TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Apr 17, 2016

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

 

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Thrively - Thrively

Grades
1 to 12
4 Favorites 0  Comments
 
Thrively is a free tool that gives strengths and interests assessments in an engaging and entertaining way. Based on twenty-three factors and developed for children, you receive a profile...more
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Thrively is a free tool that gives strengths and interests assessments in an engaging and entertaining way. Based on twenty-three factors and developed for children, you receive a profile that is personal, positive, and celebrates each child's core strengths and unique talents. Children, teachers, and parents all have a dashboard displaying activities and videos selected specifically for the child's strengths and interests. Explore a comprehensive activity index with over 120,000 activities and hundreds of videos designed to inspire. The videos feature interesting ideas, leaders, and a range of insights into careers and opportunities that are a good fit for the child's unique strengths. The Activity Boards are a way to discover and research the activities and collect them all in one place. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.
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tag(s): back to school (62), differentiation (83), multiple intelligences (7), social and emotional learning (80), Special Needs (53), Teacher Utilities (146)

In the Classroom

Begin your school year with a more personal touch, by knowing what your students' interests are. On the teacher dashboard, examine each student and match interest to activities to differentiate instruction. Students can explore careers, apps, and activities matching their profile. With interest and strengths targeted, you can sail smoothly into a highly engaged class of individualized learning. During career explorations, open up worlds of possibilities for students and families to begin planning a successful path. Add a link to this tool to your class website for possible enrichment activities for families. Offer suggestions to parents for enriching after school activities found around your area.

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Quizalize - Zzish

Grades
4 to 12
7 Favorites 0  Comments
  
Track learning in real-time with Quizalize. Student answers are color-coded on the teacher dashboard for ease in identifying who needs more help. Create scrambled word or multiple choice...more
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Track learning in real-time with Quizalize. Student answers are color-coded on the teacher dashboard for ease in identifying who needs more help. Create scrambled word or multiple choice questions, and each question can have a custom timer. View reports for each student's progress and learning gaps. Create a quiz or select one from Quizalize's growing library. Quizzes can be "gamified" by showing the teacher dashboard as a leaderboard to see progress against other users. Quizalize works on any device with a browser and Internet connection. Sign up with an email and password. Create a quiz, assign it to classes, get a code, give it to students, and let the fun begin! The free account provides 3 classes and 5 activities.

tag(s): differentiation (83), game based learning (171), gamification (74), polls and surveys (46), quizzes (90)

In the Classroom

Make a class challenge! Create practice quizzes to review the material just learned in class. Use an interactive whiteboard or projector for students to view the "leaderboard" (teacher dashboard) as in a game. Students score more points by answering questions quickly. As with other tools with a leaderboard, it is helpful to have a collaborative environment where competition is not the goal, instead working together and improving is important. Use Quizalize as a formative assessment and to differentiate to see what material needs more review with classes (or individual students). Use this tool often to obtain a snapshot of each student's understanding of content (subtopic/standards); quickly see who understands a concept and who needs some individualized practice. Share with students as a resource for creating quizzes for studying at home. When students are using surveys and polls for reports, introduce them to Quizalize since it works on any device. Share quizzes with your fellow teachers.

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Story Shares - Louise Baigelman and Gary Herman

Grades
6 to 12
1 Favorites 0  Comments
Story Share is the perfect solution for finding relevant and readable content for older students unable to read above the elementary level. Digital content provides interesting material...more
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Story Share is the perfect solution for finding relevant and readable content for older students unable to read above the elementary level. Digital content provides interesting material that doesn't condescend to teen readers. Use scroll down the landing page to The Matrix to filter the correct reading level and interest level. Login is required to read books, and it allows you to add books to a reading list and to bookmark the stopping point while reading books. Be sure to check out the The Blog to find books on current topics and ideas for reading nooks, etc.

tag(s): book lists (159), differentiation (83), digital storytelling (142), ebooks (38), multilingual (63), reading comprehension (142)

In the Classroom

Introduce this site to your reluctant or struggling readers on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then have students explore this site independently or in small groups to find interesting reading material. Be sure to provide a link to Story Shares on your class website or blog for students to explore at home. Use this site to differentiate for students of all levels and for use with special education or ENL/ESL students. Have students write their own comprehension questions and answers based on the book to check their own comprehension and to exchange with classmates.

