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return to subject listingText Mechanic's Toolbox - Text Mechanic.com
Grades
3 to 12In 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.
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ImageBase - davidniblack.com
Grades
K to 12tag(s): images (270), photography (131)
In the Classroom
ImageBase provides a great place for students to find pictures that can be used to communicate information. Find pictures about a particular topic. Keep this site as a reference on your class web page for any time students are creating wikis, blogs, or electronic projects where they need images. Create collages, projects, and more with these high quality pictures. Use images as blog prompts or illustrations in student projects. Have your students create an online "scrapbook" using Smilebox, reviewed here. Find images of locations you are studying in world cultures or geography class. Find images to use in student online projects using Bookemon, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wolfram Alpha - Wolfram Alpha LLC
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): resources (88), search engines (50)
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.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Homestyler - Autodesk
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): architecture (64), area (52), design (83), volume (34)
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
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Arounder - VRWAY Communication
Grades
K to 12tag(s): maps (209)
In the Classroom
Arounder adds an extra resource to make your studies come alive. Extend math with real life math problems involving distances, planning routes, costs of tours are illustrated on this site. Try language arts activities to teach setting using world travel. Enrich discussions in ESL/ELL or world language classes by sharing the detailed visual image on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Challenge gifted students to plan a world highlights trip or around the world in 80 days adventure!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Quicklyst - Shantanu Bala
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): note taking (34), organizational skills (90)
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.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Jackie Robinson-Breaking Barriers in Sports and in Life - Scholastic & Major League Baseball
Grades
4 to 8Every year, people across the country pause on April 15 to celebrate the historic event that marks the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball in 1947. Use this educational unit (in PDf format) to bring the significance of Jackie Robinson's legacy to your classrooms. Although Breaking Barriers centers around an essay contest, you may choose to simply use the ideas to offer and assist your students in learning opportunities to teach them values that will enable them to face their own barriers and express themselves in written form. There are lessons, printables, book lists, videos, and more that align with language arts, math, and social studies national standards. The link to the videos is at the top of the second page.
tag(s): baseball (33), civil rights (194), sports (77)
In the Classroom
Share the video of Jackie Robinson's daughter, Sharon Robinson, on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Listen to her personal story of her famous baseball player Dad's courage, determination, integrity, and persistence to break the color barrier on and off the playing field. Use an online tool like bubble.us, reviewed here, to replace paper and pencil and engage students in whole class brainstorming of some of the real life barriers that students face today, and then lead into a blog writing activity for students to think about how to use Jackie Robinson's values to face and overcome barriers in their own lives. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, again, exchange paper and pen and have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Site123, reviewed here. If you are teaching younger students and looking for an easy way to integrate technology and check for understanding, again, change out paper and pencil and challenge your students to create a blog using Edublog, reviewed here. Whether you are celebrating the anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day, Black History month, a unit on courage and heroes, or introducing these concepts anytime during the year, the downloadable and whiteboard ready materials will increase the richness of your class discussions and broaden students' understanding of how to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of others.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Great Inventions, Great Inventors - edinformatics.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): inventors and inventions (71)
In the Classroom
Find information for science and technology reports on this site. Allow students to view the dates of many of the inventions to determine what scientific principle was just known to push technological thinking. For younger students, create a timeline of inventions to enhance learning and determine the impact of science, economy, and society on inventions. Use a site such as Sutori, reviewed here, that can include images, text, and collaboration. Ask older students to choose an invention and research other forms of that model, alternatives before and after, and what we are using today. Discuss environmental impacts, how the invention changed society, and other impacts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Daylight Savings Time - Web Exhibits
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): cultures (132), measurement (126), sun (69), time (92)
In the Classroom
Divide students into cooperative learning groups to explore the site. Have them present the different anecdotes and incidents to the class using different media such as video, booklets, etc. Challenge students to create a video and share using a site such as SchoolTube (reviewed here). Or create an online book using a tool such as Bookemon, reviewed here. In addition to the anecdotes on the site, gifted students can be challenged to find additional stories that relate to Daylight Saving Time. Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector then have students explore this site independently or in small groups. Use the site as a discussion starter when assigning a creative writing assignment with a topic such as, "I forget to turn my clock back and..."Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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lino - Infoteria Corporation
Grades
