Weekly Core Subjects Resources

English
1.) TES English provides and publishes printable and editable teaching resources, worksheets, lesson plans and schemes of work for teachers of English at secondary level.

2.) Paper Rater or Paper Grader is a website for students and/or teachers where they can copy and paste their paper to the site.   The software will then provide detailed reports of word choice, grammar, spelling errors, and more.  No sign up is necessary and it will be "graded" in real time.

Mathematics
1.) Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 provides a graphing calculator that plots in 2D and 3D, step-by-step equation solving, and useful tools to help students with math and science studies. This is a down-loadable software for students.

2.) Math247 is a site that provides links and resources to various math screencast and math videos.  Searching through this site will provide some great resources for students and teachers.  You can view the menu on the left hand side to find the various videos.  There are videos for all ages and grades and several are submitted by students.  Definitely "Worth the Surf"

3.) Touch Trigonometry is a simple Flash product that hopes to help math learners of all ages get an intuitive understanding of trigonometry. It aims to do that by letting you just play with the trig functions, with no buttons to get in the way.

Science
1.) Homespun Science Tunes takes famous music and lyrics and uses them to create tunes with science terminology.  There are about 20 lyrics and music sheets that students and teachers can search through and use in the classroom.  What a great idea!

2.) The Virtual Lab from the ChemCollective provides interactive science experiments that will go through the steps of various science experiments. 

3.) Practical Biology provides teachers of biology at all levels with experiments that demonstrate a wide range of biological concepts and processes. Each practical may be used alone or as a starting-point for open-ended investigations or enhancement activities, such as clubs or open-day events.

4.) Practical Physics is a website for teachers enabling them to share their skills and experience of making experiments work in the classroom.

5.) Practical Chemistry is a website that provides all teachers of chemistry with a wide range of experiments to illustrate concepts or processes, as starting-points for investigations and for enhancement activities.

6.) Physics Demonstration Films from the National STEM Centre provides 8 videos explaining various physics concepts.

7.) Open Science Resources is an educational community that provides various resources for teachers.  You will have to sign up for an account before being allowed access, but once you have an account you will be able to visit the repository which includes numerous educational materials (images of exhibits and scientific instruments, animations, videos, lesson plans, student projects and educational pathways with guidelines for interactive museum visit experiences).

Social Studies
1.) An interesting video on the reading of the Gettysburg Address.  Worth sharing with students, because the reader does it with some passion. 

2.) From the New York Times is an interesting "Times Machine" where you can have access to New York Times newspapers from Volume 1, Number 1 of The New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851, through The New York Times of December 30, 1922.  Choose a date in history and flip electronically through the pages, displayed with their original look and feel.

Find something useful?  If not, check out my previous Weekly Core Subjects Resources Posts

You might also be interested in my publications to learn about various Web 2.0 Tools to use in the classroom.

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Express SMART Notebook Software

Out of beta, SMART has released a web based version of their Notebook software, with limitations of course.  You can open an existing file or start a new project.  Either way, this might be an option for teachers with a SMARTBoard or SMART Airliner.  If you are worried about losing an Internet Connection, you can download the Express SMART Notebook software as well. 

With the increasing use of SMART tools and web-based software, it is only logical for this Express version of SMART Notebook software to become available.  Kudos to them.  Below you will see a screen shot and for those of you that use the desktop version will see the similarities.  You lose the tool-kits and add-ons, but this is Express SMART Notebook software is a great resource.

Doodle 4 Google

Last year I shared this opportunity with the Art teacher at one of my schools.  Several students took up the challenge to create a Doodle 4 Google with the opportunity to have their drawing appear on the homepage.  What a great idea to get some creativity from students.  The students at my school came up short in their goal of winning, but they had some great drawings.

Now your students can participate as well.  Visit the Doodle 4 Google homepage to learn more and share the contest with your art teachers.  The theme this year is "What I'd Like to do Some Day...."  Registration closes March 2nd, and entries must be postmarked by March 15th.  The winner will appear on the Google homepage on May 20th.

