2877 social-studies results | sort by:

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle - Martin Luther King, Jr., Research & Education Institute
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): civil rights (121), martin luther king (35), rosa parks (6)
In the Classroom
This is a perfect place to send students for research. Have students use the timeline to find about important dates in civil rights history. Use the encyclopedia to not only learn about civil rights champions, but about organizations of that time.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Cue Flash - cueflash.com
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): flash cards (45), word study (78)
In the Classroom
Create flashcards for your classes -- or have them make their own. Try using them as an introduction to a concept, then again in the practice of the concept, and one more time as a final review. This would be great for teaching Latin prefixes and suffixes of words used in science terms or for standardized test preparation. Try having students create flashcards and share with each other to quiz themselves within their own groups. Clicking on Discussion Group in the upper right corner to start a discussion thread about a flashcard to extend learning. Teach students in higher grades how to create flash cards with multiple blanks to challenge their brain to remember more pieces of the puzzle. Show them how to carefully read through their classroom notes and underline the most important word or words in a sentence. Then have them leave out the most important words for their flashcards. Learning support teachers might want to have small groups create cards together to review together before tests. Have students create flashcard sets to "test" classmates on what they "teach" in oral reports.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Legacy Project - Susan V. Bosak
Grades
3 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): communities (39), crafts (39), cross cultural understanding (127), environment (321), writing (364)
In the Classroom
The Legacy Project's free online activities for all ages include creative crafts, art projects, games, self-assessments, reproducible pages, and even lesson ideas with curriculum connections for teachers. There are also free guides, tips, and feature articles. Resources can be used individually or grouped to create a themed set that run the gammit from literacy to family, history, or science. There are even free online certificates you can download!Challenge your students to think about questions like: What are your goals and what would you like to be, do, and learn? How can you achieve your goals? What can you learn about your own hopes and dreams and those of others? How can you think globally and act locally? How can we better understand other people and cultures that live in our communities or a whole continent away from us? The Legacy Project combines practical, classroom-tested ideas and research-based insights with a little fun and inspiration to inform and inspire all ages - children, teens, and adults. Using resources like the Dream book, students explore the world around them and their role in it - past, present, and future.
The Legacy Project's annual Listen to a Life Essay Contest brings generations in family and community closer and promotes the importance and uniqueness of inter-generational relationships. Students between the ages of 8-18 years interview a grandparent or "grand-friend" about their life and write an essay. This also opens the door for so many creative projects such as photo essays, (using their own digital images or finding ones that are legally permitted to be reproduced). Have students create an annotated image including text boxes and related links using a tool such as Thinglink, reviewed here.
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Newtools Powered by Aardvark - John Davitt
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): creative writing (170), creativity (119), flexibility (5), writing prompts (91)
In the Classroom
Set up Newtools on a classroom computer. Make this one of several writing prompt options for blogs or other open-ended assignments. Allow students who finish work early or who need a journal idea to scroll through and try to find an idea that you have studied in class. Write several of these on your interactive whiteboard and then have students choose which one they would like to work on. Once all the projects are complete, rotate the students around the room to share with classmates who worked on a different project. Use this site to challenge gifted students to produce a higher level project. Some of the projects suggest using video or another presentation format. Be sure to check TeachersFirst Edge Presentation tools here to find one that is just right.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spreaker - Spreaker Online Radio
Grades
1 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Enjoy a live radio show from your classroom! Publish written pieces of writing, science reports, social studies reports, and any other reports you would like to share. Create a New Book or Book Review podcast for the media center. Link to your podcast URL on your class website. Publish directions to projects, explanations for difficult concepts, or even a radio show of you reading your favorite books for your students. Have upper elementary students take turns reading aloud for a podcast aimed at little reading buddies in kindergarten. Allow students to podcast to "pen pals" in faraway places. Record your school choir, orchestra group, poetry club, or drama club doing their best work or dramatic readings of Shakespeare soliloquies. Take your school newspaper to a new level with recorded radio articles. Be sure to include interviews with students, teachers, principals, parents, authors, artists, and almost anyone. In younger grades, use to save an audio portfolio of reading fluency, expression, or to aid with running records or even include writing. Be sure do this regularly throughout the year to analyze growth. Have fun at Halloween with your Halloween station filled with favorite spooky stories! Welcome your students to a new school year by sending them your message. Create messages for classmates who move away. Bring your foreign language classes an extra resource of your pronunciations whenever they need more practice. ESL/ELL, special education classes can often benefit from the extra explanations, practice, and elaborated instructions given at their own pace. The possibilities are endless! The site itself is a "web 2.0," social networking style site, so some schools may have it blocked. Ask about unblocking just YOUR teacher account so you can have students access it while at school and under your supervision.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
