. In your blended or remote learning classroom enhance students' learning for this tool using the tutorial (s) along with MoocNote, reviewed here, to add comments and information. Students can create bookshelves for books they are reading, that they have read, and that they want to read. Students can earn points and badges for the books they read. This tool will get students excited about reading since they can connect with friends to share book reviews and swap book recommendations. Students also practice persuasive writing, comprehension, and typing skills by completing reviews, reports, and reading logs online. This tool is great to keep track of student home reading or if you are teaching remotely! Besure to list this site in a parent newsletter or on your website as one to use to avoid the "summer reading slide."Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Darwin, a Naturalist's Voyage Around the World - SagaScience
Grades
8 to 12
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Charles Darwin, in his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, changed the way we look at the natural world. This animated journey takes us on eleven stages of the journey and ...more
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Charles Darwin, in his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, changed the way we look at the natural world. This animated journey takes us on eleven stages of the journey and introduces some of Darwin's most important discoveries. The journey can be viewed as a continuous narrated animation, or can be broken up into the eleven stages of the journey and viewed one stage at a time via an interactive map. Each stage includes readings from Darwin's journal, and a series of images that are accessed by dropping and dragging them to a "magic lantern," a sort of slide projector common during Darwin's time. The journey can be accessed in English, French, or Spanish.
tag(s): animals (280), darwin (13), evolution (85), explorers (64), natural resources (37), oceans (146)
In the Classroom
Preview Darwin's journey by showing the continuous animation on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Follow that with having students examine the different stages of the journey independently when they can select the images, listen to Darwin's own commentary, and think more deeply about the important discoveries Darwin made while sailing around the world. Create a class wiki for students to share what they discover while they view the interactive. Not comfortable with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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P.org - iParadigms, LLC & TurnItIn LLC
Grades
6 to 12
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Here you will find everything you will ever need to know about plagiarism and citing sources. Start with the article on the right "What is Plagiarism." Be sure to check ...more
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Here you will find everything you will ever need to know about plagiarism and citing sources. Start with the article on the right "What is Plagiarism." Be sure to check out all the categories from the left menu. There you will find lots of videos and articles regarding citing sources (explains what a citation is), why one should cite sources, how to paraphrase, how to quote material, what a footnote is, and when one should cite the source. There are several interesting videos with titles like "Everything is a Remix." This is a hot topic and definitely a site to save and share with students!
Some of the videos reside on YouTube, if your school blocks YouTube they may not be viewable on classroom computers. You could flip your classroom and have the students watch those videos at home.
tag(s): citations (34), plagiarism (34), Research (83), summarizing (22)
In the Classroom
Meet your Common Core standards for nonfiction reading using the pages at this informative site! In addition, every student who creates a report, presentation, speech, or project, in any subject, needs to know this information. Consider dividing and presenting this site with a teacher in another curriculum, so students get the idea that this is information for EVERY class. Modify learning and consider presenting the information, questions, and quizzes using a tool such as Vevox, reviewed here. Vevox will integrate with Microsoft Teams and PowerPoint, and you can have instantaeous question and answer sessions. Then you can quiz students on the information. Moreover, this program will make this text heavy, but necessary material, much more tolerable for your students. You may want to challenge your gifted and musically inclined students to create a rap highlighting the important information they learned about plagiarism and citing sources. Have them teach the rap to the rest of the class. Or enhance learning and have students create a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site using a tool such as WordItOut, reviewed here. If you are flipping your classroom and having students to watch the videos residing on YouTube at home, you may want to use Edpuzzle, reviewed here, to add your own voice or add questions within the video and hold students accountable.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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PhotoFunia - Capsule Digital
Grades
K to 12
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Use your pictures and PhotoFunia to create photo collages, flyers, family trees, holiday albums, and more. PhotoFunia has hundreds of effects and filters. More are added weekly. To...more
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Use your pictures and PhotoFunia to create photo collages, flyers, family trees, holiday albums, and more. PhotoFunia has hundreds of effects and filters. More are added weekly. To add shadows, age your photo, or render it black and white just visit the Filters category. Add clever features such as an astronaut or a Santa suit, a witch's hat or a queen's crown. Looking for an attractive frame for your photos? Find one here. Write on the sand or graffiti text on the wall. Carve your name on the ground or create your very own road sign using text effects. The program is as easy to use as picking the effect and uploading a photo. Save it to your computer or email it. Try using PhotoFunia online or get the free app for iOS or Andriod, and most other smartphones. At the time of this review, all photo effects appeared appropriate for use in the classroom. However, we always suggest you preview the tool before sharing it with students.
tag(s): collages (20), comics and cartoons (53), DAT device agnostic tool (143), editing (93), images (270), photography (131), posters (47)
In the Classroom
You do not need to be artistic to transform a personal or stock photo into a stunning work of art or even an amusing image. Adjust any image's color intensity, value, and hue using the filters. Use this tool anytime that photos need to be edited for use in class blogs, newsletters, wikis, or websites. In primary grades, this tool could be useful for teachers to use to edit pictures from a field trip, science experiments, and more. Share the editing process with your younger students using your interactive whiteboard or projector. Edit together! Engage older students by encouraging them to use this site themselves on images for projects or presentations. Use the features and effects to edit images to fit styles of photos when doing historical reports or to set the mood.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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