K to 12tag(s): bulletin boards (14), collaboration (87), collages (20), creative fluency (5), creativity (92), DAT device agnostic tool (143), gamification (74), note taking (34)
In the Classroom
Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have. Students can use this when researching alone or in groups, sharing files, videos, and pictures quickly from one computer to another. Have students write tasks for each member of the group on a sticky so that everyone has a responsibility. Show them how to copy/paste URLs for sources onto notes, too. Use lino as your virtual word wall for vocabulary development. Use a lino for students to submit and share questions or comments about assignments and tasks they are working on. Use it as a virtual graffiti wall for students to make connections between their world and curriculum content, such as "I wonder what the hall monitor would say finding Lady Macbeth washing her hands in the school restroom... and what Lady M would say back." (Of course, you will want to have a PG-13 policy for student comments!) Encourage students to maintain an idea collection lino for ideas and creative inspirations they may not have used yet but do not want to "lose." They can color code and organize ideas later or send the stickies to a new project board later. In writing or art classes, use lino as a virtual writer's journal or design a notebook to collect ideas, images, and even video clips. In science classes, encourage students to keep a lino board with (classroom appropriate) questions and "aside" thoughts about science concepts being studied and to use these ideas in later projects so their creative ideas are not 'lost" before project time. A lino board can also serve as a final online "display" for students to "show what they know" as the culmination of a research project. Add videos, images, and notes in a carefully arranged display not unlike an electronic bulletin board. This is also a great tool to help you stay "personally" organized. Use this site as a resource to share information with other teachers, parents, or students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Shmoop: Picture This - Shmoop
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): literature (217), slides (45)
In the Classroom
Give students some background knowledge before they start reading for a unit. Put the slideshow on your own site so the captions don't show. Then use your projector or interactive whiteboard to show the images to the students while they jot down what they observe and infer about each image. Once the students have finished, have a class discussion based on what they observed and what this says about the topic. Then click on "full size." This will take you to Shmoop to see what the captions say about the picture. At this point you can click on one of the orange tabs at the top to read the summary for the topic, view a timeline, etc.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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No Name-Calling Week - GLSEN and Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Grades
K to 12tag(s): bullying (49), character education (76), sports (77), tolerance (9)
In the Classroom
Use the resources from this web site to plan and implement lessons that students will relate to, and help to bring an end to harmful name-calling and "dissing." Select some of the many safe Web 2.0 tools reviewed by TeachersFirst Edge, such as DesignCap Poster Creator, reviewed here, for extending learning and designing digital posters that can be printed, or SlideShare, reviewed here, for creating a digital slideshow that includes music, captions, and more. Alternatively, create comic strips: First have students create a rough draft of their comic using Printable Comic Strip Templates, reviewed here. then use the online comic creator Make Beliefs Comix, reviewed here, to drive home the message that bullying is never a laughing matter.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Webquest Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Mark this in your professional favorites for planning and finding webquests. The webquest format has been around for years and can be adapted many ways. Start from this collection and consider designing a webquest "Task" that uses a collaborative, web 2.0 tool such as those reviewed in the TeachersFirst Edge listings. Today's students will love the authentic, creative tasks and collaboration made possible by today's tools. TeachersFirst Edge reviews include ways to use the tools safely and within school policies, for a learning "win-win." You might even want to have student groups design their own webquests for classmates to try as a new twist on "jigsaw" learning.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights - Scholastic
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): african american (109), black history (123), civil rights (194), cultures (132), martin luther king (43), rosa parks (9), tolerance (9), women (137)
In the Classroom
Spark your students' interest in how one brave individual changed history by not giving up her bus seat to a white passenger. Whether you are doing a unit on people who make a difference, civil rights, tolerance, or studying women and events in history, this self-contained website provides resources and materials that you can display on your classroom whiteboard (or with a projector). Involve students in using the interactive links to enhance learning and springboard discussions on what still needs to be done in regards to acceptance and embracing racial, ethnic, and cultural differences. Use an online tool like The Interactive Three-Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here, to compare and contrast discrimination in our country then with similar challenges we face today, and what still needs to be accomplished for a better tomorrow. Broaden the concepts to include that even when we are brave and have courage, change doesn't come about immediately; it takes time and continued perseverance. Culminate the unit with a writing prompt for students to reflect on and explain: Have you ever faced something that you thought you couldn't stand up to? Instead of using paper and pencil, integrate technology by having students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration. With Telegra.ph have students click on an icon to upload related images, add YouTube or Vimeo, or Twitter links.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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What's Your Learning Style? - Edutopia
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): learning styles (18), multiple intelligences (7)
In the Classroom