The winner will receive a $15,000 scholarship, and their school will win a $25,000 technology grant.  There are some new rules and options this year however:

• Parents Can Register Their Kids: This year, based on your feedback, we are expanding the contest. Now, in addition to schools, parents and legal guardians can directly register their K-12 students in the contest and submit their doodles. Check with your child’s school or After School Programs first to see if they are participating, since we only allow one entry per student. As always, public, private and home schools can register on behalf of their students.
• After School Programs: We are working with two After School Programs: Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Girl Scouts of the USA to register students.
• No Cap On Doodles Per School: There is no cap on how many doodles each school, After School Program, or family can send in. Just remember, only one doodle per child.
• A Variety Of Guest Judges: This year, a group of guest judges, including Whoopi Goldberg, Actress/Comedian/TV Talk Show Host, Jim Davis, Creator of "Garfield", and Evan Lysacek, Gold Medalist for Ice Skating, and several other well known cartoonists, animators and illustrators will help judge the contest and attend the final awards ceremony to personally congratulate our winners.  

See the video below for the highlights from 2010.


Good luck to your students and their creativity!

Simplenote

Personally, I find myself using the Notes app on my iPhone a lot.  Problem is, I have had no way to sync those notes to my computer without copying and pasting them into an email.  Simplenote is an app/software that allows you to create, share, and save all your notes.  Simplenote is a free application for iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  Creating an account for Simplenote is as easy as an email address and password.

For each note you can add tags (which is like creating folders) as well which helps keep all your notes organized and makes it easier to separate personal and professional notes.  If you create a note and forget to tag it, you can do that after the fact.You will have to put up with some ads...but it is free, so that is expected.  The ability of the software to easily streamline data between devices was really good, I was impressed.  Each note also provides you with the number of words and characters as well.  You can also pin each note to the top of your list.

There are also several desktop based apps that will also make it easier to streamline all the data from your devices and the web.  What is great is that there are several other apps that you can download that sync with Simplenote. 

One feature that I have not seen elsewhere is the ability to take a note and publish it as a web page.  You can also share the note and it will create a URL as well.  Whoever you share the note with, you both can make changes at anytime.  What a great collaboration addition.

You can upgrade to a premium account for $1.00 a month as well as purchase an ad free version within the application.  I find this to be a very thorough note taking application, something I can see being used by students once tablet technology takes off.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

January is off to a great start.  Hard to believe that it is January.  In case you missed the news, there is a new Zodiac sign.  So all those horoscopes people have been following for years are worthless now if you no longer have the same Zodiac, like me.  I went from a Pisces to Aquarius.  But enough about horoscopes, although something tells me I can predict that you will like these resources...no matter what your Zodiac sign is.

English
1.) WordNet is a large lexical database of English.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms, each expressing a distinct concept.  WordNet's structure makes it a useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing.

2.) NounProject is a site dedicated to creating images for every noun in the English dictionary.  A great resource for ESL and Special Education students, as well as other learners who struggle with the English language. 

3.) The English Room: 30 Days of Poetry is a collection of lessons and student activities creating a great unit on Poetry.  A great resource for English teachers.

4.) Biblio Bouts is a resource I did a blog post about recently.  The idea is to create a competition between students to find the best possible resources through research. 

Mathematics
1.) Archimy is a service for drawing graphs of all types of functions.  With Archimy, you will draw the graph of any function and form.  There is a text-box to input the fuction.  The graphs can be both 2D and 3D.

2.) XtraMath is another option for learning basic mathematics.  The site is designed to help students, teachers, and parents.  There are six videos on the front page that will help you learn how to utilize the service.  XtraMath is for non-profit and completely free to use. 

Science
1.) The Surfing Scientist is site by Ruben Meerman and he travels to different schools in Australia sharing different science experiments with students.  Through his site you can access several lesson plans and tricks that he uses in his travels. 

2.) I am a weather buff and am constantly checking NOAA for upcoming weather.  Recently I noticed that NOAA has a great Education Resources section for helping teach about earth and weather.  It is worth checking out. 

3.) MEDtropolis is another site option for studying a virtual body.  It is available in both English and Spanish.  It is broken down into four sections: The Human Brain, Skeleton, Human Heart, and Digestive Track. 

4.) If you are not wanting a skeleton of the human body, then I recommend checking out Eskeletons which offers virtual animal skeletons.  There are about a dozen based animal skeletons from the monkey family that you can examine.

