Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

All-inclusive student response is what Plickers is all about. Students do not need to have Internet access. Responders use individualized QR Code cards (print a set FREE from Plickers), to answer questions. You use your mobile device to read the QR Code cards that students hold up. Create an account and get started immediately. No need to wait for an email response. There is a demo to use, or see the Support page on the bottom menu for detailed instructions for adding classes, students, questions (with or without images), and folders to organize your questions by unit, topic, lesson and more. You can save student responses to your online Plicker account.
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Wimp offers a wide variety of videos with family-friendly content. Browse through the site using a keyword search or choose categories such as popular, life, culture, learning, and more. Choose a video to read a short description and view. Videos are imported from many different locations such as Vimeo, YouTube, and individual websites. Also, view Wimp on your mobile device by clicking on their link that is optimized for mobiles. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable. Although the content is family-friendly, this site contains comments that aren't monitored. If sharing with students, go to the direct link provided with each video for viewing without some of the distractions (and possibly inappropriate comments).
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The Engineering Place offers resources for students, parents, and educators to promote and learn about engineering. Explore the student section, sorted by age groups, to find information about careers in engineering. Choose the parents section to download a booklet with information about helping your student with mathematics and tips for encouraging students to explore careers in engineering. Find lesson plans and additional resources in the Educators portion of the site.

Become a member of Traffic Team Alpha. Join the mission to get cars through intersections as quickly as possible by controlling traffic lights. As you complete each mission, move up to more congested intersections and improve your problem-solving skills. Read and follow the directions for priorities with each level.

Join the community designed to educate students and all learners in 21st century learning. The mission consists of building collaborative partnerships between education, businesses, government, and community leaders to promote learning skills needed in the 21st century for life, work, and citizenship. P21 strives to prepare all students for the challenges of the future. Find a framework for student outcomes with support system outlines. Resources for educators include sample lesson ideas, Common Core alignment, P21 Common Core Tool Kit, professional development guides, 21st century skill maps in a variety of subject areas, case studies of exemplar schools, a newsletter, and a Blogazine. Resources for policymakers include information on definitions, framework, and implementing 21st century skills. A parents' guide contains information on 21st century skills and leadership. Most downloadable materials are free. Get a press kit or join an advocacy group or mailing list.
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Choosito! is a search engine providing safe access to the worldwide web through filtering of reading levels and subject areas for education. Create an account to add class information and add your collections. Search Choosito! using filters for reading level and subject. Limit searches to Choosito's Library, your collections, or Choosito! Web. Easily share searches using social networking links or save to your library. Be sure to check out the Choosito! Start Guides for a quick overview to getting started with this search engine.

City Technology offers resources for students and educators to learn about engineering. You learn through the creation of projects and integration across curricular areas such as math and science. The page for kids shares projects for kids to create on their own. Each project features a video showing how to make the item and a list of materials needed. Choose the section for educators to find complete units on Energy Systems, Force and Motion, and Stuff that Works correlated to math and science standards. Each unit includes a video and downloadable lesson plans.

Jump onto your computer and start your road trip! Choose a destination, and start planning the Hotels, Attractions, Natural Wonders, and Weird Stuff for your trip. Plan your trip by entering the starting address and the final destination. Instantly discover the journey's duration, the amount of money needed for gas, and the mileage. Choose the dates you will travel and save your trip. Print your plans, email them to yourself or others, or access your trip plans on the app. Plan several trips and save them in your account. Not sure where you want to go? Discover interesting areas by viewing the stories posted on Roadtrippers. Be sure to preview what you will show students as not all journals are kid friendly.
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Find, organize, edit, and share your photos from one place with Google Photos. Automatically upload pictures from any device to one storage platform. Use keywords to locate any uploaded image. Use the editing tools to create animated GIF's from images or combine related images and videos into a movie with a matching soundtrack. Google Photos allows you to upload photos from any mobile device and provides free unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels or videos up to 1080 HD.

Bloomz is a tool that has several free features that teachers need to communicate with their classroom community: share photos, schedule conferences, send reminders, and more. These features are all in one place. So don't use one program to share photos, one to send reminders, one to share calendar updates, and another to schedule volunteers and conferences. Just use Bloomz and do all of the work from the same site. Once you have signed up with your email, watch the introduction video and view the demo class to see how easy Bloomz is to use. This tool works with all mobile devices and computers. Be sure to check out Bloomz' Privacy Polixy to read about their FERPA and COPPA compliance.

Looking for a quiz tool that is better than all the rest? Quizizz is a free tool. It works on any device: web browser, iOS, Android and Chrome apps. You can access hundreds of ready-made learning quizzes or create your own. Join as a teacher, pick a quiz, and use the code for a virtual room to give to your students. Alternatively, you can create your own quiz on Quizizz, even importing questions from excel/CSV files with just a click of a button. Students use the code to enter and submit a nickname, code name, or numerical name (students do not have to register). Quizizz now has to be marked as trusted by an administrator to be able to use it with your Google Classroom account, even if you have been using it. With Google Classroom, students can join by signing in with their Google Account with just one click. Even better, if you assign a Quizizz through Google Classroom, all your data gets updated in your Classroom dashboard. You will get notifications when students complete assignments and their responses and grades show. Teachers can choose to make their quizzes public or private. Embed images with your questions. Check or uncheck the settings, including music. You can even duplicate an existing quiz to save into My Quizizz. A created Quizizz can have randomized or non-randomized questions.

