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Head Magnet
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Create flashcards for any subject to review material being learned in class. Use this as a review for vocabulary before tests. As a pre-assessment, create a study list to use on the interactive whiteboard or projector to find out what students already know. Provide this link on your class website for students to use to create flashcards both in and out of your classroom. Learning support teachers may want to show students how to create their own cards. The process of creating the will actually reinforce skills, as well.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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60 Second Recap - DimSum Media
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
These short film clips are perfect for introducing lessons with a quick attention-grabbing recap. The clips preview material that you can discuss more in depth as you analyze the works in question, and provide a useful review for students throughout the unit. It may be tempting to treat them like all the other on-line cheats for students who don't actually want to read the book, but these are more likely to help focus attention and clarify main points. They would also be good for less-able readers as a way to increase interest in the classics. The clips are perfect for your interactive whiteboard or projector. As a special challenge, assign students to create their own 60 second recaps of works they have read and share them on TeacherTube reviewed here or SchoolTube reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Anne Frank House - The Anne Frank Stichting
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Use your interactive whiteboard or projector to take your class on a virtual field trip to Amsterdam to visit the Secret Annex where they can realize what it was actually like for Anne Frank's family and four others to live inside a hidden space, with the constant fear of being discovered by the Nazis. Help the words in Anne's diary come alive by showing what the outside and inside of the building looked like, by viewing the painstaking ways that were taken to keep them safe, and by looking at the space where Anne ate, slept, and hung her pictures. Students will be more likely to relate to Anne as a real person, instead of a fictional character, and admire her optimism, courage, and resiliency. Use this to initiate journal entries for students to reflect on how they would handle two years of hiding and sharing a small space with others, as well as what they would do to remain positive, or use the online exhibit to shed some light on a dark period in history and to strengthen the personal account of the hiding period and the deportation to the camps. Assign class members to read about one of the house members or helpers to research, then have them write a diary (or blog entry) from that person's point of view. Assign teams to debate who was the most important member of the household or if this situation could take place in today's society. Not comfortable with wikis? Have no wiki worries - check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.Have groups compare two people they learned about using a tool such as the Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here). Create a class wiki for students to share their journal articles and respond to others.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Dreambeast Poems - Mark C. Bird
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Select one or two poems to share with students using an interactive whiteboard or document camera. After discussing the poems, have students come up with questions for the poet. Post the questions on the blog. Or, modify classroom technology use and have students create an online poetry poster using Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here, and list their questions. Leave the URL to your poster on his blog. It is sure to get his attention!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry.com - LLEI Inc
Grades
6 to 12To enter poems, students must be registered members (email and password are required). Tip: rather than using your personal or work email, create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
In the Classroom
Students can use a rhyming dictionary such as Rhyme Zone, reviewed here, when writing poems. Poetry.com would also be a great site to discuss the idea of great poetry. The site lists great poets and poems, which would help incite a discussion on what makes a great poet or poem. Have students select one of the best poems and present it to the class using an interactive whiteboard or document camera. Students can share why they agree or disagree with its status as a great poem. Why not have students read their favorite poem (and offer their own opinions) on a podcast using a site such as podOmatic, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry Everywhere - PBS
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Share several poems with students and then have them create similar poet and poem podcasts. Enhance student learning and augment classroom technology use by using a site such as podOmatic, reviewed here, to present to their classmates. Post the podcasts to a class wiki or website. Not familiar with wikis? Have no wiki worries - check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Freeology - Free Printable Graphic Organizers - Freeology.com
Grades
1 to 12In the Classroom
This is a great site to help students sequence, brainstorm, and organize information. Use on an interactive whiteboard or projector and fill out organizers after a lesson. Print out organizers and have students use them in cooperative reading groups. Use the organizers to differentiate for students who need extra scaffolding or for students who need extension activities. As students get older and learn which study skills help them best, they will want to access this site on their own to study for tests. Be sure to save this site in your personal favorites!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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International Children's Digital Library - University of Maryland
Grades
K to 8In the Classroom
Use an interactive whiteboard or projector to share stories and incite discussion among students. Have small groups construct mini lessons about the theme or a reading strategy using one of the digital books, and then teach the class using an interactive whiteboard. Rather than having students complete traditional book reports, try a web 2.0 project such as a podcast about the literature using a site such as PodOmatic (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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DigiPoem - Jon Elliott
Grades
4 to 12There is an option to email your digipoem, but first remember to check your school's policy or have students email their poems to your school email address. There is also a link to convert the text to an XML file that can be saved. JavaScript must be enabled in your browser for anything to work. The best feature of this site: no registration required!