5.) Going around the Twitterverse is the Google Global Science Fair where students and teachers can get involved in sharing science experiments and other projects.  I suggest following the links and reading more about it to learn if it is something you want to get your classroom involved with. 

Social Studies
1.) Howard Zinn was a popular historian who also wrote the book "A People's History of the United States," which has become one of my most favorite books for reading about history.  The Zinn Education Project is dedicated to sharing his vision and providing resources to educators.

2.)  Not Even Past provides dynamic, accessible, short articles on every field of History.  The site is for everyone interested in the past and in the ways the past lives on in the present. 

3.) Primary Access is a great site for learning about using Primary Documents in the classroom by providing three resources to create activities using those primary documents.  I recommend viewing a previous post about it to learn more. 

4.) Here is a great slide show presentation with links to TED Talks for Social Studies Teachers. 

5.) Our Changing World is a great interactive for showcasing various data for every country around the world.  The physical aspect of all the countries change as the data changes. 

Bonus Sites
1.) Top Documentary Films is a great site for finding films across the curriculum.  All the films are free and available online.

2.) Education Podcast from Podcast.com is a great way to find audio clips to use in the classroom through a simple search.

3.) I always liked watching Jeopardy, and there are tons of options out there on the web.  Custom Flash Jeopardy Maker allows you to create a Flash based version of a Jeopardy game which is great for review. 

Time Warp - Posts From January 2010

In an effort to share old blog posts that can get lost by continuing to post new material, I thought it would be a great idea to have a monthly post where I share "A Year Ago This Month."  All of the edubloggers out there share some great stuff, and over time, that great stuff can get lost in more great stuff.  Not only that, you get some new readers who might have missed your blog from "way back when."  Because honestly, how many of us when we visit a blog examine the Previous Post Section...especially from a year ago?

So, what were some of the posts from January of 2010?

1.) The Hero Factory - A great site for students to create a Super Hero!

2.) Awesome Stories - A great resource for hearing stories from people who lived during various times

3.) One Word, So Little Time - An interesting site that provides a word and a text box.  Great for free writing.

4.) The State of the Union Address Comparison - Using Wordle

5.) 10 Twitter Tools -  A list of Twitter companion software that you can use.

6.) Education Humor - A great blog to help lighten the mood.

Do you have a blog with a long history or share tons of resources that might be worth mentioning again?  This might be a great way to share with your readers some of your older blog posts that they might have missed.

Now in 2012, I can just share this post, with posts from January 2011.

Have fun looking back and reflecting!

Biblio Bouts

What an interesting concept.  Biblio Bouts allows students to research sites and compete to have the best set.  Then through various methods those sites are graded, ranked, examined to determine value. The students who have compiled the best research sites win the "bout."  The highest rated resources can then be used for the bibliography for a particular assignment.

In order for Biblio Bouts to work, user must be using Firefox and have the Zotero (A free citation management tool, which you can read a blog post about here) installed on Firefox.  Once that has been done, then users will supply an email, username/alias, and password.  

There are four types of bouts:
1.) Donor - This is a general sharing of a resource/website
2.) Closer - These are what students would consider their BEST resource/website
3.) Tagging and Rating - Here students are rating the quality of their OPPONENTS (Other Students) resources/websites
4.) Best Bibliography - From all the submissions by the students, choose the top ten.

Students win by having the largest number of points taken from all four bouts.

There is a video on the front page of Biblio Bouts that explains a little about the each bout and the process.  What a great way to get students competing for finding the best research!!

PrimaryAccess

A great tool for social studies, PrimaryAccess allows users the ability to take primary documents and create three different presentations.  PrimaryAccess was designed for use in K-12 classrooms to aid in teaching content knowledge, critical thinking skills and even writing or storytelling skills. Teachers can set up and manage class activities and materials with ease.  Here is a description of each presentation tool:

"PrimaryAccess MovieMaker enables you to combine text, audio and images into compelling personal narratives and digital stories, with a simple movie-making process. Steps like scripting, recording and saving are entirely Web-based--no software to install--and the movies are easy to retrieve and share."

 
"PrimaryAccess StoryBoard enables you to create comic strips and slideshows by combining images, thought bubbles, props and actors. All steps are entirely Web-based--no software to install--and the comics are easy to publish and share."

