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return to subject listingPlan Your Dream Prom - Thinkport
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a fun way to explore budgets and financial planning with teens. Allow students to create different scenarios to find a practical approach to budget planning. Use as part of a debate for students to discuss their opinions on the amount to spend on prom expenses. This is a great lesson to do around prom season as part of a math class or consumerism unit. You could also use it with younger students planning for prom a year or more from now! Even though middle schoolers don't have prom, some of them would LOVE dreaming about it.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Teaching NGSS Engineering Design Through Media - PBS LearningMedia
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use this site on a projector or interactive whiteboard to discuss and informally assess prior knowledge as you start your study of many different STEM-based topics. Use this site for enrichment or to help non-readers understanding concepts through video. Include it on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class. Enhance learning and have students create a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site using a tool such as WordItOut, reviewed here. To extend learning have students create a multimedia infographic sharing their findings using Canva Infographic Maker, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Texas Law Related Games - Law Focused Education, Inc
Grades
2 to 8In the Classroom
Several games require significant reading, so partner weaker and stronger readers if students work independently. Ypu could also provide a reading guide using Read Ahead, reviewed here an excellent tool for introducing any reading passage to struggling readers, special education students, and ENL/ESL learners. Create a link to specific games on classroom computers as a center to use on President's Day, Constitution Day, or any class day studying U.S. Government. If studying your state's laws, use an online tool such as the Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here, to compare and contrast differences between your state and Texas.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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TelevisionTunes - jayzoo.com
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Add a little interest to classroom games by downloading and including game show clips (music) as part of your activity. Play a sound clip as a classroom management cue, such as for circle reading time with young ones (turn up the speakers). Share with students as a resource for audio clips to add to offline podcasts and multimedia presentations for educational purposes.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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OECD Data Lab - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Start with the OECD Better Life Index that brings together many factors to numerically rank countries by happiness or well-being. Assign this graph as a "Make Your Own," with students rating the topics (or more importantly, asking their parents or grandparents). Compare their results and look at gender differences. Students can brainstorm reasons for gender differences or ranking of topics in importance. Compare the United States to other countries. Allow class time to look at other data found on this site and brainstorm how these are connected. Connect the data to curriculum being discussed in class: economic policies, wars, global problems with food and agriculture, social norms, and more. Connect the information to headlines from around the world, both past and present. Encourage students to write an essay, opinion piece, or elevator pitch on one aspect or social issue that is important to change. What a great example of argument and evidence as required by Common Core! This assignment can also be delivered as a podcast, video, or part of a news segment the class creates. Use a site such as PodOmatic (reviewed here) to create podcasts. Try creating a video and share it using TeacherTube reviewed here.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.
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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The Authentic History Center - Michael Barnes
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
The Authentic History Center is excellent for making history real. Share this information on your projector or interactive whiteboard (or speakers) during lessons on any time period of US History. Play Bing Crosby singing "God Bless America" to help students feel the pre-WWII era or nationalism. Make the Angry era of McCarthyism real by letting student explore the collection. Include this entire collection on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class. Use the sources for students to experience a multi-sensory tour of any era in U.S. history and create their own project about it incorporating the artifacts (with proper credit) and their own explanations. You could modify student learning by having students create a simple infographic sharing their findings using Livegap Chart, reviewed here. Or, have students create online posters about an era individually or together as a class using a tool such as Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here, or PicLits, reviewed here. Enhance learning by having students create timelines using Timeline JS, reviewed here. Timeline JS offers the option to upload and add photos, videos, audio, Tweets, and Google Maps making it interactive. If you participate in National History Day, this site is an outstanding start point. If you are the advisor for your high school play, bookmark this site as a great source for authentic era images and sounds. Need background music for a play (or video) set during WWII? Here it is!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 12In 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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Feedspot - Feedspot.com
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Create a class Feedspot account to follow blogs of interesting teachers, schools, authors, or museums and zoos. If your students write blogs, add student accounts to Feedspot for easy viewing of all their posts. Create a collection of feeds on topics in your curriculum, such as environmental issues, newspapers in other languages, space projects, current events, etc. You can collect informational texts on current events related to curriculum topics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Image Atlas - Taryn Simon and Aaron Swartz
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Use this tool to compare images that portray words you have searched and hypothesize about cultural differences. GO beyond the images to compare the articles that contain the images. This tool would be especially relevant in social studies, health, and other subjects where a difference in meaning across the world can be discussed. This tool may be useful if doing reports on countries. If you are allowing older students to search on their own, be sure to set firm guidelines/rules ahead of time! As with ANY image search, it all depends on the terms you enter!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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News for Kids - News for Kids.net
Grades
4 to 10In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for current events. The reading level of the stories is generally upper elementary, but the topics are of interest through high school. These short articles would be great for practice with informational texts. Keep this site as part of a list for students to access, including weaker readers and ENL/ESL students. Have students research whats going on via this news site, and present a small presentation at the beginning of class. Students can either present orally or, for the technologically inclined, create a short video summarizing the same information. Consider using a bookmark site such as Diigo, reviewed here, to share newsworthy items that correlate with your class curriculum.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Flipboard - Flipboard
Grades
