"Jennifer Wagner, creator of ProjectsByJen, has been succesfully encouraging
teachers since 1999 to use online projects in their PreK-6 classrooms. Using
various ideas, Jennifer will help you understand how online projects will help
you make the most of your time in a variety of ways. Winning numerous awards for
her creative ways in encouraging teachers to collaborate, her teaching style is
very user friendly, creative, and personable."
With a view of travel as an educational experience like no other, the project makes use of digital media to promote an understanding of different culture and customs to students worldwide. The site hosts virtual field trips to England, Jordan, and South Africa that include more than 160 fort films that correspond to the destinations. Each video explains more about the region's food, music, culture, and language. Since 2003, project explorer has counted more than a million visitors to the site from more than 40 different countries. Recently, it won a Parents' Choice Award for "Outstanding Web Programming." The site's developers qre not working to add a fourth field trip--this one to Malaysia--the Project Explorer has lesson for upper elementary, middle and high school. They plan to offer lesson specifically designed for the early grades.
Owned by Disney Craft Finder is an interactive Web site ofering elementary school kids the chance to select mateials from a list, in which Craft Finder them puts together and suggests ideas for more thena 900 great art projects. To find more seasonal and other crafts projects, click on Arts & Crafts.
many educators are using technology to engage students in project-based learning exercises that build 21st-century skills and motivate students with practical and hands-on-activities. The nonprofit Buck Institute for Education and Boise State University have put together resources to help educators plan, design, and implement such leassons. Guides and planning tools are available, as are a handful of examples of project-based teaching and learning strategies that have been successful in the classroom.
This site contains tons of links to free teacher resources. The home page currently has 6 categories which users can clink on and then go deeper into a specific area. The categories are chatboards which can be by grade, subject and state; classified ads which are free teacher classified ads, classroom projects with hundreds of project ideas, lesson plans, teacher jobs, teacher mailings for teachers to subscribe to for free.
"Educate your pupils using ARKive's many thousands of videos, images and fact files in a wide range of science, ICT, art and English projects. Use the ARKive multimedia materials to engage your class in key biology topics, such as variation and adaptation, habitats or life cycles, or use them as creative inspiration for art & design projects. All our photos, video clips and authenticated fact files are free and easy to use in your classroom activities and presentations."
This is one of the oldest publically accessible U.S. repositories of education resources on the web. It contains a variety of educational resource types from activities and lesson plans to online projects to assessment items.
"The Best Resources For Learning Research & Citation Skills
September 24, 2009 by Larry Ferlazzo | 8 Comments
This "The Best…" list is sort of a combination of two lists I had been thinking of making to go along with The Best Online Resources To Teach About Plagiarism (Another list to keep in mind might be The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners - 2008).
The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt that a list of engaging (and even fun) sites to teach research skills and accessible citation resources would make a good combination.
Since a graduation requirement in our district is that seniors need to develop a "Senior Project," I've spent some time finding these kinds of helpful sites that might be accessible to English Language Learners. I have to say, though, that these sites (except for the first one) would probably only be accessible to more advanced ELL's.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning Research And Citation Skills:
LEARNING RESEARCH SKILLS:"
Crayola Art Education Lesson Plans provide K-12 teachers with a wide variety of lesson plans and projects that integrate art with other curriculum areas. Users can search by products (crayons, markers, colorred pencils, etc.) subject area, and age.
DLTK's Printable Crafts for Kids features a variety of fun children's crafts and coloring pages, including projects for Holidays, educational themes, and children's favorite cartoon characters. There are lots of crafts to make for space study and science and printable templates suitable for preschoolers and elementary school children. For each craft, you'll find a detailed materials list, mostly everyday household items, and instructions.
Mathtrain.TV is a free educational "kids teaching kids" project from Mr. Marcos & his students at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, CA. It provides student-created math video lessons all in one place.
Upgrade the typical book report with a digital spin! Integrate reading, writing, and 21st century literacy skills into an interactive and engaging project. Participating teachers will be helping students meet the demands of the Common Core, which include requirements for students to present ideas with "multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes."
This site is a new multimedia project featuring free interactive adventure games set throughout U.S. history. The first game, Mission 1: For Crown or Coloni? puts players in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a 14 year old printer's apprentice in 1770 Boston. As players complete tasks throughout the city, they meet everyone from merchants to soldiers, sailors to poets, Patriots to Loyalists. The game reveals rising tensions threatening to come to a head, and, ultimately, players must choose where their loyalties lie. Teachers can use the website to manage classes and track student progress.
"The ancient tradition of storytelling meets the digital
age. When students create a movie or
interactive slideshow to tell their story, learning becomes personal. With digital storytelling, students can:
Improve their writing.
Show creativity.
Have a voice.
Digital storytelling projects
lend themselves well to portfolio assessment"
The easiest and most entertaining way to collect feedback from your audience: project polls or message boards on a large screen, have everyone send their input via their cell phones and see results instantly!
This web site, suitable for students in grades 4-12, conains a library with full versionsof dozens of classic children's books, including David copperfield, Grampa inOz, and Peter Rabbit, as well as a few rarities such as The Bashful Earthquake by Oliver Herford and The Marquis of Carabas, painted by Edmund Evans.
"To engage students in making design decisions that affect the transfer of energy
between a building and the outside environment. To help students identify and
consider the types of decisions involved in improving a building's energy
profile. To analyze the green roof option in economic and community terms."