"PrimaryAccess Rebus makes it easy to create a Rebus using primary source documents. A Rebus (Latin for ’by things”) is a written story that uses pictures as parts of the text. PrimaryAccess Rebus encourages students to explore primary sources by creating crops of those sources and using them to tell a story."

All images are made available from the Library of Congress.   You can use any of these presentation tools without an account.  If you want to create activities and manage classes you can use their Teacher Tools page to create a classroom of students, choose and upload images for students to use, browse other creations by teachers and students, and several other features as well.

PrimaryAccess is an initiative at the Center for Technology & Teacher Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

10 Resources for Teaching History with Technology

In continuation with my series on teaching Social Studies using technology, it is time to focus on history.  My previous post on Geography, Economics, and Government are worth looking at as well.  I wanted to focus on just U.S. or just World History, but so many of the resources are usable for both, so I am sticking with just History.  Some of the resources might be specific to one or the other and I will make note of that.

1.) For U.S. History teachers is Mission U.S.  The site is designed to be a free online role-playing game where you play the role of an American during the American Revolution and you have to make decisions that determine where his loyalties lie.  This is currently the only chapter/level available.  The next game, available this spring will be focused on slavery.  It appears the goal is to release a new chapter/game every year. Another role playing video game option is American Dynasties that is worth checking out as well.

2.) For both U.S. History and World History is Footnote, which is a site for finding primary documents online.  There are several collections of interest: World War II, Holocaust, Black History, Vietnam, and the Civil War.  Footnote hosts 70 Million original documents.  You can browse by title, time period, keyword search, or search by state.  Great for State History classes.  Another option is Digital Docs in a Box.

3.) Maps of War is a great site for studying the impacts that war has had on the world.  The maps provide a visual history of war, religion, and government.  There are currently 7 maps that can be used in the classroom to enhance the subject matter. 

4.) The Historical  Marker Database is a great resource for U.S. History teachers.  So much history has happened in the United States and this site helps bring the location of those events to reality for students.  These markers are all over the country and throughout each state.  Using the Database, students will be able to find local markers and research historical events within their hometown.  Using a FLIP camera or digital camera students could log their "field trip" to the marker.

5.) Critical Past is a historical video and picture site.  With over 57,000 videos and 7 million pictures, it is your one stop for digital primary sources.  You can watch the videos on the website in a small screen and view the photos with a watermark/copyright.  If you want a full screen and HD versions of the video and non-copyrighted photos, they will have to be purchased.  You can also have a Pro account that offers more services.  Another great feature is that you can "edit" the information that comes with the videos in case there is discrepancies. So the site is free, and the videos can be free, but there are paying features.

6.) DocsTeach is a great site that takes primary documents and allows users to CREATE activities related to the documents OR use activities previously created.  There are over 3000 primary sources available to use from the National Archives.  I highly recommend using this site!

7.) Playing History is a site dedicated to sharing games that relate to history.  There are various games based upon the units that you are teaching.  There is a huge tag cloud to help find games as well.  It is basically a searchable database to outside websites.  If students are going to play video games, why not play some that relate to content?

8.) Newspapers are a great way to teach history.  There are two great sites do find archived newspapers.  The first is Rag Linen, which "is an educational archive of rare and historic newspapers, which serve as the first drafts of history and the critical primary source material for historians, authors and educators."  The second is Chronicling America from the Library of Congress.  "This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1860-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present."

9.) OurStory is a site that offers American Stories and Activities that teachers can do with their students.  "OurStory is designed to help children and adults enjoy exploring history together through children’s literature, everyday objects, and hands-on activities."  There are several activities that are worth exploring and implementing in your classroom.

10.) Shmoop is a site that has been talked about a lot.  Shmoop for U.S. History has some great resources and study guides to use with students.  There are several resources for teachers that can be used inside and outside of the classroom.  All the resources are broken down by the units that are taught by social studies teachers.  For students there are supplements to help them learn about the subject matter, such as timelines, biographies, and assessments.  There is also a $1.99 Shmoop App that students can download from iTunes.

For my readers in Europe, Euratlas is a periodical of maps showing how Europe has changed throughout the years.

If looking for more resources for teaching Social Studies using Web 2.0, you might look at joining the Teaching History with Web 2.0 Tools Social Network.  Another option is a great Social Studies Wiki.

