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Interactive digital posters. that poster project in the 21st century

Purpose of the Website: Glogster is a tool that allows the user to create an interactive poster on various topics. It allows student to express their creativity with many tools that are available to them. Grade Level: 4-12 Classroom Connection: Glogster would be a great introduction activity at the beginning of the school year. Students could create an interactive poster about themselves, as an introduction to their new classmates.

Purpose of the Website: The possibilities that Google provides for teachers is endless! There are so many applications that Google creates for classrooms to be used by students and teachers. Some of the programs include: - Google Earth - Doodle 4 Google - Gmail - Google Reader - Google Docs There are also classroom lesson ideas available for teachers on this website. Grade Level: K-12, Professionals Classroom Connection: One example of how Google can be used in the classroom is by using Google Earth. When teaching your students about communities, you can take your class on a virtual field trip of your town. You can pinpoint different community buildings that are important for your community to run and show students where these buildings are. Negatives of this Website: Some of the Google applications do not run correctly in my district. I have had trouble saving virtual field trips that I have made in Google Earth and there have been times when Google Docs have not opened correctly. So this may be a program that you will have to test ahead of time.

Purpose of the Website: This website is a tutorial that students can follow through to learn how to access and navigate the Internet. Each section, or lesson, has worksheets that help students navigate through the information and to assess students understanding of the tutorial. Some topics include The Beginning, Getting Started Online, Staying Safe, Using Your Browser, Searching Online, Trying Top Tricks, and The Welcome to the Web Challenge. Students learn things such as what the Internet is for, what links do, how to use the toolbar, etc. Grade Level: 4-8 Classroom Connection: This a wonderful resource to use with upper elementary and secondary students at the beginning of the year to help them review information they already know and introduce them to new information about the Internet. This can be completed independently in class or as a homework assignment. Negatives of this Website: Some parts of the website have a lot of information and is not extremely easy to navigate, therefore might not be used by younger students independently.

Elementary Grades 4-5 Classroom Connections: This is a screen cast of how to divide two digits by one digit. The site allows you to create screencasts of various topics to explain or talk about a topic. Cons: It easily picked up the background noise while creating a screencast.

This is a web-based thesaurus that provides a physical representation of synonym and antonyms.

This works really well in an ELA class for choosing character traits or crafting a writing piece. There is a limit to how many times it can be accessed without a subscription, but it's workable. You simple go back a page and start again. What I like best about this site is that the site will provide you with relatable words to what you're looking for and they don't have to be exact matches. By illustrating them at a distance, it is communicated that this is the nature of the connection. 4-12

Take the quiz to uncover your learning style

This can be used in all content areas. It is a terrific tool for pre-assessment. This can be for yourself as an educator or as a student. This can be helpful so that we -as teachers- know our audience. One con of this is not necessarily the fault of the site, but I have found that students' learning styles seem to vary. For this reason, I would have students take the inventory several times during a school year. 4-12

Create comics online.

4-12 This site is for students to create original works or would also be great for creating fan-fiction writing pieces. Students have the benefit of choosing their own layout and have many characters and props to choose from. The one con to this site is a biggee. The work cannot be saved, so students must print as they move along. After speaking with the creator, I have learned that he hopes to correct his-realizing how difficult this makes things. Another con (or more of a precaution). In internet explorer and Google Chrome, you are only able to print what is visible in the window. For this reason, it is essential that the strip be minimized to fit in the screen.

Take this quiz to uncover your strengths.

4-12 This is another pre-assessment tool for shaping instruction. The benefit of this is that you can choose to cater to students' strengths or you may choose to challenge their weaknesses. As with the Learning Style Inventory, I would suggest that this be conducted several times during a school year since children are so prone to change. I would suggest that a teacher take this test as well, so that we are careful to not always teach with the understanding that students have the same strengths and weaknesses as us. After you take the test, read the information that applies to your intelligence.

Grades K-12 Classroom Connections: There are tabs at the top to direct the viewer to the correct grade level. This site gives easy to read explanations of social studies concepts for kids.