Have your students open a word document and save it. Then have them take the quiz, without signing up. Use the "Print Screen" feature on the computer to have the students copy their test. They can then paste it in their word document. Next have them look to see what is their most dominate style, and have them copy and paste the description for that style first, then their next dominate and so on. Not only can your students use this when trying to figure out final projects for assessments, but if they are having trouble with tests, they can look and see what might help them when it comes to study time. You can also use the results to group students or for them to select a "study buddy" before tests! Many of the styles include possible careers for students to pursue.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Show my street - showmystreet.com
Grades
2 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): maps (209)
In the Classroom
Have students choose any place, then post the link to it on a blog, wiki, or website, and write a description of it. Describe what they would see out of their window, create a story about what they hear or see, or describe their family and what's inside of the house. Research the history of the area to determine how it may have been different in the past. Of course you will went to avoid posting personal information on the web, but students could write fictional stories or keep personal information out of their writings. Describe the wildlife (plant or animal) that exists in their area. Describe the community of people in the area or an important neighbor and why they are important. Create a persuasive essay why their house (or school) is the best, friendliest, etc. in the area. Use tools to determine the distance between houses or to local historical places, places of interest, etc. Use the image as a powerful tool for writing.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mr Nussbaum's Language Arts - Greg Nussbaum
Grades
K to 8tag(s): alphabet (51), alphabetical order (8), presidents (121), spelling (95)
In the Classroom
This site will work well for classrooms with individual spelling lists as students can input their own list to create printables and online activities for spelling practice. Watch the animated biographies on your interactive whiteboard as part of your President's Day activities. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and use it as a center. Share the link to the site on your classroom website or blog for students to access from home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Google Sites - Google
Grades
K to 12tag(s): wikis (15)
In the Classroom
Users must have a Google account or sign up for an account. View the controls in Google sites before creating to get an idea of usable features. Find great hints and tips about using Google sites here.Click "Create a new site" to name your site and begin the process. Choose from a variety of templates and begin building your pages. Click "Edit" on your page to bring up the editing options. Use the buttons on the editor bar to change font sizes, color, etc. Click "Insert" to view a drop down menu of a variety of content that can be included on the page. Use the other tabs such as "Format," "Table," and "Layout" to change other aspects of the page. Be sure to click the "Save" button when finished editing a page. Create a new page within the site by clicking "Create a page." Choose from a variety of pages that have different formats suited for a web page, announcements page, file cabinet, or list. Be sure to select where the page will be found such as the top level menu or as a subpage under a different page in the site. Click on "More actions" to bring up other menu items such as "Manage Site," changing page settings, moving or deleting a page, and more. Share your site with others and invite users who can also make changes on the site.
Use a Google Site to create a simple web page for communication with students and their families at any grade level. In middle and high school, use student-created site(s) as a way for students to collaborate and share with many of the same features as a wiki.
Comments
Very versatile for portfolios. Does take some work, not particularly well-documented.Frances, CT, Grades: 6 - 8
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Mapcrunch - MapCrunch
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): maps (209)
In the Classroom
Assign students various countries, regions, or continents to make comparisons. Identify the biological, geographical, cultural, and social issues that exist in the world, based on what the pictures show and what their research uncovers. Bring a greater understanding to current economic and environmental issues in many countries. World language (or World Cultures) classes can help students understand the cultures of the countries where the language is spoken. Compare specific attributes of two countries using an online Venn Diagram, such as the one reviewed here. Another idea: have cooperative learning groups use this resource to create online books about the country of their tour using a resource such as Bookemon,Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Embed Plus - EmbedPlus
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
If using student created video, please check with district policy about sharing student work on the Internet. If using with students, be sure to discuss what is considered appropriate/inappropriate annotations to make on videos. These videos may not play in districts where You Tube videos are blocked. As EmbedPlus uses its own wrapper around the You Tube video, it may be viewable in your district depending upon the filter being used. Be sure to test this before using with students. Note: The "real time reactions" option pulls in and displays public comments when you click it. Use the "enhanced embed" wizard and be sure to click the checkbox that deactivates this feature. You may wish to monitor these for possible inappropriate content.Use the controls to add annotations or student thoughts to sections of the videos. Students can make these comments on their own videos or on a different groups contribution. Use this just to add playback controls that allow for greater viewing of You Tube videos. Have students find a video (or assign one) and annotate it with curriculum related discussion, criticism, vocabulary, etc. Students can then embed this product in his/her blog or a class wiki or site. Don't have one of those? Consider using WebNode, reviewed here. Make an annotated video with question prompts in annotations and embed in wiki to share with your classes. Playback using the slow motion and zoom would be a great item to show on a whiteboard or projector.
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