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Slick Write - Russ Tek, LLC

Grades
5 to 12
5 Favorites 0  Comments
Refine your writing with Slick Write's feedback about the flow, style, structure, readability, word frequencies, and repeated phrases in your writing. This program is not just a grammar...more
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Refine your writing with Slick Write's feedback about the flow, style, structure, readability, word frequencies, and repeated phrases in your writing. This program is not just a grammar check. See diagrams showing the flow of your writing and sentence styles. It will highlight and label weak descriptions, too many prepositional phrases, cliches, and weasel words. Under "Configure", Slick Write gives choices for types of feedback for the writing. Give it a try by clicking on "edit" and pasting your text. Click "proofread" to get your results. Click "stats" to learn about overuse of prepositions and passive voice, two common writing faults. Once you see your "weaknesses," it's time to begin the hard part: revising! But at least you have an idea where to focus!
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tag(s): editing (93), proofreading (21), writing (315)

In the Classroom

Use this program with your students who are ready to refine and improve their writing. This is a wonderful program to use for revision after editing of grammar and mechanics is complete. Discover what is making your writing too wordy (excessive prepositional phrases or adverbs?) Partner an advanced writer with one not so advanced and have them use Slick Write to improve their styles. Easily differentiate for writing pitfalls by having them "configure" the settings to focus on their greatest needs instead of overwhelming them with everything at once. Put the URL on your website for students and parents to use from home. Remind seniors to use it for their college essays. Use this tool to polish your own professional writing, parent newsletters, blog posts, and papers for grad classes!

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MobyMax: Complete K-8 Curriculum - MobyMax.com

Grades
K to 8
6 Favorites 0  Comments
   
Practice and improve student skills in the K-8 curriculum with MobyMax. Start with pre-testing students and assigning differentiated activities for reading, math, science, writing,...more
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Practice and improve student skills in the K-8 curriculum with MobyMax. Start with pre-testing students and assigning differentiated activities for reading, math, science, writing, grammar and vocabulary. Pre-tests target areas of struggle and assign curriculum based on need. Never again will students have to practice material they have already mastered. The progress tracking throughout is based on Common Core standards. Adjust assigned curriculum on your own if desired by reassigning a pre-test or assigning your own lessons. Register using your email and school information to begin. Add your student list. Once created students have their own individual login to begin placement testing. There is a PRO account that costs money; this review is only for the FREE portion.
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tag(s): addition (128), assessment (147), classroom management (128), differentiation (83), division (98), fluency (24), game based learning (171), multiplication (122), subtraction (109), vocabulary (235), vocabulary development (90)

In the Classroom

Create a classroom account. Use MobyMax during centers, for nightly homework, or computer lab time. Share with parents as an excellent resource for practicing math, reading, writing, grammar, science, and vocabulary skills at home. Use the pre-testing features at the beginning of the school year to get students started at the correct levels. Use this tool to differentiate for all students. Your gifted students can pretest out of material already learned and receive activities and instruction at their individual level. Be sure to bookmark this site to use with all levels of students.

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noredink - Jeff Scheur

Grades
3 to 12
14 Favorites 1  Comments
 
Students will have fun while improving their writing and grammar. At the time of this review, noredink's grammatical categories include apostrophes, subject-verb agreement, comma issues,...more
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Students will have fun while improving their writing and grammar. At the time of this review, noredink's grammatical categories include apostrophes, subject-verb agreement, comma issues, sentence fragments, run-on sentences commonly confused words, phrases and clauses, and a lot more! The program provides differentiated instruction based on the questions students answer right or wrong. Click the "Product" tab on the top menu to read about more features. There are interactive tutorials to help students correct mistakes. Sign up with name, username, email address, gender, school name, and a password.

