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Powtoon - powtoon.com
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): animation (65), digital storytelling (153), movies (54), multimedia (52), slides (43)
In the Classroom
Challenge older students to create their own PowToons. Students can use PowToon to share their ideas or to "prototype" an idea. Students can create videos to show math processes, explanations of complex concepts, review new learning, teach others, explain scientific processes, tell stories, or present research. The possibilities are really endless, and students will come up with hundreds more uses. Flip your classroom using PowToon presentations. Use PowToon to create teacher-authored animations for students in ANY grade. This is a great way to present new information or ideas for discussion. It is an easy way to share information with the class when a substitute is in your classroom. Embed your PowToon creations on your website or blog for students to review at home. Use a PowToon on the first day of school to explain class rules or give an exciting introduction to the year ahead. Use PowToon to create movies or presentations for back to school night or conference nights to display on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Teacher-librarians can ask students to create PowToon book reviews to share kiosk style in the library/media center.Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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QR Code Generator - Visualead
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): qr codes (18)
In the Classroom
Create a QR code that directs to your class site or blog and include it on handouts for Back to School night. Create a QR code scavenger hunt for students, making a webquest more engaging. Add QR codes to documents for students to check their answers to questions. Expand knowledge of a topic by adding a QR code to a site that expands upon what is in the textbook. Create a data chart accessible via a QR code. Students access the data and manipulate the information. Have students create a book trailer or review and affix a QR code to the outside of the book. Students may be more apt to read a book that has been reviewed by another student. Make a display completely interactive with a QR code that describes the assignment, the process, the research, student's reactions and more! Add extra help information to any assignment that asks students to solve problems. Create an online help tutorial accessible via a QR code, and place the code beside a similar problem. Link directly to a Google Map. Place QR code contact information for you and your school on contact cards to give to parents. Attach QR codes to physical objects around the room to provide information about the object. Place the links in a newsletter using QR codes instead of a series of words that need to be typed.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Any New Books? - Antonio Cangiano
Grades
7 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): book lists (166)
In the Classroom
Subscribe to emails for any category of books for classroom and professional use to remain up to date on the latest books being published. Share with students as an excellent resource for finding new reading material. Share Any New Books? with parents as a resource for finding books to read at home. A valid email is required to join this site. Read tips for safely managing email registrations here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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MightyText - MightyText.net
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): chat (41), classroom management (120), communication (129)
In the Classroom
Manage texts to students and teachers from your computer or tablet using MightyText. View texts easily on your computer. Send texts to parents reminding them of upcoming conferences. Remind students of project deadlines or tests. Have a snow day? Send students the work so they have less homework the following day. If a student is absent, text the assignments to their device.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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X (formerly Tweeted) Times - Tweetedtimes
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): communication (129), digital storytelling (153), newspapers (93), social networking (61), twitter (13)
In the Classroom
Use X (formerly Tweeted) Times to showcase your own Professional Development over time. Create and share a newspaper from a class or teacher X (formerly Twitter) account as a summary of content learned. Create a newspaper to use for real world learning in any subject (see Thematic newspapers). Share a newspaper of your class Xs X (formerly tweets) with parents (and school administration) to show what students have learned and to highlight the value of X (formerly Twitter) in the classroom. Students can create a newspaper using their own X (formerly Twitter) account to document their learning and conversations. Be sure to use TeachersFirst's review of X (formerly Twitter) for great classroom ideas.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wibki - Roy Pessis
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Create a Wibki of the most used sites for your class. Link to teacher web pages, webquests, resource sites for your subject, and any other resource that is helpful for students. Consider creating a login for the whole class to update with suggestions from class members. Be sure to link your Wibki on a computer center in your room for easy access. Since icons are shown rather than words, you could use this site with your nonreaders. Create a Wibki mix for parents and students to access at home before tests. Team up with other teachers in your subject/grade to create chapter by chapter Wibkis for all your students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Worldcrunch - All News Is Global - Jeff Israely and Irene Toporkoff
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): cross cultural understanding (172), journalism (74), media literacy (108), news (229), newspapers (93)
In the Classroom
Share with your students to show them different perspectives on world events. This site would also provide contrasting texts for close reading as required by Common Core. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here to compare and contrast coverage between two newspapers. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools, reviewed here after reading and comparing many different articles. Build student awareness of the limited view provided by some publications, especially during times of international tension. Explore this site during Newspaper in Education Week or as part of a unit on the basics and nuances of journalistic writing. World language teachers can use newspapers to teach about both language and culture. Have world cultures or social studies students learn about local culture through advertisements and articles and share their findings using a screencast (or screenshots) of the newspaper and talking about their discoveries. Use a free tool like ScreenPal, reviewed here to create screencasts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Noisli - Stefano Merlo