Prezi for iPad

I am a huge fan of Prezi.  I have probably mentioned it over a dozen times on this blog.  I don't see it as a savior for presentation tools, just as an alternative for PowerPoint.  Remember though, it is not about the tool it is about the tool user.

Prezi took a step for its users by making Prezi available for iPad.  I recently got an iPad for work and am thoroughly enjoying using it.  I have been struggling for ways to use it though, and the creation of a Prezi App helped me to discover a new way.  You can learn more about the Prezi App in the iTunes store.  To see it in action check out the video below. 

10 Resources for Teaching Government with Technology

The new year has started off great....busy, but great.  I have been away from work to spend some time with family, but it will be time to get back in the groove by the end of the week.  If you missed my previous Resources for Teaching Geography and Economics, I highly recommend checking them out.  I now turn my attention to Government.

1.) iCivics is a GREAT site.  They have various games and interactives that students can use.  The site does a great job of helping students learn about the Supreme Court, play a game Executive Command and be a President for four years, or learn what it takes to become a citizen through Immigration Nation.  That is not the only games; their Games Section has over a dozen games broken down by the subject matter in government classes.  There is also a section for teachers as well where you can find the curriculum for the standards for your state.  This site is intended for middle schools, but I think the site is very applicable for 9th and 10th graders.

2.) If it is an election year, Project Vote Smart is a great site to learn about candidates and voting.  There is a special section for teachers that has lesson plans for all grade levels.  You can also visit their partner site; Vote Easy which provides a great background on the candidates for each state and their stance on the various issues/hot topics.  A great resource for understanding elections.

3.) From PBS, comes a great resources for learning about the Supreme Court.  One of their sites contains games and interactives that contains 9 games to help students learn about court cases and how the supreme court works.  So many of the Supreme Court cases have defined our future, and students need a good understanding of how it works. 

4.) From Scholastic comes You're the Candidate, an opportunity to create a Presidential Election platform.  Students create a character, create stance on issues, determine their level of importance on those issues, and choose states to spend time campaigning in. 

5.) The Three "Branches" of Government would be a great review tool or tool to use with an Interactive Whiteboard.  Each section of the tree represents one of the three branches and students place leaves that contain facts of each branch on the tree.  When done, a score is provided.

6.) Original documents are a huge part of understanding our American Government and its history.  With the creation of the Internet, obtaining these documents have become a lot easier.  There are several sites that make obtaining these documents.  The first is the Avalon Project by Yale Law School which provides historical documents in law, history, and diplomacy all the way back to 450 BC and through the present.  The other is Our Documents which contains the top 100 Documents to help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy

7.) Part of teaching government for me was having students interpret Political Cartoons.  Whether they are historical in nature or present time, I tried to do as many as possible to initiate discussion.  Harper's Weekly has a great collection of political cartoons.  You can search by date or by topic.  For more modern cartoons, a great site is Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoonists Index.  

8.) The Constitutional Rights Foundation has a great section dedicated to education and teachers.  There is a section that contains lessons that you can search through for teaching government.  You can also find information on Mock Trials, which is becoming a growing sensation in government classes.  Although the site seems more focused on California, it still has great resources for any teacher. 

9.) In government classes, one section that is covered is American Foreign Policy.  The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections has put together a great collection of American Foreign Policy Resources.  You can browse and search for various texts related to foreign policy.  The collection covers the election of Abraham Lincoln to the end of World War I.

10.) Current Events is another aspect of Government that I would cover in class.  There are two great sites for finding current events.  The first is newsmap which organizes news by location and topic and color codes those topics as well.  Another site is 10x10 which helps organize and share 100 words and pictures that define the time.  You can choose a time and find the stories that matter to what you are teaching.

Up next will be U.S. History.

10 Resources for Teaching Economics with Technology

In a continuation of a post from 2010, 10 Resources for Teaching Geography with Technology, I wanted to focus on Economics this go around, with Government to follow this one.  Economics is a growing subject matter in the high school setting.  It was something I did not learn, and had few college classes that would qualify me to even teach it, but I did.  These resources would have made a difference for how I teach the content.

