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Weebly - Weebly
Grades
2 to 12
Weebly is an easy, free website creator with tons of features for you to choose from. The easy, "drag and drop" elements allow even novice technology users to create their ...more
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Weebly is an easy, free website creator with tons of features for you to choose from. The easy, "drag and drop" elements allow even novice technology users to create their own website. Besides the basic "drag and drop" features for the title, text, text with a picture, etc., the free version allows you to use cool items: photo gallery, slide show, YouTube videos, Google Maps, an assignment form, and lots more. They promise that the free service will remain 100% feature-packed.
tag(s): blogs (65), communication (129), portfolios (23), writing (325)
In the Classroom
If you plan to have students create their own web pages, under your account, no email is needed for them, and they will have a special log in page. You will have to enter each student's name, username and a password. What's nice about Weebly is they will print out a list for you to give to students with their log in information. Though you can make your site private, you want to be sure not to use student's real names. Use a code or acronym. Suggestion: You can use the first two letters of the students last name, the first three letters of their first name, and if you have multiple classes, have them put the class period or code after the last letter. This works well if you're going to be grading web pages, since most grade books are in alphabetical order by last name.Possible uses are only limited by your imagination! Create your own Weebly website for parents and students where they can stay updated about what is happening in your classroom, where students can submit their assignments, contact information, and anything else you might want to put on your website. You can add up to 40 students on one free website, so students can use their pages for projects and assignments. There is a free blogging tool that you may want your students to use for writing assignments, reflection, or reading journals, just to name a few ideas. You can have everything you need on one Weebly website! Find more specific blog ideas in TeachersFirst's Blogging Basics ideas.
Try using Weebly for: "visual essays;" digital biodiversity logs (with digital pictures students take); online literary magazines; personal reflections in images and text; research project presentations; comparisons of online content, such as political candidates' sites or content sites used in research (compared for bias); science sites documenting experiments or illustrating concepts, such as the water cycle; "Visual" lab reports; Digital scrapbooks using images from the public domain and video and audio clips from a time in history -- such as the Roaring Twenties; Local history interactive stories; Visual interpretations of major concepts, such as a "visual" U.S. Constitution. Imagine building your own online library of raw materials for your students to create their own "web pages" as a new way of assessing understanding: you provide the digital pictures, and they sequence, caption, and write about them (younger students) or you provide the steps in a project as a template, and they insert the actual content of their own.
After a first project where you provide "building blocks," the sky is the limit on what they can do. Even the very young can make suggestions as you "create" a whole-class product together using an interactive whiteboard or projector. Consider making a new project for each unit you teach so students can "recap" long after the unit ends.
Vocab-u-lous! - Education World
Grades
7 to 12Use Education World's Vocab-u-lous! features to help build your students' vocabulary. There are numerous word banks for students to use as they figure out which of the challenging...more
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Use Education World's Vocab-u-lous! features to help build your students' vocabulary. There are numerous word banks for students to use as they figure out which of the challenging words fits in the context of the sentences. The activity sheets are arranged by the words' beginning sound, and by holiday categories, such as Thanksgiving words and Presidents' Day words.
Be aware: this site has several advertisements, some pop-up.
Be aware: this site has several advertisements, some pop-up.
tag(s): sound (72), sounds (43), vocabulary (238)
In the Classroom
Just try to take the dictionaries away from your students when you project a Vocab-u-lous activity sheet on your whiteboard (or projector) or hand them the printable version of the worksheet. These are useful for SAT preparation and other tests that assess vocabulary, as well as building a strong vocabulary necessary for better reading comprehension and oral and written communication. When using this activity with a class set of computers, provide a link from your class web page to a reputable online dictionary. For additional practice, provide this link on your class website for students to access at home.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Teach Collaborative Revision with Google Docs - Google
Grades
8 to 12Teach Collaborative Revision with Google Docs helps you teach some of the final important steps of the writing process in a meaningful and practical way. The secure, sharing features...more
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Teach Collaborative Revision with Google Docs helps you teach some of the final important steps of the writing process in a meaningful and practical way. The secure, sharing features of Google Docs enable your students to engage in group work and peer editing in a safe online environment. This will add a critical piece to your classroom writing curriculum and everything you need to know to get started, along with easy-to-follow directions, are available right from this web site. There are several reproducible PDF pages filled with student-friendly tips and techniques for revision, as well as a teacher's guide that provides innovative ideas for lesson plans and how to use these materials with Google Docs. To begin, treat yourself to Teachersfirst "tour" of Google Docs by clicking on this link. You will be amazed at how easy it is to get started!
