Heads in the Cloud

This site is a perfect example of the benefits of technology. People are no longer allowed to go into the actual caves in Lascaux, because simply exhaling will damage the already delicate paintings. However, this very robust site attempts to give you the experience of really being there. There is a tour of the caves that can be narrated in different languages, including English and Sign Language. Throughout the video tour, there are pop-ups to click if you want to explore one of the panels in greater depth. This page is part of a greater collection of multimedia resources on French archeology sites.

"Class Blogmeister" allows classrooms to set up their own blogs that students and teachers can contribute to. This seems to be most appropriate for early elementary. "Citation Machine" is a reasonable option for students who want to have their citations formulated for them on the basis of the information they give, but most kids will probably end up with a more popular site like EasyBib for this purpose. "The Education Podcast Network" has a variety of subject specific recordings for teachers and students. Personally, the section I have used the most is the "Library of Links." Many of the links lead to sites with data, especially under the science section. Accessing the material with students gives them an opportunity to understand that information is available and that there are different ways to present findings about data. Great for projects! Upper Elementary and up.

Select your grade level to begin a spelling challenge. Passages appear with blanks - you can hear the entire passage read aloud and click again to hear the words that fill the blanks. Students type their answers in the spaces and submit the paragraph once they are done. They can compare what they typed to the correct spellings and click on the audio again if they want. Students have three levels they can go through, but independently the student might be able to try different grade levels.

BrainPop presents lots of topics for all areas of the curriculum in multimedia style with videos, a variety of activities, lots of information, and online quizzes that can be sent to the teacher. Animated characters Tim and his robot Moby answer a question in each of the videos on Brain Pop. Each topic is tied to state standards for the subject, grades 3-12. I would think this would be best as a regular resource for elementary classrooms, although I know they have a great deal of information available for middle school too. This is a subscription service, but some of the topics are available free.To browse just those videos, visit http://www.brainpop.com/free_stuff/. Brain Pop for Educators (http://www.brainpop.com/educators/home/) has additional resources for teachers including lesson plans. Brain Pop is also available in Jr, (K-3), Espanol, and ESL versions. Check out one of the videos!

Kerpoof is a fun studio that lets students make cards, pictures, and books. For the books students are supplied with settings, characters, and objects that they can arrange themselves to suit the story that they type. The students pick a theme - including pirates, aliens, and fantasy. The animated movies are similar in that you choose a theme and then begin building scenes. Best for elementary.

History of The Wheel on Dipity. Dipity can be used to create historical timelines for class. I really like the sources feature available at the bottom of the timeline. Keep in mind, this is also an EXTREMELY social medium - it can pull your pics, tweets, blog posts, even your bookmarks together from all over the web and put them in a timeline or flipbook format. I think there is a tremendous amount of potential for that and I am interested to see how its use evolves. In the meantime these features also make it great to grab information on current events and global issues - which is probably the best use of the tool right now.

Lots of fun ways to play with your pictures. Interacts perfectly with Flikr. I love the trading card feature which could be used as a fun icebreaker activity with older students- creating their own trading cards and sharing. The thumbnail links to one I made a few years ago. You could also use it with 4th to 6th for making trading cards for historical persons/places/things as the year progressed - students could use them to study and they still love the idea of - "collect them all." Try some of the tools on your own to make a photomosaic or design your own header for your Wordpress blog.

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.

Lots of math activities and some tools. These are a little less intuitive and the graphics are less sophisticated than some other sites, but the activities are fun and valuable. The fraction equivalence activity requires students to use their spatial understanding and gives some opportunity for design. The activities and tools can be sorted by grade level (3-5, 6-8, 9-12, and Undergraduate) or by Topic.

"SMILE's learning activities, tools, and services are available to all but are designed especially for those who teach school-aged children in non-classroom settings (like museums, zoos, aquaria, and afterschool or outdoor education programs). SMILE is dedicated to bringing the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities developed by informal science organizations around the country to the wider informal educator community, while encouraging that community to both use and contribute to SMILE's growing collection."

Students watch an animated version of "Cinderella."Afterwards they learn about setting, characters, sequence, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution through interactives. Intended for grades 3-5.

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

Exceptionally interesting and creative ways to look at music. Four interactive experiments with sound, one set of videos showing the process of others experimenting, and a very interesting module called "Take the Beat Back" that looks at the origins of different instruments as well as the scientific explanations of the sounds they produce.

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

Make a customized word cloud with different shape templates. The one about is an example - a maple leaf shape with the lyrics of "O, Canada!" Other fun with images like writing in flowers or putting your name on a baseball jersey. Enjoy!

"For Students, GLOBE provides the opportunity to: collect scientific data on their local environment focused on the atmosphere, water, soil, and land cover share their data with others via the Internet publish the results from their research projects create maps and graphs of GLOBE data on the GLOBE web site collaborate with other GLOBE students and scientists around the world"

Freerice donates ten grains of rice to the hungry for every correct answer. The site now features quizzes ranging from knowing the multiplication facts to identifying famous paintings. Best known for their vocabulary questions (featured on the home page), Freerice also has this feature available in other languages, including French and Spanish. The section on chemical symbols would be a great way to study for that inevitable Chemistry quiz - and do a little good for others at the same time.

Students work through virtual labs on energy budgets and future climate change. There are various tutorials explaining and illustrating scientific processes relating to the labs. Assessment exams can help the teacher see if the student is achieving the objectives of the lesson. Best for HS, but appropriate for some advanced MS classes or individuals.

Find lesson plans and embeddable digital tools to work with the concepts of chords, frequency and rhythm.

Students work through virtual labs on magnitude and travel time. There are tutorials explaining and illustrating the concepts of lag time and latitude/longitude. Assessment exams can help the teacher see if the student is achieving the objectives of the lesson. Best for HS, but appropriate for some advanced MS classes or individuals.