Grades
K to 12tag(s): creative writing (124), learning styles (18), sounds (43)
In the Classroom
Be sure to share this link with students (and their parents) looking for less distracting sounds while brainstorming or working. Reading a book to the class or conducting a science lab? Turn up your speakers and use these background sounds as mood music to set the stage for your story. Why not listen to waves or water while studying it! Play a few minutes of relaxing sounds before a major test. Let a student "DJ" create a class relaxation or creativity soundscape. Consider using as background sounds for student presentations. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, Animatron, Sway, and Presentious. Use the writing tool available at this site to motivate your students with music, color, and more. If you talk with students about discovering their own learning styles, offer this site as a suggestion for them to try while prewriting or studying for tests. Emotional support (and autistic support) teachers may want to experiment to see if these sounds can help their students. Some students may find them overstimulating, while others may find the sounds very helpful.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Zentation - Karl Siegert
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use your existing presentations along with video of you narrating them (or other video) and upload them to Zentation. Zentation is perfect for use in your BYOD or 1:1 classroom. It does use Flash, so iOS devices will not display the results. Use during your presentations to increase student interest and interaction. Share with students for use to combine their own slides and video to create a more dynamic presentation. To find Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), try Vecteezy, reviewed here. Use Zentation as an excellent resource for creating and sharing review materials on your website. It would also be a great way to "flip" your classroom. Use the video area to include examples of a scientific process (found on YouTube) or even video of students themselves explaining student-created review or presentation slides in a format you can easily share and archive on a class web page or wiki. Anything you can put on video can go in the left video box! If you have students who are too shy to present in person, this would be a great way for them to record and combine slides with video of themselves. Teacher-librarians could record students doing booktalks alongside slides of images from the book or illustrations the students draw themselves.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Zeemaps - Zee Source
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): directions (11), map skills (63), maps (220)
In the Classroom
If you teach geography, this one is a must. It is also helpful for showing students WHERE a story or news event takes place. Teach map skills by letting students explore and annotate their own community. This site is great on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Create multiple markers for various points within your community. Annotate the markers with specific information that students research. Remember to create an admin password (and save it somewhere safe!) for others to collaborate on the map. Research various places around the world, and create markers of must-see places, historical finds, and other locations of interest. Create a map of news hot spots around the world. In Biology, find places where environmental or biodiversity concerns are occurring. Collaborate on a map to include annotated information of student research about these problems. Create a map to introduce various cultures around the world. Enter video, audio, information, and links that students can use to "uncover" the content to be learned.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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My Study Life - Virblue
Grades
7 to 12tag(s): classroom management (120), DAT device agnostic tool (147), Learning Management Systems (20), organizational skills (88)
In the Classroom
Start the school year off by sharing this tool with students for planning homework assignments, tasks, and exam dates. Create an account to share with your learning support teacher and specialists to collaborate and know upcoming events in each other's classrooms. Share with parents as an option for student use. Use this site personally to keep yourself organized! If you have students aged 13 and up, encourage them to choose a consistent planning tool like this one to stay organized. Share this site with gifted elementary students to help them stay organized and manage their life. Promote organizational skills with your learning support or gifted learners.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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QwikSlides - Russel Tarr
Grades
K to 12tag(s): images (261), qr codes (18), slides (43), video (265)
In the Classroom
Use Qwikslides to create quick slideshows for any classroom use. Easily share slides with information or (online) images on your website or blog to remind students about a project or assignment. Have students create presentations to "introduce" themselves to the class during the first week of school. Create a slide show to introduce any unit and have students guess what they will be learning. Create a Qwikslides easily "on the fly" as a review resource to embed on your class website or blog. Use the QR Code feature to add information to textbooks, on student of the week displays, or to Science fair projects! Students can easily create mini-advertisements for books by entering their text here and sharing via a QR code pasted on the book jacket. This site is perfect for your BYOD (bring your own device) classroom, since it is viewable on any device. Make quick "cue cards" for students to read their lines off a projector or interactive whiteboard for a video or school news broadcast! Paste your school or class announcements into slides and embed them on the class or school website. Have your world language or ENL students write messages in their new language for a classroom "activity tour" and convert them into QR codes to post around the room. Their classmates can "tour" the room and follow the directions for each activity using their smartphones to read the codes. Activities could include speaking, following directions such as "touch your nose" or question/answer about an image.Even the youngest gifted students can create simple presentations to go beyond regular curriculum in your class. Be sure to show young ones how to copy/paste the url for their finished work to send it to you or mark it in Favorites on the classroom computer or iPad. Have them make slide shows telling a story, explaining about a famous person, and more. During a unit on plants, have them create a guide to plant care or a show about the world's strangest plants. Have them write and illustrate slides as book reviews for independent reading they have done. This tool is simple enough for any student who can read.