So, what's fun about learning this type of grammar? noredink asks students to pick their interests from Sports, TV shows, Musicians, and Miscellaneous. They will also be asked if they want them to use your friends from Facebook. When students are practicing or are taking quizzes, the program will use their interests and friends, and generate the questions around their interests and friends. The hope is that the content will be more interesting by including sentences with favorite celebrities, hobbies, TV shows, or even personal friends. Be sure to watch the introductory video. The program works on iPads as well as your regular computer.
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tag(s): assessment (147), capitalization (9), classroom management (128), differentiation (83), grammar (133), homonyms (8), homophones (6), punctuation (25), quiz (67), quizzes (90), sentences (21), Teacher Utilities (146), verbs (27)

In the Classroom

Teachers sign up and create a class. You will receive a class code for your students to use (optional). With the class code you will be able to track student's progress, differentiate, assign quizzes and assignments, and see class trends. The program has color-coded "heat maps" to track progress easily. Your assignments and quizzes will be uniquely generated according to each student's interests. Also, students don't have to wait for you to give them an assignment. With their account, they can practice at any time. A student does NOT have to provide an email address to create an account. It will work without it! Since students are providing some personal information about interests, etc., we strongly advise parent permission.

Challenge (and excel) your gifted students with the concepts practiced at this site. Since student assignments are at their own level, students can find great acceleration in practicing these necessary skills. ENL/ELL students will especially benefit from the practice using correct English, in their writing, over a continuous time period. Student assignments are at their own level. You can also create your own quizzes. Use this site as part of your rotation during learning stations. Put your class' URL on your website so students can practice at home, too.

Comments

Any website that doesn't let you try it before creating an account is instantly uninteresting to me. Kristi, , Grades: 0 - 12

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The Readability Test Tool - David Simpson

Grades
1 to 12
5 Favorites 0  Comments
Test any website's readability using The Readability Test Tool. Test readability by URL or direct text input from any source (such as copy/paste of student writing). Simply enter...more
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Test any website's readability using The Readability Test Tool. Test readability by URL or direct text input from any source (such as copy/paste of student writing). Simply enter the web address (URL) and get the readability of the site on several scales. You can also check your own webpages by using the "referer" section. You will get a score for the most used readability indicators: Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease and Grade Level, Gunning Fog Score, Coleman Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index (ARI). These tell much more than a simple "grade level." View sentence info such as total characters, number of words, average word length, percentage of short and long sentences, and more. View word usage of types of verbs, conjunctions, and other parts of speech as well as type of words used to begin sentences. Click the link provided to view an explanation of each type of score.
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tag(s): independent reading (85), readability (5), writing (315)

In the Classroom

Use this tool to offer differentiated resources for the different reading levels in your class. At the beginning of the year, as you learn your students' capabilities, use this tool to find reading at the appropriate level to eliminate frustration. This is perfect for finding the "just right" level for your highly advanced/gifted students and those needing extra remediation. If you do discover that a website you want to use is over your students' independent reading level, you can still use it, just use Read Ahead, reviewed here as a guided reading activity for younger students. Read Ahead is perfect for introducing any reading passage to struggling readers, special education students, and ENL/ESL learners. View readability levels of websites before sharing with students to find appropriate reading levels for differentiation. On an interactive whiteboard or with a projector, test passages of public domain texts from sites like Project Gutenberg, reviewed here, by famous authors to see how their writing ranks when discussing their writing style.

Why not have students put in the URL for their blog or wiki (or simply paste in a writing sample) to see the level at which they are writing? This is one way to encourage writing as a craft and challenge students to include more varied vocabulary and sentence structure in their writing.