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)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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DIY - DIY Co
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): portfolios (27)
In the Classroom
Leap into the age of technology by making your student portfolios digital. Use DIY for student portfolios of class projects, explorations at home, and family fun. To get started, make a whole-class account to share class accomplishments. Then move to having each student create his/her own. The digital portfolio includes an extra bonus: parent involvement. Using parent emails, the work shared brings a close home-school connection going beyond just parents to extended family and friends. Have basic standards and requirements for posting to encourage quality control. Excite and motivate students using this easy portfolio. Use for an after school club, such as book club, photography club, Lego club, Odyssey of the Mind, chorus, or news team to keep a digital record of events, ideas, or projects. During science fair or any long-term project, record step by step progress. Use as a presentation tool, data notebook, or reflection tool. Teachers of gifted (or teachers who have gifted students in their class) can encourage these students to start collecting a portfolio of their best work, especially projects that go beyond the regular schools curriculum or school year. If a student has a special interest in poetry, rocketry, or forestry, encourage him/her to start documenting accomplishments with explanations, pictures, and links.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Includes teacher tools for registering and/or monitoring students
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Presentation Tube - Dr. Alaa Sadik
Grades
K to 12tag(s): video (269)
In the Classroom
Be sure that your teaching style fits the use of Presentation Tube before using in the classroom. Easily create presentations for students to access. Be sure to play with the software before using to create your first real product. Provide links to presentations on your wiki, blog, site, or other courseware site.Time is always short in the classroom, and sometimes it's hard to make time for oral presentations. Have the students use Presentation Tube to report out their research, and you and their peers can watch it and grade it any time. Or, have students post their Presentation Tube to your web page or TeacherTube reviewed here, and they can view and peer evaluate the projects. You may want to create your own rubric with student input for this. See a selection of rubric makers here on TeachersFirst. Another idea would be to have students create a Presentation Tube for the results of their research, and then pause and comment during an oral presentation to the class. Students with speech difficulties or challenges with English fluency will appreciate the opportunity to prerecord their presentations without an audience. High school students can also narrate a portfolio slide show for Art school applications or a show of accomplishments for college applications. Students can package book reviews or author reports to be shared in the media center. In primary grades, have students narrate their portion of a whole-class slide show, then share it with parents and grandparents by url. They can practice oral reading as they share their story slides.
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Tinkercad - Tinkercad, Inc.
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): creativity (119), drawing (79), measurement (181), modeling (8)
In the Classroom
Bring out the budding engineer, scientist, or designer in your students. Create simple models or use one created by others in Tinkercad. Give ample time for students to play with the variety of shapes and letters. As they become proficient, create a 3D model science fair for products that solve problems. As part of a multidisciplinary unit in science, technology, economics, math, social studies, and English classes, use this site to create a culminating design project.Have the final design project be a new museum or historical/tourist attraction to commemorate a local hero/heroine. In English classes, have students create a written grant for the design proposal. In economics, have the students discover how to construct the project for the best possible cost. In math and science classes, have the students "build" the project with accurate measurements. Then as a follow up, have students use Google Earth reviewed here to predict the environmental impact of the new construction. Or, in technology education or industrial arts class, use this as a way to submit project drafts for construction.
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Oolone Visual Search Engine - Oolone
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): search engines (58)
In the Classroom
This site is perfect for your visual learners or weaker readers. Use this site on an interactive whiteboard to show students how to search for information. Use the page counter to show students how different search terms provide different results. Place on your class webpage for students to access at school and home. Be sure to check out their education page where you can find lesson ideas. Learning support and ESL/ELL students will appreciate being able to search without as much reading. Even very young students can LOOK for a site using this search tool, assuming they can type just a little bit.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Just Beam It - Akshay Kannan, Hristo Oskov, and Pranava Adduri
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): computers (102)
In the Classroom
Have trouble sharing files with students because they do not have email? Do they need to share files with each other for collaborative projects ? Try using Just Beam It! No email or flash drive needed. File transfer is quick. Drag, drop and share! So easy, a savvy fourth grader could do it.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Ottobib - Jonathan Otto
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): book reports (36), citations (37)
In the Classroom
Use Ottobib.com as a lesson on citing sources and bibliography on your interactive whiteboard. Include Ottobib.com as a saved favorite on all student computers as well as a link on your webpage. Use as a springboard to discuss styles of documentation including MLA, APA, Chicago, and Bibtex. Be sure to use in writing your own professional articles, books, or classes, as well as a reference for your students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Make an Animation - ABCya!
Grades
2 to 8This site includes advertising.