3 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Create a class Flipboard account and create magazines for each unit studied through the year. Add information that is useful for student understanding, application of concepts, or materials to be used for projects. Create a magazine of great articles and information to read or search through. Consider creating a Flipboard magazine for student current events or happenings. Use this for reports on various topics such as food issues, diseases, political information, cultures around the world, and more. Make a customized "feed" for more advanced information on a topic for your gifted and advanced students. Students can curate a Flipboard of pictures or videos from the web on a certain topic to share with their classmates. Create a Professional Development Flipboard with other teachers. Teacher-librarians may want to work together with classroom teachers to create magazines of certain content for students to use during research units. Challenge your middle and high school gifted students to curate a magazine for themselves on a topic of individual interest, creating a "PLN" they can use for years. For example, a student interested in rocketry can locate and add blogs from rocket scientists, NASA feeds, and more. Talented writers may want to collect feeds from literary publications and author blogs. They will probably also discover related Flipboards created by others. As gifted students' interests change, they can curate other topical "magazines" to keep learning, even if the topics do not fall within the traditional curriculum. You may find that the personalization of learning is something ALL your students want to do.Comments
There are amazing collections on this site.Cindi, NC, Grades: 0 - 6
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100Reporters - 100 Reporters
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
In discussions of current events, find great news articles that get to the heart of the story. Compare them with other news outlets to discuss how money and the viewpoints of business owners can cloud the actual reporting. Be sure to discuss how to find parent websites by investigating the shortened address (url) of sites as well as the advertisements found on pages. Compare and contrast news stories found on a variety of news pages. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here) to compare two news stories. In world language or world cultures classes, discover what the "hot topics" are by looking at news stories from the region being studied. In writing classes, use these articles compared with those on the same topic from other sources for students to collect supporting evidence to use in essay writing.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wordless News - Maria Fabrizio
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Encourage students to connect with current events by sharing the daily post (or one per week) on your projector or interactive whiteboard as students enter homeroom or settle in for the start of class. If you teach reading, this is the perfect way to entice students to READ informational texts with a visual image in mind, adding a purpose to their reading of non-fiction. This is a very creative way to practice close reading, as students look for the reasons behind the illustrator's choices. Extend the activity by challenging students in reading OR social studies classes to create their own Wordless News illustrations to reflect a news story they find on their own. Share the challenges on a class wiki for other students to "guess" and include the links to the stories. Art teachers can use this blog as an example of the many ways artists find inspiration in everyday life. Even the very young can "draw" a news story they read. ESL/ELL teachers can use these illustrations to build speaking vocabulary as students discuss and guess the news stories and practice their language skills reading the actual text. Use this blog in social studies class to inspire historic " wordless news" stories with accompanying articles written by students (or primary source stories from the time). What would the illustration and article be like for the Emancipation Proclamation?Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Letters of Note - Shaun Usher
Grades
8 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Find letters from authors to read when studying their novels. Choose letters from different time periods to share with students as an authentic look at life during that time (primary sources!). Have students share what they learned using a tool such as Zeemaps, reviewed here. Zeemaps allows students to create audio recordings AND choose a location (on a map) where the story takes place. Have students use Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about a president, famous scientist, or nearly any other real or fictitious person.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum - Common Sense Education
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this website as your first stop for any lessons related to responsible digital behavior. Share a link to videos on your classroom website or blog for students (and parents) to view at home. Download and use lesson plans and materials as part of your digital safety planning. Many lessons include suggestions for modifications to use as a quick activity instead of a complete lesson. Enhance learning and have students create a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site using a tool such as Word Clouds for Kids, reviewed here, for younger students, or WordClouds, reviewed here, for older students. Enhance learning and ask students to collect ideas on a collaborative bulletin board like Pinside, reviewed here, (quick start- no membership required!) demonstrating information presented from these Digital Literacy & Citizenship lessons.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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STEM Behind Hollywood - Texas Instruments
Grades
4 to 10This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Pair this information and the related activities with classroom content, video clips, and data about related events (spreading of disease, space travel, etc.) Create discussions about various technologies, discoveries, and more to engage your students in the topics you are studying. Share the video clips on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Share this link on your class website for students to explore at home and learn more about how Hollywood uses science and math in film, television, and beyond. Include this site in a careers unit so students can see how science can lead to many different careers.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Population Education - Population Connection
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use the "Find a Lesson" search to discover population education activities and information that will be useful in your curriculum or classroom. Find demonstration videos of how to use the lessons within the classroom. Be sure to preview and show the World Population Video (aka: the "dot video") to your classes. Share the video on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use these resources when discussing population of organisms and then discussing human population.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Climate Change: Lines of Evidence - Division on Earth And Life Studies, National Academies
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Watch the series of videos as a class or assign them for homework, in a flipped classroom strategy. If using the flipped classroom strategy, use a program like Vibby, reviewed here, where you can embed questions at certain points in the video. Another idea that would put you at the top of the scale as a Common Core prepared teacher would be to use a program like Google Scholar, reviewed here,, to help you find articles about climate change, greenhouse emissions, carbon emissions, etc. from many different sources. Then embed the article and video in a program like Actively Learn, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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International Human Development Insights - United Nations Development Programme
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Student groups or the full class can view data and graphs of various indicators and brainstorm questions to understand the data. What factors exist in various countries or areas of the World? What conditions need to change to reverse troubling trends and to create greater equality of individuals in the World? Break these questions down into major focus topics to be researched and presented by members of the class. Since this site can be viewed in numerous languages, use this tool in a world language class. Gain understanding of the factors that influence places you read about in the news and faraway cultures. In government or civics classes, talk about how public policies affect or reflect development data. In math classes, use this site to see how statistics can be applied to decision making and international issues.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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