tag(s): editing (93), proofreading (21), writing (325)
In the Classroom
Create an innovative, exciting revision experience for students to edit each other's writing and engage in the peer review process by using the collaboration feature of Google Docs. This tool facilitates teacher comments on student essays by not having to wait until students turn in their papers. Check essays online, monitor progress, and even make suggestions for revisions to provide feedback along the way to drive successful proofreading and editing skills. After students are entered as collaborators, they will each have a different color to distinguish what they contributed to the document, and you can easily see who made what revisions. Suggested lesson plans for peer editing, complete with downloadable, reproducible handouts and online tutorials are provided. The ease of access to Google Docs makes these lessons a breeze to carry out from any internet connection, so you may start it in the classroom and continue as a homework assignment.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Soar into Spring with Kites - Education World
Grades
3 to 12This web page consists of an adaptable lesson plan and information that is chock full of creative, interactive, practical, ready to use activities based upon the discovery and usefulness...more
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This web page consists of an adaptable lesson plan and information that is chock full of creative, interactive, practical, ready to use activities based upon the discovery and usefulness of the kite. There are interdisciplinary projects including art/history, science, geography, language arts, and math that are fun for students of all age ages. Spring, or any season, is the perfect time to introduce your students to the fascinating world of kites. At the time of this review, two of the links were no longer active. However there are many useful links that make this site a worthwhile tool!
In the Classroom
Check out this educational page for many ideas, links, and ready to do projects. This all-encompassing lesson plan challenges students to participate in enthusiastic learning activities about why kites have often appeared in poetry, legends, and folk tales, and have led to important scientific discoveries. Invite students to try one of the many ideas to create and decorate a kite that represents flags from various countries. Ask them to label the kite with that country's word for kite, using the link provided for the Kite Translation Table. Allow your students to be adventurous with technology by providing them with the opportunity to create online posters using Animoto for Education reviewed here.Whichbook.net - Opening the Book Ltd.
Grades
7 to 12Whichbook is an intuitive way to find books that match students' interests, topic choices, and other elements and serves as a welcome replacement for the traditional way of searching...more
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Whichbook is an intuitive way to find books that match students' interests, topic choices, and other elements and serves as a welcome replacement for the traditional way of searching the stacks and card catalogs in the library or browsing in bookstores or on the web. Whichbook starts with the individual reader and what they are looking for. It enables students to input criteria that is not limited to the typical title, author, genre search, but includes characteristics such as funny/sad, easy/demanding, and short/long to find books that they consider to be a "good read." Whichbook finds titles that match your preferences. There are millions of possibilities so if you don't like any of the books offered, change your choices and try again! Public libraries have played a key role in creating the database. It is important to note that all of the books are either fiction or poetry, available in paperback, and published since 1995.