1.) The Economics of Seinfeld is a website that shares parts of the television series that relates to economics.  I first learned about the site a while back and it has made improvements.  You can click on Economic terms and find all the clips that relate to that topic.  The site previously did not have the clips on there and now they do as well as a description of the clip.  What a great addition to Economics lessons.

2.) Common Craft has put together some great videos discussing money as it relates to economics.  The topics include Borrowing Money, Insurance, Investing Money, Saving for Retirement, Saving Money (Compound Interest), and Stock Markets.  I highly recommend adding these to your lessons.

3.) We Seed is a free site for educators to teach students about the Stock Market.  "We Seed is a virtual tool that uses actual companies, stock prices and data — but all trades are made with fake money. Students can buy and sell shares anytime — and see first-hand how the market is affecting the portfolio they build."

4.) From the Mid-continent Research for Education Learning are a host of Economics Lesson Plans that are available by categories and subject matter.   Many of the lesson plans involve the integration of technology as well.  This would be a great starting point when looking for Economics Lessons.  There are also several lessons available from PBS and the Council for Economic Education.

5.) Our kids LOVE McDonalds.  The McDonalds Video Game allows students the opportunity to build a McDonalds franchise, and control all aspects of production and consumption.  The game is available in 9 different languages.  "Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all! Behind every sandwich there is a complex process you must learn to manage: from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding."

6.) The Story of Stuff is a great website that looks at how stuff is made and done.  There are two great videos: Bottled Water shows the implications of all the bottled water in the world and how it is produced and consumed.  Another great video is Cap and Trade which is perfect for Economic lessons.

7.) The Economics Search Engine is a site that allows you to find specific resources, websites, and links for Economics.  This would be a great way to search for specific terms or stories related to economics.  The words that you search for will then be highlighted, thus making it easier to see connections. 

8.) From econedlink - Free Online Economic and Personal Finance Resources for K-12 comes a great resource that contains several interactives that students and teachers can use to have a better understanding of economics and personal finance.  You can search for interactives based on grade level, concept, and interactive tool.  Some of the interactives are Flash and others are videos.

9.) Growing up I was a HUGE fan of the game SimCity.  It has grown so much since the first version, and because of that growth students can play the original version of SimCity online for free.  Registration is required.  I like this type of game because students have to make economic decisions.  They have to determine Supply and Demand as well as have an understanding of Opportunity Cost. 

10.) LavaMind is a site that provides links to Business Simulation Games.  The three games of interest are Gazillionare, Zapitalism, and Profitania.  Each game has a business economic goal in mind.  Gazillionare is a cross between business strategy and Wall Street in wonderland.  Zapitalism goal is to become a retail tycoon. Build your company from the ground up, open larger stores, and outwit your wiley competitors in a game of super sales and savvy shoppers.  Profitania puts you in the role of a manufacturing mogul. Buy up commodities in real-time, expand your factory, and invent new products. In no time, you'll be on your way to becoming an industrial tycoon.

I hope I was able to supply some economic resources to meet your demand.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources - Social Studies

Since I took a substantial vacation from writing on the blog, my Weekly Core Subjects Resources post for this week will be broken down into each subject since I got so many resources over the past 3 weeks.  So here is the fourth entry for 2011, Social Studies.

1.) Fundrace 2010 is a map program via the Huffington Post that allows visitors to track Campaign Fundraising.  Visitors will be able to see who got money, where the money came from, and how much money was donated.  It really puts local campaign fund-raising into perspective.  

2.) Mapping America from the New York Times takes all the data from the U.S. Census and puts it on a map.  The data is easy to view and understand and can take the data to a local view for students and teachers.  It really helps to put demographic data into an easy graphic to read and search through.  

3.) Open Congress is a site that allows visitors to track bills, votes, senators, and representatives in the U.S. Congress.  This would be a great site for government teachers to share with students who are doing current events that relate to how the laws are changing and what is going on with Congress, especially this year with all the change over. 

In case you missed them, here are Science, English, and Mathematics as well. 

Weekly Core Subjects Resources - Science

Since I took a substantial vacation from writing on the blog, my Weekly Core Subjects Resources post for this week will be broken down into each subject since I got so many resources over the past 3 weeks.  So here is the third entry for 2011, Science.

