Heads in the Cloud

Pictures, webcasts, activities, and text about Mars. View photos taken from the rover or discover how snowflakes are important to our understanding of Mars.

Good for interdisciplinary themes "Geo-literacy is the ability to use geographic understanding and geographic reasoning to make decisions. Whether we are making decisions about where to live, what precautions to take for natural hazards, or how to set up a manufacturing supply chain, we are all called upon to make decisions that require geo-literacy throughout our lives."

Videos, interactive presentations, data to visualize, labs. Lesson plans and resources to look at global issues and trends revealed in data. Handouts and lesson plans for teachers.

An excellent resource for 3rd -5th grade, especially at holiday time. The interactive site focuses on building the skills of a historian - examining primary sources and discriminating between fact and myth. The teacher's resources include many graphic organizers.

Interactive exhibit about the ratification of the Constitution. Set up as a series of interactive timelines. Lesson plans available.

More information about copyright and the internet. Create, remix, and share - legally. "The infrastructure we provide consists of a set of copyright licenses and tools that create a balance inside the traditional "all rights reserved" setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work - a "some rights reserved" approach to copyright - which makes their creative, educational, and scientific content instantly more compatible with the full potential of the internet. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law."

Wikis are very easy to use and they allow for collaboration and organization. You can use a wiki to post information or answer questions. Wikis are suitable for publishing assignment dates or content. Students can use a page to work together on a project. Wikis can be good spaces for eportfolios, too. Like websites and blogs, other media can be embedded. This video talks about wikis in general.

Totally 21st century in mindset, this site allows you to search by themes including American History, Community & Social Action, Creativity & Innovation, Global Cultures, Natural World, People & Places, and STEM. Many videos and lessons are available for educators to use with the K-8 set. The site has its own interactives like "Pitch Perfect" which uses a baseball metaphor to explain the parts of the orchestra and its "All Star" players through the years. Lessons also refer users to other helpful websites and interactives. Lots of ways to celebrate and integrate the arts with the help of this website!

Communicate with professionals or other classrooms - see each other in real time. The new education side of Skype (http://education.skype.com/) includes a directory for teachers to connect. Excellent possibilities for second language learning.

With so much data available via the internet, an important skill students must learn is how to make meaning of that information. Many Eyes gives middle school+ students an opportunity to experiment with comparing values, tracking value over time, looking at the relationship between the parts and the whole. Data can also be interpreted as text or with maps. Creates polished looking infographics that would be great visual aids for science experiments or oral presentations. Good resource for teachers and administrators, too!

A collection of all types of information. Pictures, videos, podcasts and more. Full of information you did not even know you were interested in... Good for those chance questions that arise in class disucssions.

Learn more about wildlife conservation. Choose a field trip with the interactive map - you can choose according to region. The website includes a feature that allows students to submit their questions to a field researcher.

Easy tool to use for surveys - collect data easily and analyze it. Helpful for students in MYP technology who need to get input for their investigation or their evaluation phase. Also useful for teachers and administrators. Very reliable.

JASON connects students with scientists. This link leads to curriculum developed for 5th -8th grades. There are units for geology, energy, weather, and ecology. All of these units are framed as "missions" in which students engage with research articles, hands-on lab activities, videos, games, and multimedia resources.

Tools for teacher and students. The plagiarism checker and keyword checker could be useful when assessing students written work. A number of graphic organizers are available. Items can be shared on your blog or website. The "fakebook" template would be a fun way to have students demonstrate their reading comprehension or historical understanding.

"Vanished is an 8-week online/offline mystery game for middle-school children, meant to inspire engagement and problem solving through science. Developed and curated by MIT's Education Arcade and the Smithsonian Institution, VANISHED is a first-of-its-kind experience where participants become investigators racing to solve puzzles and other online challenges, visit museums and collect samples from their neighborhoods to help unlock the secrets of the game. Vanished also provides a unique opportunity for players to collaborate Smithsonian scientists, MIT students, and their peers online. Players can only solve the mystery by using real scientific methods and knowledge to unravel the game's secrets." Forums, games and videoconferencing are all parts of working together to solve the mystery.

Links to many helpful sites for historical background on literature and authors and criticism of specific works. Good initial resource for those finding ways to address that strand in the IB rubrics.Sorted by period, place and author name with suggestions for how to search for more information.

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Easy to collaborate or submit assignments for viewing. Create forms that can be used as surveys to collect information.

Students can make and share their own flash cards. Teachers can use these for their classes as well. A teen made this site - he gives his intro tutorial in the video below.

Lots of different math activities for kids - quizzes they can take. Good for elementary concepts. Radar has similar sites for different areas of science, featuring quizzes, slideshows and videos - below are the links to those activity pages. http://www.biology4kids.com/activities.html http://www.cosmos4kids.com/activities.html http://www.chem4kids.com/activities.html http://www.physics4kids.com/activities.html http://www.geography4kids.com/activities.html