tag(s): independent reading (81)
In the Classroom
Trying to motivate reluctant readers to pick up a book or to require independent reading is not always an easy task. Make the task more glamorous by providing your students the link to Whichbook. Demonstrate the site and invite students to try it on your whiteboard to witness the fun they will have discovering books they want and need. Then, provide a direct link on your class web page or wiki to make it easily available. Technology has built-in appeal; therefore, the idea of using it as a method to choose a book offers an imaginative way for promoting reading. As always, while in the classroom or computer lab, caution should be taken to oversee students' use of the website as it is possible to type in characteristics that may not be appropriate for the grade level. As an extension or book report alternative, challenge students to make their own simple graphics categorizing books they have read using the same system, determining where they would fall on each of the different scales. Have them explain why they would label the book that way. Share the student-made graphics and explanations on your class wiki.The Walt Whitman Archive - Editors: Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price
Grades
8 to 12This comprehensive site is a scholarly edition of Whitman on the web that continues to grow. Contributions include e-text versions of published works, audio recordings, images, reviews...more
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This comprehensive site is a scholarly edition of Whitman on the web that continues to grow. Contributions include e-text versions of published works, audio recordings, images, reviews and criticisms, biographies, and teaching materials to download. A resource of tools, such as highlighting text from Leaves of Grass based on patterns of words, is accessible right on this site, which allows for powerful text analysis, visualization, and experiencing a wide range of information about Whitman's work. The Walt Whitman Archive is freely distributed by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities.
tag(s): poetry (193)
In the Classroom
Walt Whitman continues to be one of the most discussed figures in American literary studies. Use this dynamic site for its ease of accessibility to his prominent works that used to only be available at research libraries. This will significantly change the way you are able to converse about the nature of his creative endeavors and the meaning of his renowned poems. Apprise students of this site for research purposes or to get to know the poet better when studying a particular poem. Challenge students to explore this site and then create a fictional Newspaper article, title of article, date, and body of article using the site Newspaper Clipping Generator. Whether you choose to visit this site for scholarly purposes or just for the enjoyment of Whitman, the Archive will increase your knowledge and understanding by scanning this wonderful collection of links to many rare holdings.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Karaoke Channel Online - Stingray Music USA
Grades
2 to 12Sign up for this site to sing Karaoke through your computer! Be sure to click on the "Free Trial" on the registration page. This will allow you to use 50+ ...more
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Sign up for this site to sing Karaoke through your computer! Be sure to click on the "Free Trial" on the registration page. This will allow you to use 50+ songs FOR FREE! Additional songs are available for a fee. A free demo makes using the song offerings easy. Preview the songs (and site) before introducing them to your class, since some songs may not be fitting for classroom use. The karaoke interaction uses speakers and a computer.
tag(s): songs (46)
In the Classroom
Create a classroom signup for students to use under your supervision. An email address is required for registration. You could create a class registration. If you plan to have students register individually, 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 to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Project this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector during music class. ESL/ELL students may benefit from being able to use language in song. Use the singing as an opportunity to look at song lyrics as a form of poetry. Use in world language classes or in primary grades (some song classics for kids!) and for ESL/ELL.Todoist - Todoist
Grades
4 to 12Todoist is a simple, task manager. With the free account you will have access to 5 personal projects, one week activity history, integration of a built in calendar and email, ...more
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Todoist is a simple, task manager. With the free account you will have access to 5 personal projects, one week activity history, integration of a built in calendar and email, and more. Set up free accounts in minutes with email. The intro and support videos reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.
tag(s): calendars (37), DAT device agnostic tool (147), organizational skills (88)
In the Classroom
Your students need to know about time management skills. odoist will help you teach them and give them practice. Any student would appreciate having an online time management account, but learning support students and disorganized gifted students need one. You may want to model using this online tool to help middle and high school students learn better personal organization. Make a demo account for a mythical student and organize his/hers together so students can see how it works. Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector the first week of school to help students set-up their own accounts. Parents may appreciate learning about this site also. Use this site professionally to keep yourself organized!Edge World Question Center - Edge Foundation, Inc.