tag(s): animation (61), creativity (119)
In the Classroom
This site is useful for both teachers and students. During the first day of school, create a simple animation to share with your class. Highlight information about yourself, class rules, highlights from the year, and more. Create math animations showing different geometric shapes on 2-3 slides (just click to copy a frame, rather than remaking the slide) and giving the students a chance to guess the shape before the answer is provided on the next slide. Challenge students to create their own animations "introducing themselves" to the class. Students could also create animations to demonstrate what they have learned about a piece of literature, a science unit, social studies theme or unit, or more. Save the students' work and share the animations on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Challenge your gifted students to create animations about their in-depth interests or curriculum concepts they have pretested out of so others in the class can learn from them. This tool is simple enough for bright students in early elementary to navigate on their own, a real asset when your gifted ones are working alone while you teach others.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Film Story - Mnemonic Productions
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): afghanistan (8), africa (163), asia (74), black history (59), central america (12), china (65), cross cultural understanding (127), europe (71), middle east (40), movies (69), north america (18)
In the Classroom
Discover videos on Film Story to help build prior knowledge and illustrate what students are learning in history or world languages/cultures classes. Find several films and have small groups of students view them. Have students become "eyewitnesses" to history and watch the video assigned to them before they have a context for it. Then have them write or blog about what they think they are witnessing. Afterward they can research the event in more depth and write a follow-up reflection on what was actually happening in the video. Challenge your students to use a site such as Timetoast reviewed here, to create timelines of topics researched on the site. Use images from public domain sites, such as the collections reviewed here, to illustrate the events.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Magic Tree House - Random House Children's Books
Grades
K to 4This site includes advertising.
tag(s): book lists (129), guided reading (46), literature (264), quizzes (104)
In the Classroom
Use quizzes from the site for a fun way for students to check comprehension and reflect on reading. Print passports from the site and stamp student passports as they finish reading each book. Use one email address to register all students. Or read tips for safely managing email registrations here. If you are reading the Magic Tree House books to your students, create a class passport for the year. Your whole class can help answer the questions to earn the stamps.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mentimeter - Mentimeter
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): polls and surveys (55)
In the Classroom
Mentimeter is helpful in the classroom as a formative assessment tool. Educators can interact with others inside class or during presentations. Because the poll address and ID code number can be given verbally, it is very easy to create and give to classes. Survey students during activities and lectures to check on understanding of important concepts. Responses can also be open ended by creating your poll without any choice of answers. Students can only vote once per question with this tool.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Infographics Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): infographics (51)
In the Classroom
Join the21st century trend of infographics as a way to share a lot of information, quantitative data, and relationships in a compact but effective visual space. Help students learn and construct meaning using infographics. Share this collection on your class web page as a starting point for students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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TalkMiner - FXPAL
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): search engines (58), slides (66), video (269)
In the Classroom
Use short clips in any grade level to provide background knowledge to your students. Use Talkminer to illustrate a concept you are teaching. If you use PowerPoint or another presentation tool, embed the clip you want directly into your presentation. You can use a tool like Clip Nabber reviewed here to do this. During student research, have them use Talkminer and keywords for their topic to hear expert opinions and take notes for their report. This will give you the opportunity to teach them how to cite a video or webcast for their Works Cited. Students could also embed clips from the videos in their own presentations. You might want them to create their presentation using authorSTREAM reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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What on Earth Made This - Website ''''''© 1996-2012 WGBH Educational Foundation
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): earth (227), geology (76), landforms (49), landmarks (26)
In the Classroom
Make earth geology come alive in each of these captivating subjects. The resources deepen understanding. Open on an interactive whiteboard or projector to begin your earth study or include in a center for individual exploration. Add to your classroom website for enrichment purposes. Use as an example for a classroom wiki on any science subject. Not comfortable with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Knovio - Online Video Presentations Made Easy - Knowledge Vision
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
If you have students who are uncomfortable presenting in front of a group or who must be absent on presentation day, they can package their presentations using Knovio. High school students can share "packaged" projects as part of their student portfolio or college applications.Knovio could take the lecture out of the classroom and free time for hands-on activities. Use this tool to record a presentation that you would normally share with your students in class, add it to your website or wiki, and assign it as homework for students. This allows you the ability to "flip" your classroom. Create student accounts using Google tools so that you can easily share your presentations privately and securely. With the email confirmation, you can be sure that your students have opened the presentation. To ensure that they have viewed the presentation, assign them to take notes from it or write a summary of it as an entry ticket to your classroom on the day after it is to be viewed. Students still have access to the "traditional" way of learning from the teacher; however now you have maximized learning time by allowing for extended thinking activities, laboratory activities, and other higher order thinking activities in your room. This allows you time to facilitate more group projects, student choice assignments, and a deeper level of understanding of the concepts that you are teaching. Knovio could enhance any online teaching, too! This way, your students can see, hear, and learn from you even when they are not in a real-time environment. Knovio would be a great professional tool as well. Administrators could use this to create presentations to share with faculty. Faculty could view on their own time so that when they get to a meeting, the discussion can begin immediately. You can even share information from Back To School night and know which parents actually viewed it.
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Dr. Arbor Talks Trees - University of Illinois Extension
Grades
4 to 8In the Classroom
Site creators describe this activity as being for grades 6-8, but the audio and overall tone make it appropriate for younger viewers. This is a wonderful site to explore with your interactive whiteboard or projector. This is a great site to save for Earth Day or Arbor Day activities. Have student create commercials and share them using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here. Have students predict what your state tree is then find it in the State Tree Gallery. The Glossary portion of the site contains many words that may be unfamiliar to students. Challenge them to find the definition of the words and use them correctly in sentences about trees or add the words to your class word wall or wiki.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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