EDU560-Su2011

This website helps you to create timelines.

Founded in 1999, BrainPOP creates animated, curriculum-based content that engages students, supports educators, and bolsters achievement. Our award-winning online educational resources include BrainPOP Jr. (K-3), BrainPOP, BrainPOP Español, and BrainPOP ESL. All are supported by BrainPOP Educators, our teacher community now more than 125,000 members strong and featuring free lesson plans, video tutorials, professional development tools, graphic organizers, best practices, and much more.

This is a free website and is very easy to use. To use this website, you create a video (or your students) using a movie maker software or something similar, and you record audio to go along with your video. This is appealing to students because it allows them to post videos and also allows them to watch videos posted by other students. It is a great learning tool because it gives students a vareity of explanations for different concepts. It appears up-to-date. I would say that it is approporiate for middles grades and older since making videos would be the hardest part. In terms of support, you would need to call or email.

This is a webquest creation tool (not free).

A better, more kid-friendly site than dictionary.com for students to look up words and synonyms. There are also links here to fun word games for students to use and build vocabulary.

Meriam-Webster's word central page that provides opportunities for students to build their own dictionary and participate in interactive games involving language. There is also a section of the website dedicated to helping educators as well.

This site provides several interactive games for ESL students to practice learning their vocabulary. These different games include help with spelling, vocabulary, and context.

Tool for students and teachers to create puzzles (mazes, crossword, etc.)

Teachers and students create their own word search, criss-cross, double puzzles, fallen phrases, math squares, mazes, letter tiles, cryptograms, number blocks and hidden messages. Useful for all subjects!

Rearrange the letters in this game to make as many words as you can!

This site is free to all users. I feel that with a brief introduction to the site, it should be very easy to navigate for all students and other users. Considering the content, this site would be useful to students grades 8-12. Much of the site is also dedicated to teachers of these grade levels. It does not look like the most exciting website one will ever visit, but it seems like it could be a nice break from a history textbook. What might be difficult for some users is trying to find historical information that is not featured in the main exhibit at the time. While it seems like if you dig deep enough, you can find what you want to about American History, it is much easier to simply explore the featured exhibit, which currently (as of 6/8/11) is the Reconstruction era. The information is very credible and up-to-date. Aesthetically, it may be more appealing to students who like an online platform than a textbook. It has a look of being very organized, though personally I feel like it could look slightly more "professional." In terms of user-help, the site notes that its "Ask a Historian" and "Contact Us" features were disabled due to SPAM. Therefore, users can no longer contact the site managers. I believe this to be a huge drawback of the site.

Very simply, create your own crossword puzzle for your students!

This is a game designed to test your vocabulary knowledge. There are over thousands of words to practice with levels at easy, medium, and difficult.

Students use this word to build reading logic and comprehension. Very good for practicing chronology.

Is a free site that are research-based education practices for teachers to utilize as a resource. Its content discusses practices, methods, strategies that teachers have used for all students. Teachers get to hear what other teachers used and are effective in video clips.

Content

Everything DI offers resources to help differentiate instruction using technology. Everything DI was created to help equip educators so that they are more self-confident in their effort to teach children of diverse social, ethnic, and academic backgrounds. It's also important to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century. More than ever before, our students must learn to become self-sufficient, lifelong learners who are resourceful and marketable in a "smaller," global economy."

Similar to Corkboard and Wallwisher, an online collaboration / message board tool.

This website allows you to draw on a virtual whiteboard and it also allows you to include an audio recording to accompany your drawing.

This is a website that shows how math and science are used professionally. It includes videos. My students love visiting this website!