1.) From Free Technology for Teachers, here are 11 Science Resources to try in 2011.  A great list and a great website.  There are several here that I have shared here, as well as some others that I had not seen before.  Check out this great list.  

2.) Scitable is a free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group, the world's leading publisher of science.  Scitable currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology, which include the topics of evolution, gene expression, and the rich complexity of cellular processes shared by living organisms.

3.) A couple of links from the site Make Use Of.  If you have never seen this site, it is worth checking out for many resources.  The first site is 6 More Interesting Websites a Space and Astronomy Buff Should Visit and 6 Virtual Tours of the Human Body for Free Interactive Anatomy Lessons

4.) From Encyclopedia Britannica a great resource to learn about Discovering Dinosaurs.  

5.) From NASA, a great site for Solar System Exploration. Another feature from NASA is Visible Earth, which offers tons of images of earth from space. 

6.) Sixty Symbols is a site that provides videos to learn about the symbols of physics and astronomy. 

7.) Five videos and interactives to learn about the Scale of the Universe. 

8.) Ecofriend is a site to learn about renewable and green energy.  There is a great timeline to learn about the evolution of renewable energy as well.

9.) Cast Science Writer is a site to help students learn how to properly write a science report.  Science reports can be difficult because of terminology and organization.  This site offers tips and resources for assisting students with the process.

Here are the other resources for English, Math, and Social Studies.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources - Mathematics

Since I took a substantial vacation from writing on the blog, my Weekly Core Subjects Resources post for this week will be broken down into each subject since I got so many resources over the past 3 weeks.  So here is the second entry for 2011, Mathematics.

1.) Mathway is a math problem solver that students can use to get assistance with solving math problems.  Students do have to sign up to access the steps to the problem and there is a premium version as well.  As I have mentioned and wondered about with previous sites like this, why are students struggling with turning in math homework when you can have a website give you the answer?  It also brings up an interesting point mentioned in the video below (I know the kid can be annoying, but still worth watching)...why are we teaching something that students can learn and get from the Internet? 



2.) Museum of Math is a site dedicated to creating a space to share all there is to know about math.  They recently completed a goal of raising funds to open a museum as well.  They have a weekly post for using math in the classroom and is worth checking out.

3.) From one of my favorite websites, Free Technology for Teachers are 11 Mathematics Resources to try in 2011.  I could have easily listed all of them here, but I am no fan of reinventing the wheel, so I highly recommend checking out his list.   

Here are this weeks entries for English, Science, and Social Studies as well.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources - English

Since I took a substantial vacation from writing on the blog, my Weekly Core Subjects Resources post for this week will be broken down into each subject since I got so many resources over the past 3 weeks.  So here is the first entry for 2011 and let me begin with English.

1.)  FutureMe.org is a simple website designed for students to write a letter to their future self.  They use an email address and choose a date that they would like to receive an email.  This would be an interesting journal entry for your students. 

2.) OhLife is a site for people to write journal entries via email when it sends you a question "How did your day go?"  As you start to use the site, it will include a previous journal entry to help you "Remember when?"  Pretty cool and a great method for students to keep a journal.  Signing up is simple and free.

3.) Writing Fun is a site that contains online graphic organizers that teachers can use with students to help make writing fun.  It provides various examples as well.  Teachers can then use these ideas to create their own graphic organizers.

4.) MyVocabulary.com is a site to learn vocabulary.  They have various games and puzzles to help learn vocabulary.  There is also a section for test prep as well.

5.) FoldingStory is a site for group storytelling.  Think of it as writing version of the old game of telephone we all used to play, but the purpose is to add to the story, not try and remember it all.  You can create your own, add to one, or read previously submitted stories.  This would be a fun activity for students to participate in for a classroom assignment.

6.) After the Deadline is a site to help students polish their writing.  Think of it as an online spelling, style, and grammar checker.  It is very easy to use and is as simple and copying and pasting your text. 

7.) The Luminarium is an anthology of English Literature.  What a great resource for English teachers to share and use with students.  The information is broken down into four time periods: Medieval, Renaissance, 17th Century, and Restoration. 

8.) Here are some great resources from the Blog I follow; Technology: Figuring Out How the Pieces Fit.  The resources are about how Technology Can Help With Reading

Here are this weeks entries for Math, Science, and Social Studies if you are interested.