Grades
11 to 12Serious thinkers who love deep questions and concepts can read responses from the world's great thinkers and philosophers to the question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's...more
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Serious thinkers who love deep questions and concepts can read responses from the world's great thinkers and philosophers to the question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?" Both vocabulary and concepts discussed here are very sophisticated, so this is not a site to visit casually. Turn up the neurons to read and reread responses from world thought leaders. Ideally, you will want to have a small group of interested thinkers to figure out, argue, and openly ponder the concepts offered. If you enjoy thinking about thinking, philosophy of science, or pondering the impact of today's technology explosion, this site will give you the opportunity to stop and think -- for a long time. Questions and answers from other years are available by clicking on the header logo for the World Question Center. The 2010 question was "How is the Internet changing the way you think?"
tag(s): critical thinking (127)
In the Classroom
This site is best suited for gifted/highly able senior high students or for teachers seeking an open-ended question to toss into discussion in an AP level class. This is definitely NOT a site to offer for students to explore on their own. Focus on one response and use it repeatedly as an angle to get students thinking. For a longer term approach, keep one of these questions or answers posted in your classroom or on your class web page to constantly prompt students into deeper thinking beyond the simple memorization and application of concepts. One great example to post, use as a writing prompt, or challenge students to use as a central theme for a multimedia presentation: Howard Gardner's suggestion that we ask ourselves,""How Would You Disprove Your Viewpoint?!"Google Earth - Tech hints - Louise Maine
Grades
K to 12For educators looking for some great links and help with Google Earth (as well as other Google products.) Even though this site was developed for a training in-service, find some ...more
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For educators looking for some great links and help with Google Earth (as well as other Google products.) Even though this site was developed for a training in-service, find some great screenshots, tutorials, and links to great Google Earth examples. Be sure to check out the navigation list on the left for tutorials of other Google products and technology hints. For more information on Google Earth, find our review here. Also, find more support at Google Earth in the Classroom.
tag(s): earth (184), landforms (39), landmarks (22), maps (220)
In the Classroom
Use this resource to learn about and become acquainted with Google Earth. Google Earth is a free application download.Find some great resources and project ideas on this technology hints site. Be sure to check the Google Earth review here for other great ideas. Take your students around the world using the fabulous tool. Create narrated tours for students (or have students create their own). The possibilities are immense with Google Earth.
Cliff Notes Basic Math Quizzes & Study Guides - Wiley Publishing
Grades
7 to 12Understand basic math and algebra, as well as advanced math topics like calculus and statistics. These free CliffsNotes articles can help when you're doing math homework and taking...more
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Understand basic math and algebra, as well as advanced math topics like calculus and statistics. These free CliffsNotes articles can help when you're doing math homework and taking math tests. Articles begin with Algebra 1 and basic math skills and continue through Statistics and Trigonometry. Each article gives a written overview of the topic along with diagrams and charts. Each also contains a link on how to cite the article. Resources also include glossaries for Pre-Agebra, Geometry, and Statistics. Although the site is set up as a supplement to the familiar Cliff Notes books available as study guides, these materials are free and useful as resources in the math classroom. This site does include some unobtrusive advertisements.
tag(s): statistics (121)
In the Classroom
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector as a supplement to resources used in the classroom for learning basic math skills. Use this site in English class as a lesson for citing internet articles. Share the site on your classroom website or blog for students to use as a resource when working at home. Have student groups make an online Stixy of things they discover about math concepts and later rearrange the items to "explain" their topic to classmates visually.Motivator - Big Huge Labs
Grades
K to 12Create your own motivational posters easily and simply. Choose a random picture (one from Flickr or Facebook) or use one already on your computer. Choose colors and other options as...more
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Create your own motivational posters easily and simply. Choose a random picture (one from Flickr or Facebook) or use one already on your computer. Choose colors and other options as well as the type of text to be used. Enter your text and preview the result. Once complete, save to Flickr, your computer, or print. Remember you can use a saved image in PowerPoint shows and on a class wiki, as well as blogs and other sites.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): collages (17), images (263), photography (130), posters (43)
In the Classroom
Make sure students are aware of copyright laws. Use this site to encourage proper use of photographs that students have the authorization to use. Model including appropriate photo credits on the posters. Check out the Big Huge Labs educator account. Easily pre-register students to avoid creating logins, view and download their creations, and view the site advertisement free. You will find information about the Educator Account here.Younger students can use this tool together as a whole-class activity or simply enjoy the posters their teacher creates. Have students create a picture about a unit topic with a caption using new terms learned. For example, create posters about predators and prey or classifications of animals. Students can create a poster of a study skill or learning activity that helps them learn. Create a caption that explains how the student learns the best. Every subject area can use this resource to create interesting presentation posters for display or as springboards to talk about what was learned. For example, in Biology, students could create a poster about a cell part with a clever caption about the importance of the job. In Literature or History, students can create posters about the perspectives of others in the story or at that time of history. Rather than a traditional research project, have cooperative learning groups use this site to show their knowledge in any subject area. Ask students to apply concepts such as constitutional rights by illustrating them in poster images with captions. Teachers can create bulletin board images, as well. Have a classroom motivation poster competition to start off the school year! Share the winners on your class wiki or in a PowerPoint presentation at back to school night/open house. As special occasions approach, have students bring in or take a digital picture they can make into a poster as a family gift with their own inspirational saying. Create a portfolio of 6 word stories, utilizing a powerful picture and 6 words to demonstrate the concept that was learned. Assign students the task of placing their project on a blog with a larger explanation of their understanding of the concept used in the picture.