Don't miss the memes that are displayed when students answer a question; these are sure to be a hit with students. You can also customize your Quizizz by creating your own Memes. Use images of the school mascot, students' pets, or favorite game characters to create a set of ten or more memes. Click the My Memes from the top menu, then the plus symbol. You are now ready to start. Be sure to Click "Start Game" after students have entered the code. Send the game link to students (or other teachers to use with their classes) by email, website, or social media. Set time limits of 30 seconds to 5 minutes for students to answer each question. This allows more time for more complex questions. Students earn points for speed and accuracy. Unlike other sites, both teacher and students can see the questions, answers, and the leaderboard throughout the quiz. Most other tools require the teacher to project the answers and leaderboard on a whiteboard. The leaderboard can be turned OFF in this tool as well. And, what is the best part of this tool? Two separate classes can play together using this tool. Quizizz works on any web-enabled device, including smartphones and tablets, and has an iOS app.

You can now email student reports to parents (even send the student reports to multiple/all parents at once), the main navigation bar has moved from the top to the left, and there is a search bar that you can access on all pages, and now you can search both your quizzes and your reports. Quizizz is now available in Spanish and will soon be adding other languages. Don't miss their new Jungle theme with music, backgrounds, and GIFs... oh my!

This tool is a great lesson plan resource for correlating art with other curricular areas! First, scroll down to Featured Resources, Resources by Subject Matter, or Resources by Grade Level. Curricular Areas include Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, STEAM, Social Justice, Critical Thinking, and several others. Click the resulting lessons to view a PDF that includes links to artwork images at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Common Core standards, and a detailed lesson plan.

Digital Citizenship offers a large number of resources for teaching digital citizenship for students of all ages, teachers, and parents. Scroll down the page to find categories for Online safety, Healthy online habits, Teaching and learning, and more to begin. Each section includes articles and resources for learning responsible digital citizenship. The site was created in Australia. American English speakers may notice some slight differences in spellings and pronunciations. The videos reside on sites other than Digital Citizenship. Some are on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

Make a collage of your images into a variety of shapes. Download the free program for Mac OS, Windows, Linux, iPhone, and iPad. Drag images into the window and choose the collage shape (heart, characters, animals, and more) or create and customize your own shape. Collages do not show the company watermark, and you can export them to Photoshop. Click Help from the top menu bar and follow the demo video for tips and tricks.

SolveMe Puzzles is an excellent collection of Algebra-related puzzles. At the time of this review mobile puzzles (mobiles to hang and balance) are the only option; however, Who Am I? and Mystery Grids are coming soon. Mobile puzzles come in categories from easy to more mathematically complex. Create your own mobile puzzles using the Build option. Use the many tools provided to annotate your work, learn how to use the puzzles, share, and save your work. Login is not required but is an excellent option for saving progress through the different puzzle options.

TeachThought stretches teachers to think beyond the norm, and try new exciting ideas such as learning in a digital world, flipped classrooms, project based learning, and simulations. A few examples of the articles include: 10 Team Building Games that Promote Critical Thinking, 25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area, 55 Free Apps For iPads, 249 Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs for Critical Thinking, 14 Brilliant Bloom's Taxonomy Posters For Teachers, and 20 Things You Can Do in 10 Minutes For A Smoother Running Classroom. Join in the conversation, add your opinion, or ask a question. Sign up for TeachThought's newsletter.
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Never leave your easy chair as you journey beyond the road to faraway places using Google Maps Treks! Choose Gombe National Park, Pyramids of Giza, Angkor Wat, Colorado River, or the polar bears at Churchill. Tour Taj Mahal, Venice, Galapagos Islands, Eiffel Tower, Mt. Fuji, Everest, Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon Basin, and more. Click on the option and then click the open in Maps or Views button. On maps with multiple placemarks, click the placemark to view information about the location, and then click the title to go to the map. Choose from a variety of images taken at various locations found along the bottom. Some images are photospheres and can be manipulated using the sphere icon along the bottom right. Use the arrows in the sphere to rotate the image, giving a panoramic view of the location as you click. Use the familiar Google map tools to zoom in and out. Some Treks offer short videos that are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

YouTube EDU features some of the most popular educational videos across YouTube. Explore both elementary and secondary topics. This channel integrates content across 100 colleges and universities and offers access to campus tours, research, and lectures. Scroll through to find videos sorted into many categories such as science, mathematics, arts, languages, and much more. Subscribe to receive updates about new videos added. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.

Choosing color schemes for web pages, projects, and displays becomes easier with Color Schemer! Click on any color in the color bar at the bottom of the page to view a display of compatible colors along with hex and font color numbers for HTML use. Choose "lighten scheme" or "darken scheme" to adjust and personalize colors as desired.

Quickly convert, share, and manage documents with Cometdocs. Upload any file from your computer then choose from options to convert, transfer, share, or host the file. Options or file conversions include to and from PDF, Word, Excel, image, and text formats. Create a free account to receive up to 2 GB in storage, upload files up to 150 MB, perform up to 5 conversions per week. Other options include downloading web and iOS apps for use. Login isn't necessary to do simple file conversions but is required for storage and hosting of files.
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