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Young Ben Franklin - Gen-Z Media
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Take advantage of the many free materials available on this site to engage students when learning about Benjamin Franklin, American History, or inventors. Adapt the choice and explore boards to fit your student's interests and abilities. For example, replace the timeline on the choice board with one created using MyLens, reviewed here. If time isn't available to complete the entire listening guide, copy individual slides to use as part of a listening or writing center. As a culminating activity, extend learning by asking students to use the podcast as a model for researching and learning about other famous Americans. Have them share their learning as part of a multimedia presentation created using Canva Docs, reviewed here or by creating a comic strip presentation using Canva's Comic Strip Templates, reviewed here.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Year-End Roundup, 2016-2017: Questions for Writing and Discussion - New York Times/The Learning Network
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site as a resource for writing prompts, current events discussions, or as a springboard to debate topics. Before writing, encourage students to research their topic and take notes. Use an online note-taking site like Google Keep, reviewed here, to save and share notes. Have students share their completed projects in a blog and ask for feedback from their peers using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. There is no registration with Telegra.ph and you just click on an icon to upload images from your computer, add a YouTube or Vimeo, or Twitter links. Take completed writing projects one step further and ask students to create a Odyssey, reviewed here. Odyssey offers the ability to tell a story through interactive maps including video, images, and more.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The British Are Coming! Using Literature to Bring the American Revolution to Life - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Bookmark this site with ideas about the American Revolution to engage students through literature. Some books and activities include links to lessons and teachers' guides that provide additional information and classroom support. Use Curipod, reviewed here, to quickly create engaging lessons and activities related to your book studies. For example, Curipod can create slides with themes such as lesson hooks, what do you infer? and exit tickets; use any of these options to generate ideas for discussion questions based on the theme of any books shared in this article. Enhance student learning by creating timelines based on information in the books read. ReadWriteThink Timeline, reviewed here, is easy for students of all ages to use for creating and sharing timelines.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ESL Discussions - Sean Banville
Grades
7 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Bookmark this site to use anytime you want to develop and promote discussion skills in your classroom. After students have completed their discussion questions, have them present their findings to the class then create a quick poll using using Poll Everywhere, reviewed here. Share with ESL/ELL and Special Education teachers as a resource for promoting discussion and speaking skills with their students. Use this site for teacher-selected topics in debate club, speech class, and more. Some of the topics could even make good blog prompts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Great Lakes States - Past and Present - Century Past Library
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to bookmark this site to use as a resource if you teach the history of the Great Lakes Region; however, any American History teacher will also appreciate the information found on the site. Explore information on your interactive whiteboard or assign ebooks for student reading. Use a tool such as bubbl.us, reviewed here, to create and share concept maps to connect information learned during your teaching unit. Have students create maps using Zeemaps, reviewed here. Zeemaps allows students to create audio recordings AND choose various locations on a map where the report takes place. Use Zeemaps to modify technology use by creating animated maps featuring various location stops with text, video, audio, and featuring events in the Great Lakes Region. Instead of a book report or oral presentation, ask students to use a tool like Odyssey, reviewed here, to share information. Odyssey allows you to create interactive maps including text, images, and multimedia to tell stories in a powerful way.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Useful Charts YouTube Channel - Matt Baker
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Include links to videos found on this channel to help students understand the complicated family trees found throughout history. After watching the videos, ask students to use an organizational tool such as Genially, reviewed here, to diagram family trees for American Presidents, European Royalty, Asian Dynasties, or other ruling families. When finished, use a timeline creator such as Vizzio, reviewed here, and find the "layered timeline" to view information in chronological order that includes additional information such as text, images, and primary documents.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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100 Years of Parcels, Packages, and Packets, Oh My! - Smithsonian National Postal Museum
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
The ability to mail packages across the country is an important factor in the growth of the US and has contributed to an ever-more-mobile society. Incorporate some of the historic images here into a discussion of changes in transportation and communication over the 20th and early 21st centuries. Ask students to brainstorm the items in their own bedrooms that might have arrived via Parcel Post. How would their lives be different without package delivery? Why is it important for the US Government to be involved in package delivery? Have students share their findings and thoughts by creating online posters individually or together as a class. Use a tool such as Web Poster Wizard (reviewed here) or PicLits (reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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1619 in America: 400 years ago, a ship arrived in Virginia, bearing human cargo - USA Today
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Share this article with students during your studies of American History, Civil Rights, and slavery. Consider using Wakelet, reviewed here, to curate and share information with students such as videos, articles, and other media. Engage students by creating interactive timelines using Canva Timeline Templates, reviewed here, or eStory, reviewed here, to deepen understanding and provide historical context to the events of 1619. Take advantage of the 1619 Project Curriculum, reviewed here, to find additional resources for students in all grades.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Teaching with Primary Sources - Almetria Vaba
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Take advantage of these free investigations to incorporate into your current lessons or as a starting point to introduce the use of primary sources. Consider using the PBS activities as an alternative to a typical research paper by taking advantage of technology tools to enhance learning. Have students create a bibliography of sources using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Share a citation tool such as Cite This For Me, reviewed here, for students to use when citing and creating bibliographies of online documents. Encourage students to collaborate and discuss primary sources using Fiskkit, reviewed here. Copy the URL of an online resource into Fiskkit and share with students. Students then click on portions of the article to highlight and discuss relevant information found. Encourage students to delve further into any topic using Ted-Ed Clubs, reviewed here. This site allows you to create clubs with up to 50 members. Members participate in up to 13 sessions based on TED Talks by collaborating and discussing topics of interest.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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TeachersFirst's Resources for John F. Kennedy, Jr. - TeachersFirst
Grades
1 to 12In the Classroom