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The Differentiator - Ian Byrd

Grades
K to 12
7 Favorites 0  Comments
Differentiating activities for all learners has become easier with this tool. Use this free Bloom's Taxonomy tool, created by an educator, to develop great objectives for differentiated...more
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Differentiating activities for all learners has become easier with this tool. Use this free Bloom's Taxonomy tool, created by an educator, to develop great objectives for differentiated instruction. Move through developing your goal on this site by choosing a level of Bloom's Taxonomy and a thinking skill. Then move on to your content, resources, finished product expected, and what kind of grouping you want. These are all tabs at the top of the page. Watch the sentence at the top of the screen change as you create your objective.

tag(s): blooms taxonomy (7), critical thinking (112), differentiation (83), newbies (14)

In the Classroom

As an example, use a verb from Bloom' taxonomy such as "evaluate." Click on the part of the sentence at the top, in parenthesis, to enter your content such as "patterns of environmental issues." Choose the resource you want students to use, the product you want them to make, and the number of students in a group by clicking on the tabs. Example objective: Students will evaluate the patterns of environmental issues using websites to create a news report in groups of two. Save your objective by copying and pasting it into any document or online tool. The Differentiator will give you many project ideas that you may not have thought of yourself, and serves as a welcome reminder of different activities and expectations you can use in your classroom. Take a look at this site at the beginning of the school year or when creating a new unit (or project). Find new ways to differentiate for your gifted students using this creative and powerful tool. If your gifted students test out of your current math lessons, use this site to find new material to challenge their minds. This site is deceptively quick and simple, but it could be very useful when writing detailed, powerful lesson plans.

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Quizlet: The End of Flashcards - Brainflare: Andrew Sutherland

Grades
3 to 12
5 Favorites 0  Comments
  
This easy to understand web and mobile app tool allows you or your students to enter vocabulary terms and definitions to create electronic flashcards and quizzes to enhance word study...more
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This easy to understand web and mobile app tool allows you or your students to enter vocabulary terms and definitions to create electronic flashcards and quizzes to enhance word study in any language or a content area. Students may choose to create study sets, electronic tests, or the networking page allows them to interact and learn with others who have the same words. Teachers or students can create groups to share word lists. Use this tool from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. The iOS and Android apps practice tests can be multiple choice, true/false, or written questions. Turn on "Instant Feedback" (new feature for the apps) that will give real-time feedback on right/wrong answers as you go; or wait and get your score at the end. As wonderful as this technology is, the coolest thing about Quizlet might be in its history--its creator was a high school student who tells his inspiring story and shares his blog through links at this site.
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tag(s): DAT device agnostic tool (143), flash cards (42), Formative Assessment (70), quiz (67), spelling (95), vocabulary (235), word study (58)

In the Classroom

Membership asks for an email. Email allows you to notify others that you want to share a word list or activity with them. If students cannot have their own email accounts, consider using a "class set" of Gmail subaccounts, explained here, this tells how to configure Gmail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. This would provide anonymous interaction within your class. KEEP A LIST of students usernames (non-identifying) and passwords, incase they forget them! If you already use Google Classroom with your students, it only takes a few minutes to get them set up with a Quizlet Class.

Quizlet has a very thorough "Help Center" to get the idea of how the site works. Save your "sets" and decide whether you want them to be entirely public, just for you personally, or shared with a "group." The new version of "study sets" allows you to scan your notes with your phone or tablet and create study sets designed for your specific needs. You can now highlight main ideas, underline key concepts and bold important study terms to create custom content. Create your own groups for each class or subject. Be sure to note the fact that you can upload vocabulary lists by copy/pasting from various formats--- a time real saver! Use this tool easily in your BYOD classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.

Content and English teachers may set up their personal network of users. Pretest your gifted students and allow them to "test out" of material they already know. Learning support teachers will want their students to create their own Quizlet sets and help learn them in the process! Teachers may create your own sets of words, or let students do the work for themselves and each other. Use the interactive whiteboard for quick flashcard or electronic testing using your sets. World language and ESL/ELL teachers will find many word sets already built and ready to use at this site. If you team teach with others at your grade level, take turns making the online Quizlets to accompany your science or social studies chapters. Be SURE to share this tool on your teacher web page for students to use at home.

Be sure to see the classroom quiz game for groups, Quizlet Live (from the creator of Quizlet), reviewed here.

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