JFK 50 - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Grades
7 to 12This web site honors the legacy of President John F. Kennedy in recognition of the fifty years that have passed since his inauguration on January 20, 1961, when he first ...more
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This web site honors the legacy of President John F. Kennedy in recognition of the fifty years that have passed since his inauguration on January 20, 1961, when he first captured the hearts of Americans and memorialized a moment in history with his words, "Ask not what this country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." JFK50 is filled with cutting-edge multimedia that inspires and invites students to explore the themes of public service, civil rights, leadership, and more to discover how relevant they remain to social and political issues today.
tag(s): kennedy (20), presidents (135)
In the Classroom
Use this website as your online destination for teaching, researching, and starting a conversation about the primary people, changes, speeches, and events of the John F. Kennedy era. Do not miss the links at the upper left corner of the home page for the Legacy Gallery, Downloads and Resources, and "History Now" which provides an interactive timeline that links today's date to details of what transpired during JFK's presidency. Highlight the ideals articulated fifty years ago to serve as a springboard for today's students to become actively involved in public service by projecting the authentic broadcast reports, videos, newspaper accounts, and other media on your classroom whiteboard or projector. Team up with colleagues in other departments to engage in interdisciplinary learning projects. You may want to have students collaborate to put a new spin on a research report. Challenge them to create a newspaper article about the domestic affairs, foreign policies and diplomacy, the arts, or any of the other extensive topics found on JFK50 by using the Newspaper Clipping Generator. Polish it off by having students create magazine covers that reflect the content of their articles, essays, or reports by using Magazine Cover Maker reviewed here.Internet Shakespeare - Michael Best and Roberta Livingstone-University of Victoria
Grades
7 to 12This Web site is an online library of The Internet Shakespeare Editions and more, with a goal to inspire a love of Shakespeare's works in a world-wide audience. Here you ...more
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This Web site is an online library of The Internet Shakespeare Editions and more, with a goal to inspire a love of Shakespeare's works in a world-wide audience. Here you will find high standard multimedia materials, including thousands of searchable pages devoted to the politics, society, and history of Shakespeare's world. There are biographical details of his life, as well as one of the Web's largest collections of online texts of his plays, poems, and related resources.
Be aware: at the time of this review, a few of the links were no longer active. What remains is quite worthwhile, however.
Be aware: at the time of this review, a few of the links were no longer active. What remains is quite worthwhile, however.