Whether you focus on Kennedy for one class or spend an entire unit on U.S. presidents, the ideas included within the "In the Classroom" portion of reviews will launch discussions and meaningful projects for student-centered learning. Find more presidential resources in TeacherFirst's Resources for American Presidents.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Brother Against Brother: Books to Help Teach Civil War - TeachersFirst
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Create a list of suggested books for students using Padlet, reviewed here. Encourage students to add comments in short book reviews for other students to use as a resource. Enhance learning by incorporating books found on this list into your other resources to create a learning unit using Curipod, reviewed here. Use Curipod to add videos, articles, quizzes, and more to create engaging multimedia lessons.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations - FacingHistory.org
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
As an introduction to the lesson, one of the activities is to ask students to brainstorm a list of teens' news resources and a list of news resources used by parents or older people. Use Microsoft Whiteboard, reviewed here, or Google Jamboard, reviewed here, to create and analyze your lists. Use the whiteboard tools to create lists, Venn Diagrams, and add notes to extend student reflections on different news sources. Turn the Know-Heard-Learned Chart included in the lesson into an editable worksheet to use as a collaborative document to record student understanding of any events' timeline.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Do Lectures - Talks That Inspire Action - The Chicken Shed
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Do Lectures are a great place to find inspiration and new ideas for your classroom. Many of the videos connect today's real world with curriculum topics, even in entrepreneurship, health, or family and consumer science classes. Use Do Lecture videos as the perfect supplement or launching point for units of study in your classroom. Find a video that supports the topics happening in your classroom. Share on your website for student viewing. Use on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) for a whole class discussion. Stop the video at various points to discuss or debate ideas included. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos in response to videos viewed on Do Lectures or their own topic. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here. Teachers of gifted could plan an entire unit of study around one video or have students select one to use as the launch point for an independent project.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Picking Up the Pieces: Exploring Reconstruction Through Literature - TeachersFirst
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to see all of the many ideas and activities shared on this site to engage students as they learn about Reconstruction. Organize and share resources with students using a curation tool such as Netboard, reviewed here. Netboard makes it easy to share links, documents, text, and more into one easily accessible location. Extend learning by asking students to share their knowledge using the tools found at Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here. Options include tools for creating videos, web pages, and graphics to demonstrate understanding of learning objectives.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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American Presidents: Life Portraits - C-Span
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use American Presidents: Life Portraits as a great starting point for lessons relating to any presidency or period in American History. Share with students to use when researching presidents for any type of report or presentation. Have students extend their learning using Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about any of the presidents. You could also extend student learning by having them create a newspaper detailing events from any period of American History or any president's tenure using a site such as Printing Press, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media - Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site as a supplemental resource for any history lessons and teaching units. One portion of the site leads to Teachinghistory.org, reviewed here, which is an amazing resource for finding teaching materials, best practices, and history content. Be sure to visit it often to find many ideas for effective teaching of history concepts. Other links are perfect for sharing with students to use for locating and learning from primary sources. For example, Papers of the War Department (1784-1800) contains a large collection of images and transcriptions that provide context and understanding into files once considered lost in a fire at the War Department. Create a collaborative Padlet, reviewed here, and ask students to share primary documents and add comments discussing their relevance to historic events being studied. Padlet also includes a timeline feature; use this tool to create a visual timeline of events for any time. Extend learning by asking students to create podcasts using Buzzsprout, reviewed here. Options for podcast topics could include telling the story of historical events from the perspective of a man on the street and sharing perspectives on an event from the viewpoint of different participants.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Newsola - Nick Nicholaou
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site to select current events for the day. Follow the same news thread for a period of time to look at changes and possible reasons for the change in the news. Be sure to check news stories from other countries for a different viewpoint on issues. Create a class discussion for the differences in viewpoints. Challenge cooperative learning groups to explore ONE of the subtopics (Showbiz, World, Finance, etc..) and present the highlights to the class. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.Comments
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Patsy Mink - My Hero
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Include this biography of Patsy Mink in lessons on heroes, women in history, famous politicians, the 1900s, or influential Hawaiians. Use a curation tool such as Symbaloo, reviewed here or 3x3 links, reviewed here to share articles, videos, and activities easily with students. Use Timelinely, reviewed here to engage students and extend learning by adding information to the YouTube video included on this site. For example, use the 20th Century America (1945-2000) TeachersFirst Special Topics Page, reviewed here to find additional historical context to learn about women's political roles during the 1970s, then include a link to those resources on the video using Timelinely. As an alternative to a book report or written research project, provide students with different opportunities for sharing what they know at the end of your unit using Choice Boards. Activities to include might be creating interactive timelines with Canva Timeline Infographic Templates, reviewed here, a web site created with Google Sites, reviewed here, or an explainer video made with Animaker, reviewed here. Learn more about incorporating choice boards into any classroom by watching the archive of OK2Ask: Engage & Inspire: Choice Boards for Differentiation (Part 1), reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Starting Point - Chris Evans, Mark Kassen, and Joe Kiani
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Share information from this site with students to demonstrate how to share different viewpoints on current events. This site also provides an opportunity to model how to use facts and information to present ideas and persuade others to consider opposing viewpoints. As students use these videos to compare and contrast viewpoints, use a curation tool such as Padlet, reviewed here, to share information from both sides. Use the shelf feature in Padlet to create columns to add content based on each side's viewpoint or use the map feature to add content found from different locations.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Change Makers - Women for Freedom - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Find new resources to share with your students during lessons on the Civil Rights movement, voting rights, and more. Read the details of each tool and the technology integration ideas. Find the ones that will make your students understand these true change-makers better.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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