Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Learn how to find and deal with disinformation and misinformation through this news media literacy game. Players find and identify factual portions of a news story along with misinformation. Begin by choosing a topic of interest to start your mission. Your goal is to build up your integrity as much as possible throughout the game. Login to your free teacher account to access and print lesson plans and the teacher extension pack.

tag(s): evaluating sources (27), journalism (72), media literacy (102), news (227)

Checkology offers interactive lessons to teach students how to evaluate and judge news and news sources. Lessons include real-world examples; many feature journalism experts as the digital guide. Participants view videos, take polls, and respond to quizzes within the lessons. The free account includes access to four news literacy lessons along with access to a limited amount of teacher resources.

tag(s): journalism (72), news (227), newspapers (91), social media (54)

Learn about how and why fake news is created and distributed with this game where players earn money by spreading false news. Begin by selecting a guide for the game and choosing a financial goal. Follow the game to create your site and choose from different payment and options for monetizing information, while at the same time working toward optimum credibility. As the game continues, players select options for sharing their fake news to gain the maximum number of shares and likes. Throughout the game, follow your progress to your financial goal chosen at the beginning of the activity.

tag(s): journalism (72), news (227), newspapers (91), problem solving (226)

Have you ever told anyone, "Let me Google that for you?" That is what LMGTFY is all about! This site allows you to demonstrate how to Google (and much more) terms, then send a link with a step by step demonstration on how to complete the search. LMGTFY has grown beyond Google and now offers users the ability to select from several popular search engines including Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and DuckDuckGo. The drop-down box provides choices to search the web, images, video, and more. After making selections and entering a search term, click to get the link or choose preview to view the information.

tag(s): browser (7), search engines (49), search strategies (22)

The Free Technology Curriculum from Google provides a series of units for middle school and up for practical problem solving with digital tools. Select options from the site for learners, instructors, or to the entire curriculum. Choose from within the curriculum by grade level. Each option provides a series of lessons teaching skills like collaboration and problem-solving along with rubrics for assessment of projects.

tag(s): careers (138), collaboration (91), communication (138), computers (109), data (147), OER (43), organizational skills (86), spreadsheets (22), visual thinking (7)

Inquiry in Action offers free, inquiry-based science lessons teaching physical science and chemistry concepts. All activities come from a book of the same title, available to download for free on this site. Choose from the most popular activities, lessons reviewing chemistry fundamentals, or browse through all activities. Lessons include complete instructions along with printable activity sheets and assessments. In addition to the lessons, be sure to check out the Chemistry Review portion of the site for a refresher on the principles of chemistry.

tag(s): acids and bases (7), density (18), matter (46), molecules (42), temperature (35), water (101)

Small but mighty, this site has several lesson plans for the digital classroom. Use, share, and help create digital literacy lesson plans using Google Docs at Glean. Also, use the hashtag #lessonhack on Twitter to follow the development of ideas and the lessons. Use the drop-down menu for Lessons to view plans for Media, Data, Information, Network Literacy, and also find Security and Privacy lessons. Find plans already created that include, To Teach Memes, Teaching Media Making, Terms of Service, and there are several others about the Internet and IPs. One lesson on Safer Sexting states, "This is not intended to condone sexting; rather it is designed to provide young people (at risk through their sexting behavior) with digital literacies and personal practices to mitigate negative impacts of the sexting they've done."

tag(s): computers (109), digital citizenship (87), internet safety (112), media literacy (102)

Hosted by an Internet marketing company that understands the importance of children's safety online, this extensive collection of articles, infographics, and links should encourage conversations with kids about Internet safety. Sure to be helpful for parents and teachers because of practical steps to improve online experiences for children; plus everything is free to use, print and share. Find resources organized in two areas: Internet safety tips for children and parent safety and Internet monitoring resources. The one-page articles are text heavy, so this site will be most useful with older teens. Areas covered include the usual topics, but also include some not so often covered: Kids' Online Personas & Activity, Internet Video Safety Tips for Kids, Internet Game Safety Tips for Kids, Internet Radio Safety Tips for Kids, and A True or False: Internet Safety Facts for Kids. Parental Internet Monitoring Resources provide a helpful compilation of parents' essential information. These include Cyber Bullying Prevention, Digital Parental Controls, Laws and Organizations for Kids Online, Online Stranger Danger: Stop Internet Stalkers, Protecting Financial & Personal Information, Safe Browser Settings for Kids, Social Media Safety Tips for Kids, and Monitoring Your Kids Internet Usage.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): bullying (50), cyberbullying (40), digital citizenship (87), financial literacy (92), internet safety (112), media literacy (102), parents (59), safety (69), social media (54)

NoPlag is a plagiarism checker that compares your writing to online sources to detect possible cases of plagiarism. Complete five checks for plagiarism a day with up to 500 words without an account. With a free account complete twenty checks per day with 500 words. You will get a report after pasting samples of work into an interactive box that highlights probable plagiarism along with links to the possible websites. The Noplag Blog has helpful articles on the importance of intellectual property rights and additional teaching ideas. There are premium features available, but this review is only for the free account. Educators and students at public and church schools and colleges can request an account through a contact form. At the time of this review NoPlag wasn't working on Chrome.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): copyright (47), evaluating sources (27), plagiarism (34), writing (319)

Primary vs. Secondary Sources is an excellent YouTube video explaining the difference between these two types of sources. The video provides several examples of each type of source and tells why it fits into that category. If your district blocks YouTube, then this video may not be viewable.

tag(s): evaluating sources (27), primary sources (118), Research (84), video (260)

TRAILS is a free online, interactive student assessment using multiple-choice questions on a variety of information literacy skills based on 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th grade standards. This easy, flexible tool is for school librarians and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students. TRAILS can be used for formative and summative evaluations in five category areas: Develop Topic, Identify Potential Sources, Use Search Strategies, Evaluate Sources and Information, Use Information Responsibly, Ethically, and Legally.

tag(s): assessment (149), digital citizenship (87), media literacy (102)

This free interactive site is an extensive digital literacy curriculum that improves technology proficiency, builds information literacy and digital citizenship skills, and provides 21st century and project-based resources online. The 21 Things are 'big ideas' in technology and learning such as Visual Learning, Global Collaboration, Powerful Presentations, Search Strategies, Digital Footprint, and many others. The student activities use free web resources designed to address the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Students, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The non-sequential Things, delivered as project-based Quests, provide links, resources, and activities for students to earn badges and awards. Registration for teachers is required and gives access to teacher resources and a downloadable Moodle version of the site; Moodle is not required to use this site. To access certain external activities and tools, students may need to register with an e-mail. Each Thing contains a Teacher Lesson Guide, Student Checklist, Learning Objectives, and links to various web resources and apps. Choose a Things and see that the Quests have roadmap documents for students to use for tracking progress. A Quest includes an introduction (frequently as a short, animated video), vocabulary, directions, tutorials, standards, apps, and a student checklist. Extensive teacher resources and support are provided. Assessments are through multiple-choice quizzes at ProProf with a provided password. You may want to choose MITECHKIDS where you will find grade level links and categories by curriculum.

tag(s): blended learning (37), careers (138), computers (109), consumers (13), cyberbullying (40), digital citizenship (87), digital storytelling (150), evaluating sources (27), game based learning (179), internet safety (112), media literacy (102), organizational skills (86), social media (54), social networking (64), thinking skills (16), webquests (8)