tag(s): elizabethan (13), england (50), plays (32), shakespeare (99), sonnets (6)
In the Classroom
Be sure to bookmark this website in your favorites for your study of Shakespeare. Post a link to it on your class page to give students access to the literary works at home. Not only will they be able to have an entire copy of Shakespeare's works on hand, they will also be able to click on links for summaries, analysis, and assistance with nearly everything they will need to know about his life and writing. This is a great resource for you and your students to refer to for review, research projects, or just for reading the text, both in and out of your classroom. Are you looking for more Shakespeare sources and ideas? Save yourself plenty of time by visting TeachersFirst Shakespeare Resources reviewed here, where you will find almost everything you are looking for within this rich collection of valuable materials.Just Free Books - justfreebooks.info
Grades
2 to 12This site is a wonderful search engine for most of the known digital libraries including Gutenberg, Google Books, Wikibooks, and archive.org. Entering search terms like "children's...more
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This site is a wonderful search engine for most of the known digital libraries including Gutenberg, Google Books, Wikibooks, and archive.org. Entering search terms like "children's audio books," for example, leads to a list of links that offer free online reads. Listing other features in your search will bring up the spescifics that you want This can include books in other formats including those that upload to many different players including PDF, TXT, MS Reader, MS Word and ODT, RTF, Palm Reader eBooks, Html, Epub, Kindle, Mobipocket, Isilo, Audio books, Plucker, and more. Besides searching in "only English," you can also select Spanish, French, and/or Portuguese to search for books in those languages.
tag(s): audio books (26), book lists (167), ebooks (43), literature (221), reading lists (77), search engines (48)
In the Classroom
Offer this site to students who wish to use digital devices to read. Keep in mind that many of the selections are older, in the public domain due to the expiration of copyright. ENL/ESL and SPED students may benefit from being able to hear or see books in a different way. Use the texts you find as language to analyze or manipulate on your interactive whiteboard to teach reading comprehension skills, parts of speech, transition words, vocabulary study, and writing style. Allow students to copy/paste text into the whiteboard software so they can "work with words" from literary works instead of worksheets.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Text Mechanic's Toolbox - Text Mechanic.com
Grades
3 to 12Text Mechanic is a collection of free, online, browser-based, text manipulation tools. All tools are simple to use. Basically, click on the tool of your choice, like the Count Characters,...more
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Text Mechanic is a collection of free, online, browser-based, text manipulation tools. All tools are simple to use. Basically, click on the tool of your choice, like the Count Characters, Words, and Lines or Remove Lines of Text Containing, copy and paste or type your text into the box, and submit. Results are instantaneous. There is even a tool to change and choose the color of the background, text and border of your web page. The sight is plain vanilla, but that is the beauty of it; there's nothing to hunt for - what you see is what you get.
In the Classroom
How many times have your students used the same word over and over again, accidently typed an entire response in all CAPS, or spent more time counting how many words they used than they did writing their essay? Demonstrate some of these text manipulation tools on your projector or interactive whiteboard and make the link readily available from your web page or class wiki and have students bookmark it in their favorites. They will love having these helpful tools when completing assignments on the computer. Although some of them are customized on word processing programs, they are often "hidden" or "well-kept secrets." The Text Mechanic takes the time and guesswork out of manipulating text. Some of the tools are just plain fun to experiment with and make good time fillers when your students are using the computer lab or a class set of netbooks and some of them finish the assignment before others. For elementary grades, use some of the tools to scramble the letters on weekly spelling words or to generate scrambled sentences.Wolfram Alpha - Wolfram Alpha LLC
Grades
6 to 12Looking for a great search tool for quantitative information? Use Wolfram Alpha to find responses in a whole new way. Use the power of Wolfram Alpha to get to the ...more
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Looking for a great search tool for quantitative information? Use Wolfram Alpha to find responses in a whole new way. Use the power of Wolfram Alpha to get to the heart of computational and mathematical data with corresponding information and explanations. You must be exact in the wording of your query since Wolfram Alpha may not know what to do with your request. Wolfram alpha is peer reviewed vs. user generated and should be considered a valuable resource. To better understand this entirely different approach, watch the "Take the Tour" video available by clicking on "About." Browse the examples to notice the subtleties. To see the vast differences between Wolfram Alpha and Google using Goofram, reviewed here.
