Cool Tools for School, Guest Blogger, Stacy

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ is a wiki website that can be very useful to teachers of all grades to find different ideas and resources that can be used in their classroom. The homepage opens up with different tabs in areas including: writing, mapping, drawing, music, quizzes etc. When opening up a tab, it gives a list of different tools that can be used in a classroom to help improve learning. This is a great website for teachers to use to get ideas for different tools to meet the different needs of the students in the classroom.

Science Website for Girls

The Women's Adventures in Science (WAS) project is designed to support kids, especially girls, in their scientific explorations so they learn the fundamental skills of scientific investigation and feel empowered to tackle such adventures. This site highlights women scientists, an interactive timeline, games, and an opportunity for kids to submit questions which will be answered by Lia, who serves as a tour guide for the site. Turn on your speakers, as Lia can read information to students as they peruse through the site. This site is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences.

Voki - Guest Blogger Josh

Voki is a service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages. I think Voki can also be useful for students who are having problems in reading fluency. It allows them to record what they are reading and then they can play it back to see what they sound like. It can be useful for teachers also. Teachers can create a Voki avatar and us that as an example of how a fluent reader should sound. It can also be enjoyable for the student because they are able to create their own personal avatar. To get started all you need to do is go to this website: http://www.voki.com/.

PBS Teacher Resources

PBS TeacherLine contains free pdfs that include internet resources and teaching tools and tips for all content areas and grade levels. You will find summaries of on-air and online resources organized by subject and/or topic. These will help you get acquainted with the PBS free educational content, use it in your teaching and share it with parents and colleagues. I like the lessons and ideas that can complement many of the great PBS videos I use in the classroom.

Thinkfinity - Guest Blogger - Dustin Vogel

Thinkfinity.com is a great web site for educators who are relatively new at teaching and working with students who struggle with literacy. The website features separate links at the top of the page that direct you to a number of useful classroom resources. The link I like the most is titled "Literacy Network". This link takes you to separate page that features individual links for teaching, learning, managing, and volunteering in the classroom. The individual pages are complete with a special toolbar that allows for a specific search of the web site's database of lesson plans and classroom interactive activities. Thinkfinity is sponsored by the verizon foundation for education.

Meet Me at the Corner- free video website

Want to show your students ages 7-12 short educational videos made from a kid's point of view? Meet Me at the Corner contains dozens of videos made with video podcast technology and also includes contests, activities, and suggested readings to go along with videos. This free site also allows users to create an account, which is necessary for creating and posting video podcasts on their site. How about watching a couple and then allowing your class to create their own to post to the site?

Virtual Immigration to Ellis Island

Travel back to 1916 and take on the identity of a child immigrating to the United States through this video-intensive website. Create an identify by choosing your name, gender, and home country and continue through the experience of entering the US through Ellis Island. See video clips of working and living conditions, and make choices about food, money, and leisure activities. The video clips are short enough to share with a whole class, or students can work by themselves using headphones and they maneuver through the whole site.

Guest Blogger Anna Professor Garfield 4-8-09

www.professorgarfield.org Is a great website that allows students to participate in a variety of educational games. It is easy to manuever around for teachers as well with a link to the teachers lounge at the bottom of the page. The site also categorizes the activities by grade, content standard, or the reading category (phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary, writing, phonics and fluency, and motivation.) The website also offers printable materials such as rewards, activities, instructions, and communications with parents. It even includes a link to lesson plan activities for students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

National Geographic Xpeditions

National Geographic Xpeditions
Xpeditions is home to the U.S. National Geography Standards—and to thousands of ideas, tools, and interactive adventures that bring them to life. This site includes lesson plans, activities, and several mapping tools that can add excitement and interaction to any lessons. One of my favorite items is the critter cam, which give kids a critter's eye view of habitats and fellow critters in the ocean, jungle, even the arctic. I also liked the migration station which used mapping, visual aids, and writing to teach students about human migration-where, when, and why.

Virtual Field Trip

Tramline offers virtual field trips on a variety of topics from science to Shakespeare by leading students through a well-organized and easy to navigate set of websites. Each field trips guides students through a sequence of Web pages on any given topic. For each page, there is simultaneous commentary in an accompanying frame. You move forward and back through the Field Trip using the tour Control Panel and you can leave the Tour to explore links and return to it whenever you want. A set of objectives is provided at the beginning of each field trip to let students and teachers know what will be accomplished by the end of each field trip. Teacher resources are also provided, and teachers can create tasks to go along with each page that students will visit. All that's needed are computers-everything else is free and ready to go.

Guestblogger, Megan

http://www.thinkquest.org/en/

Think Quest is a great website for teachers and students. It is a learning platform where teachers and students can create learning projects, participate in a website competition, and browse a library of student projects. The library includes 7,000+ projects and it offers students a chance to have their work published. Participants develop 21st century skills such as critical thinking, teamwork, communications, creativity, technology, self direction, and cross cultural understanding. Integrate learning projects into your classroom curriculum. Choose a topic, assign students, invite teachers, and collaborate with members around the world.