In the Classroom
Delight your students by projecting digipoemon your classroom projector or interactive whiteboard to demonstrate how the words in poems create visual images. Then, be amazed at how quickly this will motivate them to write poetry. Take them to the computer lab or use a class set of lap tops, and put a link to this site on your class web page. Younger students should first type their poems into a Word document with a built in spell check, and then copy and paste them into the website's text box.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Rhyme Brain - Steve Hanov
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Demonstrate how simple it is to find a word that rhymes on your projector or interactive whiteboard and then, provide a link to Rhyme Brain on your class web page for your students to have easy access to this tool. Transform classroom technology use and have your students share their created poems on an interactive online poster using Marq (formerly Lucidpress), reviewed here, or Canva, reviewed here.This resource is a real time saver! Use it to fascinate elementary students with the numerous single and multi-syllabic rhyming words and various spelling combinations that are generated. Older students will enjoy the play on words that it quickly reveals, saving them time to do the higher level thinking that the figurative language of poetry requires.
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For Better for Verse - Herbert Tucker, John C. Coleman: Professor of English
Grades
10 to 12In the Classroom
Plotting the patterns of poetic meter and rhyme can be as hard to study as learning a foreign language. It takes long hours of practice to develop an ear and a feel for the kind of verse that was standard during Chaucer's time. At For Better for Verse poetry enthusiasts practice by trial and error opportunities, and receive instant feedback as they analyze the syllables' stress, without becoming too stressed, themselves. How do you know where the slacks and stresses fall? You listen; so instead of relying on repeating the verse out loud, click on the audio to hear it read. Listening to a vocal performance is helpful in the early stages of the tutorial. Students build confidence as they turn their stride into a gallop and waltz across the poem with their mouse and curser. Soon they will progress to using their eyes, rather than their ears to "listen" to the poem.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Literary Glossary - EDSITEment
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
This site can be used as a teacher tool if you are unsure of a definition or simply looking for a new way to teach a literary concept. It can also be used as a terminology resource for students. Be sure to provide this link on your class website for students to access both in and out of the classroom. Have young students use this site in cooperative learning groups and create online books providing the definitions to several new vocabulary words, along with examples they collect or create. Use a site such as Bookemon, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Newspaper Blackout - Austin Kleon
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
This poetry activity (aka Found Poetry) opens the doors to so many learning objectives. In a social studies or history classroom, you could direct your students to search for newspaper or magazine articles on topics that you have been studying, or current events. Suddenly you have social studies poetry! In an English language arts lesson, you might instruct students to blacken out all the words that are not nouns or verbs, or select other parts of speech. You could change the task to eliminate any word that is not part of the simple subject or predicate, and simultaneously teach or reinforce main idea. For classrooms with individual computers, students could access articles online. Copy the text into a document. Then, Instead of blackening out words with markers, they could get the same effect by highlighting over them with black, or changing the font color of the text to white, and printing them or saving a screenshot image. Another option is for students to email their Newspaper Blackout poems to the teacher. Each poem could then be put into a Power Point slide show for the class to see on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Use this site to offer your students a new twist on Poetry Month (April). Enhance classroom technology use and take your new poetry collection to the world by uploading the PowerPoint to Voxer, reviewed here, and have each student record a reading in his/her own voice. Make poetry a participatory experience, no matter what the subject. If your school permits, have students take photos of their paper poems -- or screenshots of ones done on the computer --and share them on Voxer. You may want students to start saving their work in a digital portfolio. Suggestions are Mahara, reviewed here, for high school students, and Seesaw, reviewed here, for younger students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry Read-a-Thon - Academy of American Poets
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
This is a great way to introduce a poetry unit to a class. It is also ideal for Poetry Month (April). This read-a-thon can also be used throughout the entire semester. A teacher guide is included as well as a student log. If used throughout the semester, teachers can start out each lesson period with one or two students sharing their responses with the class. Teachers can also choose a poem and assign students a particular response focus. Students can then compare and contrast each other's responses to the same poem. Have cooperative learning groups share their poems on a podcast using PodOmatic (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Poetry Archive - The Poetry Archive Panel