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VideoAnt - Regents of the University of Minnesota
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): media literacy (108), video (265)
In the Classroom
If you are lucky enough to have a (BYOD) Bring Your Own Device classroom, allow students to add comments as you watch videos on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Share the "Ant" link and have students add comments and questions to any YouTube video. This works for any subject. Identify examples of foreshadowing in dramatic videos. Add questions to math explanations. Identify landforms with videos from different locations. If you joined the site, use the embed code to add annotated videos to your class website or blog. Ask students to contribute comments directly onto the video. Share this site as a way to review before tests. Have media literacy students use the annotation feature to critique videos for bias, poor writing, weak information, etc.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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WordDraw - Free Word Newsletter Templates - worddraw.com
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): back to school (55), Microsoft (80), newspapers (93)
In the Classroom
Download and save templates for use throughout the year. Use templates to create newsletters for your class. Customize any of the offerings to fit your personal needs and teaching situation. Share flyer templates with students (once they have basic computer and keyboarding skills) so they can use them in designing posters, flyers, and resumes. Be sure to demonstrate how to edit on a projector or interactive whiteboard if students are unfamiliar with text boxes.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Thoughtboxes - Matthew Stenback
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): note taking (36), organizational skills (88)
In the Classroom
Use in a similar way to EverNote, reviewed here, for sharing notes and to-do lists. 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. Consider creating a class account that can be used by all students. Spell out the uses of the site and what it can and cannot be used for and the penalties. Use your three boxes at one time, use this as a source for large projects, quarterly or semester due dates, or other long-term information.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Space Facts - Space Facts 2014
Grades
4 to 10This site includes advertising.
tag(s): earth (184), mars (26), planets (111), solar system (108), space (218)
In the Classroom
Deepen your study of the planets through further reading and beautiful graphics. Focus on the use of nonfiction text in your classroom, combined with literature studies of space or planet fiction, such as Jules Verne's, "From the Earth to the Moon," or Roald Dahl's, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator." Find useful information, graphics, and diagrams for PowerPoints, Screencasts or Prezi's reviewed here. Include on your list of resources for science units on space on your classroom webpage. Be sure to show this tool on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) to introduce space. Visit before your trip to the planetarium or science museum. Use to inspire artwork inspired by space. Deepen your students' background knowledge in writing about space travel, future, or creativity.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Hunger Games Gender Empowerment Lesson Plan - Glenn Wiebe
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): book reports (28), characterization (19), creative writing (124), sociology (23)
In the Classroom
Download and save this lesson plan for use when reading The Hunger Games in your classroom or as an extension when discussing gender roles and stereotypes. Have students share what they have learned by creating personalized images (with text) using PicFont, reviewed here. Have students use Fakebook (reviewed here) to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about one of the main characters in The Hunger Games . Use these lesson ideas less formally in an afterschool book club.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Futility Closet - Greg Ross
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): logic (161), poetry (192), puzzles (149), trivia (19)
In the Classroom
Bookmark and save Futility Closet as a resource for thought provoking trivia throughout the year. Share one item on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) at the beginning of each class for class discussion. Allow your gifted students to explore this site independently, and perhaps even start their own blog collections. Allow students to explore the site and find interesting items to research and explore further. Use the search tool on Futility Closet to search for trivia on current lessons such as Shakespeare, angles, or any keyword - you will be surprised at your findings! Some of the "curiosities" would be great writing prompts for students to take a position and research/support with evidence. Have students share one item they find interesting and create a project using a tool such as Padlet, (reviewed here). Subscribe to Futility Closet using your RSS Feed Reader. Teacher-librarians would love to use these as research prompts. Include one during your school newscast or PTO newsletter (with proper credit to the source, of course).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Sketch Toy - Hakim El Hattab
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): creative writing (124), creativity (86), drawing (61), geometric shapes (135), images (261), perspective (13), writing prompts (61)
In the Classroom
Use Sketch Toy to demonstrate symmetrical drawings. This tool is great for enhancing, creating and visualizing math concepts from basic geometric shapes and area to complex constructions and trig. Use on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use for hands-on work with any geometry or trigonometry functions. Since this tool works on such a variety of devices, it would be ideal to use in a BYOD (or 1:1) geometry class. Art teachers who want to "draw in" their more mathematical students can offer this as a design option, especially when teaching about perspective. Drag in images of alphabet letters for younger students to practice tracing. In art class, pull in images of artworks (even students' own work) and have them highlight design principles such as the path of your eye in viewing this image. Annotate any image using freehand drawing and writing. Use this tool as a visual writing prompt. Transform learning by creating drawing stories where a small group adds to the drawing as they pass it around on a tablet, narrating the story among themselves. Save it and play it back for them to write down their own versions of the story. Drawing stories would be a great way to practice world language skills or for ENL students to master vocabulary!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Quotes Cover - QuotesCover.com
Grades
1 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): back to school (55), firstday (22), images (261), posters (43), quotations (18)
In the Classroom
Create posters with students' favorite quotes, book titles for a bulletin board, All About Me information, or whatever your imagination produces! Have students include a poster as part of a research project or choose a favorite quote from class reading materials to "cover" a book talk. Create a poster with a quote from any figure in history and personalize it using Creative Commons images. In primary grades enter sight words and other basic vocabulary to create word posters. To find Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), try Wikimedia Commons, reviewed here. Have students create a poster for Back to School night to share with parents. Use this tool for students to make posters of the class rules they agree upon during the first week of school. Create quote images to use as Facebook "cover" photos for a famous person or fictitious character. World language teachers and students can create clever vocabulary or sentence posters to help master the new language.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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