It’s that time of the year again — Spelling Bee!

Spellingcity.com is a great site for helping students get ready for spelling tests.

Words of Arabic origin

After registering (free), teachers can enter their own spelling lists or use one of the 100+ “sample” lists (including “Words of Arabic Origin” and lists by grade level up to grade 8). There are thousands of spelling lists from grade 1 to high school (e.g. SAT prep).

Students can work with spelling lists in three ways — “teach me,” “test me,” or play a game.”  One of the best features of this site is a real human voice which pronounces the words (not your standard “computer generated” voice box!) which means extensive possibilities for using this site to differentiate instruction, teach English language learners as well as differently abled students.

Lists for handwriting practice (3 sizes of lines, capital or cursive) may be printed as well as lists of words.  Parent letters may also be printed to send home.  This site won the “Parents Choice Award” (deserving!).

Digitial Libraries — Read, Write, Think — pt. 2

Ok, so it’s not tomorrow 🙂 (please see below). This post on Read, Write, Think will focus on web resources, student materials and learning beyond the classroom.

Writing Fix

 

The Web Resources gallery is an annotated listing of “useful English language arts” resources available on the Internet.  This list contains goodies such as “Writefix” where teacher’s teach writing instead of just “assigning it.” There are writing prompts and lesson plans including the creative iPod inspired “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” featuring the Beatles’ song and others.

 

Other interesting resources include the “Young Writers’ Workshop” where parents and teachers can use cool writing prompts to encourage young writers who may even be published 🙂 and the National Archives video section.

National Archives VOD

An impressive strength of the Read, Write, Think site are the wide variety of  Student Resources which are essentially interactive modules to support literacy learning which make practice and producing fun for K-12 students.  There are over 50 visually rich tools for guiding students through letter recognition (ABC Match, Alphabet Organizer ) to analysis of story elements (Drama Map, Literacy Elements Map, Plot Diagram) to inquiry based research (Animal Inquiry, Read, Write Think Notetaker.  Students can create or decorate their own works using a wide variety of tools

Shrek Satire

(Book Cover Creator, Comic Creator, Profile Publisher) as well as engage in pre-writing activities using graphic organizers (Circle Plot Diagram,  Graphic Map).  Doodle Splash is a fun applet which combines drawing with writing prompts. Each tool has a descriptive page with hyperlinks to lessons that use it, for example: Exploring Satire with Shrek (suitable for grades 9-12).

Visible through the drop down site guide box, are links to podcasts and videos (the site may be searched by keyword to find these materials; a direct link is available on the “Learning Beyond the Classroom” module).

 

I really like the diversity of the students featured on this section of the web site because the inclusion of all students as potential learners.  The resources, inlcuding literacy activities, booklists, podcasts and videos, are grouped into age ranges/

Beyond the Classroom

grade levels. The focus in on family literacy and how caregivers can engage or develop these skills in their charges.

 

Read, Write, Think site is a comprehensive digital library for educators, containing tools, lesson plans, videos and interactive learning games. Most highly recommended for K-12 🙂

 

Directions — Geography Interactives

National Geographic Kids

The idea of “direction”  is a perfect match for the study of geography, that is, the physical world and our response as humans (cultures).  Here’s a virtual walk around the world as viewed through resources which inspire awe and critical reflection.

 

The National Geographic Society has excellent resources and tools available for students of all ages, as well as their educators. National Geographic Kids , for example, in rich in media of all types including photography, videos, interactive games as well as activities, stories, a book blog and, of course, educational content.

UK

Interesting articles featuring kids involved in activities such as travelling the world and reporting back in a blog (“World Bros’) and “Letterboxing” (an activity using directions and clues to find letters in plastic boxes, akin to geocaching) compliment the content of facts, maps and country facts found “People and Places.”

Wolf cubs

Kids can join in the fun as well with the International Photography Contest. This year’s entries are due November 12.  The contest is open to children and youth who are 6-14.

National Geographic Map Machine

The National Geographic Society‘s site is suitable for students in middle and high school. Of particular note for educators are the maps  and interactive sections. The Maps section contains the Map Machine which allows users to create or view various kinds of “maps.” For example, satellite, street or physical maps are available as well as more specialized maps showing human impact (“human footprint”) , weather or natural disasters, population, conservation etc.

Xpeditions

National Geographic’s Ednet for educators (temporarily off-line). Xpeditions, another educational site by the National Geographic team, contains standards aligned lesson plans for grades K-12, activities, maps and other special features such as daily news and current events or music of the world. Xpeditions is part of the outstanding Thinkfinity suite of resources (originally Marco Polo).

 

World Music

Mablecroft maps provide information in a 3D format by teaming up with Google Earth to visually plot information on diverse human interest topics such as world debt, natural disasters,  climate change, child labor, poverty, digital inclusion, military expenditure, renewable energy and water.

Juicy Geography’s Google Earth page has some awesome lesson ideas that are cross curricular. For example, the “His Dark Materials” lesson has students acting as film scouts for the “Northern Lights” novel by Phillip Pullman (published in the U.S. as “The Golden Compass.” Links include geography of the story as well as activity ideas.