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Enrich and enliven your poetry lessons with recordings and videos of some of the world's best loved poets. One of teachers many frustrations, when trying to inspire students to fall in love with poetry, is not being able to call up the voices of earlier poets. Listening to the poet himself has a magical effect in the classroom and makes the very experience that it describes come alive. Start by projecting the poem on your white board while listening to the recording and then ask students to pick out, highlight, and display words or phrases that appealed to them. Introduce various poetic forms and demonstrate how the sound of a poem is as crucial to its meaning as the printed words on the page. Explore, connect, and make new discoveries for themes you are studying. Have students respond to the power and energy of poetic language and appreciate the beauty of the sounds and images, then move towards an analysis of the underlying meaning. Challenge students to try some creative writing that goes beyond the literal meaning and resonates their "voice." Not studying poetry during April (Poetry Month)? Play a quick Poetry Break from this site as a class starter or bonus moment after finishing a quiz. Make your own class poetry archive by having students create PowerPoint images of their own poems and read them aloud with PowerPoint Online, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poems = Word Comics - Austin Kleon
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Visual thinkers sometimes experience difficulty expressing their thoughts in words and when asked to write a poem, they literally fall apart. Poetry has images inherent in its form; therefore, spark your students' creativity by enabling them to think of a line in a poem as a frame in a cartoon. By jumping from image to image, the poem takes on a comic-like element, where the words and images are dependent upon each other. Rather than getting jammed up on words that rhyme, this approach offers a clever and amazing way to "write a poem." This activity would work well for pairing visual learners or artistically inclined students with the stronger writers in the class, or by using individual computers and modifying technology use to combine the Poems = Word Comics concept with Make Beliefs Comix, reviewed here, to create professional looking poetic comics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Story Jumper - storyjumper.com
Grades
2 to 8In the Classroom
Although the sentences and graphics available appear juvenile, the fact that writers can delete the text and add their own original text, photos, and drawings makes this site flexible enough to use with older students, as well. This activity would work well for individual or pairs of students in a lab or on laptops. Ask your students to visit the site and create an online book with their original writings, drawings, and photos. ENL and ELL students will be able to use the site easily, and will learn appropriate sentence structure and add to their vocabulary by selecting new items to put into the graphic. Older students can also create "little buddy" books for younger students to read and share.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Rare Book Room - Octavo
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use a projector or interactive whiteboard so everyone can view the Rare Book Room at once. Small groups can write down their observations about the art and text, and then share out with the whole class. You can also have small groups of students investigate Rare Books from certain authors or time periods. Navigating and annotating the books on the interactive whiteboard and sharing their findings with the whole class. The interactive whiteboard is the ideal tool for annotating. Older students can also annotate them using an online tool such as Fine Tuna, reviewed here : reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Nutrition - Myvocabulary.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Have students work in cooperative learning groups, divide up the vocabulary words, and have each group find the definitions for their assigned vocabulary words. Have the groups share their words and definitions in an online book, using a tool such as Bookemon (reviewed here). Have the groups share the online books on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you don't have the time to complete online books, have students share the definitions using a class wiki. Be sure to also check out the interactive word puzzles!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Music/Fine Arts Vocab - Myvocabulary.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
What a perfect addition to music or art class! Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students work in cooperative learning groups, divide up the vocabulary words, and have each group find the definitions for their assigned vocabulary words. Have the groups share their words and definitions in an online book, using a tool such as Bookemon (reviewed here). Encourage them to add terms of their own, as well. Have the groups share the online books on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you don't have the time to complete online books, have students share the definitions using a class wiki. Be sure to also check out the interactive word puzzles!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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