tag(s): resources (84), search engines (48)
In the Classroom
Experiment together with your students to understand how Wolfphram Alpha works. For example, type in two cities (such as New York and Melbourne Australia.) Results from the search can include: distance between in various units, flight path on a map of the world, time to travel (as a person, light beam, or sound wave), portion of circumference of the Earth, population, elevation, and time zones. Use this site to not only get numerical answers but the computations behind them. Compare this to Google which provides great search results, but sends you mostly to another site for the math. Use Wolfram Alpha to uncover and connect a vast amount of factual scientific, mathematical, socio-economic, biographical, cultural, and linguistic data. View National Mortality Rates and follow these numbers down to view chances at specific heights and weights. Use to examine DNA sequences, various biochemical reactions and equations, and investigate particle physics. Wolfram Alpha can handle tough advanced math problems, not only providing the answer but walking step by step through the solution. Practice different queries for students to learn how to be more exact in searching. Be sure to compare Wolfram Alpha and Google side by side to determine the advantages for each.Homestyler - Autodesk
Grades
5 to 12Homestyler is a free online interior design planner. Members choose a layout plan, add details such as doors, windows, and furnishings, and then decide on color schemes for interior...more
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Homestyler is a free online interior design planner. Members choose a layout plan, add details such as doors, windows, and furnishings, and then decide on color schemes for interior decorating. Designs are viewable in both a 2D and 3D format. This is a free online program that requires no downloading. Registration does require an email address. This site may or may not be fully accessible inside your school filtering. Check to make sure all portions of this site are available when using your school's network. Homestyler does have a retail component that suggests certain name brands for appliances, and building supplies but the 3D designing capability outshines this form of advertising.
tag(s): architecture (75), area (53), design (79), volume (33)
In the Classroom
Members click and drag design components onto the main layout page. The free draw tool is a bit trickier to control but is similar to drawing tools in other programs. The perimeter measurement scrolls alongside the line you are drawing. The interface for such a complicated concept is intuitive. Students will need explicit instructions on how to operate this program.Use an interactive whiteboard or projector to share the tutorial presentation and demonstrate how to use the design tools. Divide students into cooperative learning groups to explore the site. Consider this resource to help math students visualize how to compute the surface area of three-dimensional shapes and understand how area and volume change with scale. Social Studies and History teachers can ask students to re-create the interior of an early American home, Greek Temple or even their own classroom. With guidance, this could be a wonderful tool to help younger students understand interior mapping skills. Classrooms focusing on "real-world learning" may find this a valuable resource tool to help students create design plans for an alternative environment.
Edge Features:
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Products can be shared by URL
Quicklyst - Shantanu Bala
Grades
6 to 12This application for note-taking is extremely simple to use, but performs in a very sophisticated way. There is a very easy text tutorial and FAQ to tell you about such ...more
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This application for note-taking is extremely simple to use, but performs in a very sophisticated way. There is a very easy text tutorial and FAQ to tell you about such features as creating an outline, accessing the DuckDuckGo search engine or looking up a word on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary without ever leaving your notes. It also connects to definitions from Wikipedia. And, you can automatically send your notes to your Amazon Kindle device. For math and science, the text tutorial will also show you how you can enter equations in your notes using the LaTeX format.
tag(s): note taking (36), organizational skills (88)
In the Classroom
If you do not approve use of Wikipedia, you will want to state this up front to your students. Before turning your students loose with this program, use your interactive whiteboard, projector and Quicklyst to show them how to put information in their own words. Then you can have them use Quicklyst to take notes for any type of summarizing or research. Create separate accounts on Quicklyst for student research groups. Students can then easily share their notes with their group members. Create a class account, and use your interactive whiteboard and projector along with Quicklyst to have the class create a study guide for a test on any subject. These can be saved and used for notes for a final test. If there is a common class password, students will be able to access the notes from home.Great Inventions, Great Inventors - edinformatics.com
Grades
4 to 12Find an extensive list of great inventions on this straightforward site. The "look" is simple, but the information useful. Click each invention to view a definition/description, information...more
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Find an extensive list of great inventions on this straightforward site. The "look" is simple, but the information useful. Click each invention to view a definition/description, information on its invention, the inventor, and other related information including links to other topics. Note that ads do appear on these pages. Caution students to avoid them.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): inventors and inventions (80)