Google Lit Trips

Similarly, Google’s Lit Trips blends geography with literature. This article in the Edutopia publication explains what Lit Trips are, how to use them and how to make your own

 “To see the learning potential of a lit trip, Burg suggests taking a look at the trip he recently created to help high school readers explore a contemporary novel, The Kite Runner. (From Google Lit Trips, click the link at the top of the page for grades 9-12, then choose the link for The Kite Runner.) Using the interactive file, readers can virtually follow along with the character Amir on his journey back to his native Afghanistan to, as he puts it, “make things good again” with a family he knew as a boy” (http://www.edutopia.org/google-lit-trips-virtual-literature).  Hyperlinked trips are divided by grade level K-5, 6-8, 9-12 and higher ed.

Teacher Tube — Math Raps & more

Math Raps & More

Teacher tube is the educational and fun version of Youtube for use in the classroom. Video shorts, made by educators, are available in core subject areas such as math, science, social studies, reading as well as by grade range (elementary, middle school). While the quality ranges, there are many examples of useful, engaging materials that students will love.

Teachers can access videos by searching directly or browsing using the tabs. The “Video” tab provides a listing of all channels by subject along with options such as “recently added,” “most viewed,” “most discussed,” and “top rated.”  One of the most viewed videos is a middle school winner on “Class Rules”

Class Rules

 

The “Channels” tab provides subject or category access:

Channels

 There’s a wealth of teacher and performance talent. Of special note, is Mr. Duey Raps Fractions.  Mr. Duey, originally from the suburbs of Detroit, raps to teach about math, social studies and English. This video is a sure hit and testimonials attest to the improvement in student scores:

Mr. Duey Raps Fractions

Other great videos are “Abbot and Costello math” and the “50 States and Capitals” song — Keep track of newly uploaded videos using the RSS feeds (at the bottom of the main screen). Videos may be played full screen by selecting the squarish symbol near the volume on the player:

Other teacher tube strengths are tutorials on a wide variety of topics, “partner videos”, (social studies as of this writing) and student works. Teachers can make and upload their own videos. Inappropriate videos are flagged for removal to keep the environment kid-friendly. “Featured videos” showcase new and/or interesting shorts. Great resource, especially for middle and high school!

 

Hippocampus — Multimedia lessons for High School courses

Hippocampus

Suitable mainly for high school, Hippocampus is a digital library of multimedia modules for instruction in popular courses such as Calculus, U.S. Government, AP Biology,

Biology

 Environmental Science, Pscyhology or Statistics. Users may browse the content in two ways, either through the Course or Textbook interfaces. 

Modules are browsable either through alphabetical or sequenetial topic listing or through a course view which is organized into main units, organized into lessons.

An especially useful feature is the “textbook” tab which presents content in correlation with popular subject textbooks. There’s also a detailed index of page numbers and topic coverage by text.

American Goverrnment

 The media modules incorporate rich graphics and text to convey content. Students may also access this resource at home making this a great resource for the classroom or independent learning after school.

Streaming Video — “Streaming” by Discovery Education

Video on demand is a very powerful way to introduce

Streaming through Wayne RESA

new concepts, to reinforce learning objectives and to differentiate instruction. Often it is critical for learners, especially visually oriented learners or ELL, to simply experience a place, a new idea or just to see how something works. Discovery Education’s “Streaming” product allows educators at all levels K-12 to select entire videos or segments (some less than one minute long) to deliver just-in-time, relevant instruction. This is a subscription service often made available through the local ISD, in our case, Wayne RESA.

Videos may be browsed according to appropriate state standards via a search interface on the main page (bottom, left) or by subjects or grade.  For Michigan, there are options to select from Curriculum Framework, Grade Level  or Extended Grade Content Expectations for K-12.  Videos may be previewed using the “play” option (which is live streaming), but for classroom use, I recommend downloading it in advance to minimize glitches. 

Advanced Search

Using the advanced search option allows users to locate materials by keyword, subject, grade level, media type as well as features such as closed captions or “editable” titles which are great for including in presentations. Often supporting materials such as blackline masters and teachers’ guides are available as a hyperlinked document.

Additional content is available such as speeches and other sound files, lesson plans, images and quizzes.

 

Egypt Video

Teachers may share ideas, questions and best practices by joining the DEN (Discovery Educator Newtork (free)). One hour training webinars are reguarly scheduled as well as the EdTech connect series which features movers and shakers in the ed. tech. sphere (exciting!).

 

Of special interest is the “Teacher Center”  which has classroom tools such as “assignment builder, “classroom manager” and “writing prompts,” curriculum resources, for planning such as the “lesson plan library” and “thematic focus.” Have questions? join the DEN teacher community.

Discovery Atlas -- Iraq

Much deserving of a special mention, is one of the resources available (“curriculum resources”) in the teacher center is the “Discovery education Atlas.” The interactive resource organizes country study video segments in four areas: culture, government, history and the natural world. Fun and effective!