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to integrate History Buff into the classroom: History Buff is a website that can help history come to life through story, virtual tours, audio and primary source news papers. I suspect that most students fall into the judge-a-site-by-it's-cover category like me. For this reason, if I was using it in my classroom, I wouldn't send students directly to the website to do a lot of digging on their own. Instead, I might direct them to the portion of the site I knew we would be using through a classroom website, wiki, blog or use a Weblist or Symbaloo to link to them. It is amazing how changing something as small as the entry point into a site can change a students attitude about the site (heck, I'm like that too!). Once I got into History Buff, I really appreciated the connection to primary sources and the way that the "actual" newspapers bring history to life. I REALLY liked the hoaxes in news section and suspect that students will get a kick out of it to. Your kids will be asking, how can people be SO gullible? These kinds of stories are wonderful discussion starters and will make students think critically about their own news media. As a fun extension, have your students write their own hoax news stories. Okay, now for demystifying the navigation of this site. See the itty bitty brown words in the left sidebar that are all squished together? That is the navigation. For real. I didn't notice it at first either! Go ahead and click on one to test it out…not so bad when you know what you are looking for, right? Right. For your convenience, I'm linking to each page of the site below so you can easily find what you are looking for. :) Online Newspaper Archives Historic Panoramas Reference Libraries (audio resources, hoaxes) Primary Source Material State Facts Interactive Quizzes Tips: History Buff has a newsletter you can subscribe to if you are, you know, a history buff. Just enter your email in that box under the header and clic

The most effecient way to create and memorize new words, idioms, terms or any other types of information!Easily import sets of existing flashcards from websites like Quizlet.com (one of the largest flashcard websites featuring over 3 million free sets)

Do you want an easy and innovative way to guide students through the Internet? jogtheweb is a web-based tool that allows anyone to create a synchronous guide to a series of Websites. Its step-by-step approach of taking viewers through Websites allowing the author to annotate and ask guiding questions for each page is unique. Give it a try and start creating your own jogs.

Surfboard is a very cool service (similar to Flipboard on the iPad) that displays any website in a flippable newspaper-like display. All your different blog entries or pages are displayed and all the links stay alive. This makes the web reading experience a much more enjoyable one. This is a great Web 2 tool for everyone! To use Surfboard all you have to do is enter the url of your favorite website and click "get surfing." That site will then be displayed in a manner that allows you to flip through the site's content without seeing the sidebar widgets and or advertisements. For proper flippable display Surfboard requires the use of the latest versions of Chrome or Safari.

FlipSnack is an online flipping book software that allows you to convert PDF documents into Flash page flip digital publications. It's the ideal solution for those who wish to embed a book, magazine, catalog, newspaper, portfolio or any other kind of document into a website or blog. Once created, you can embed your flipping book collection, download them or share them on social networking websites such as Facebook. P.S. With FlipSnack you can upload several documents at once, allowing you to embed not only one, but multiple page flip publications in the same Flash widget.

We Give Books instantly increases your classroom library and puts high-quality books within reach for children everywhere. We Give Books makes an excellent companion to the interactive whiteboard or projector-connected classroom computer for a class read along. Pull up a story and read the book chorally, ask students to take turns reading, or simply follow along. Everyone can see the pictures and words! This is a great resource for practicing reading strategies together as a class. We Give Books makes a wonderful reading station on classroom computers. Students can access wonderful stories any time through We Give Books. For those students that struggle with indpendent reading (or are emergent readers) there is a read-along option on some of the stories. Students can follow along with the reading building fluency, flow and vocabulary. If you are a primary or elementary teacher, this is a must-add link to your classroom website or blog. Be sure to share the site with families so that students can access the same wonderful library of books from home. Students (and teachers) can create their own library where they keep the books they have read (or enjoy reading). To add a book to a library, you must be a member of We Give Books- no problem, it is quick and free to become a member! Tips: Students can use the word cloud on the right side of the We Give Books page to find books about their favorite subjects.

Calkoo is a website that offers forty-three free online calculators for a variety of functions. The list of calculators that Calkoo is divided into ten categories. Those categories are mathematics, measurement & conversion, saving & investing, capital budgeting, cost of capital, wages & taxes, financial analysis, health, loan & leasing, and stock analysis.

It gives you a virtual space where you can post short text notes in the same way that you could put post-it notes onto a notice board in your classroom. But this noticeboard can be shared between people all over the world. As well as text notes you can add images, video and links to other websites.

Do you need to quickly snap a picture of your screen or record a video of an onscreen action? Jing is the solution; it's free software that adds visuals to your online conversations. Include it in an email, Website, or IM.

Weblist is a great way to gather and organize content based on a theme with the added feature of one URL. Your weblist can then be shared through social media networks or posted on a blog or Website. No time to make your own list, then search their playlist for subjects from music to science and everything in between.

TED is a remarkable Website sharing ideas from the world's most innovative thinkers and experts related to technology, entertainment, design, business, science, and global issues. Watch, listen to, learn, discuss and spread TED.

Check out this site for great educational material -suggested Websites and lesson plans - in literature/language arts, art/culture, social studies/history and foreign language.

Pinterest is a great way to organize yourself as a teacher. Gather up all those ideas you see online and then share them with other teachers (who may or may not be Pinterest users…it really doesn't matter). Because you can share Pinterest boards with non-Pinterest users, this is a great way to share things with students. The resource could be anything- pictures, a website, a video. Create a board for every unit that you do and share those boards with students so that they can continue exploring and learning. Students can use Pinterest too, invite young students to help build boards in a class Pinterest account. Create a board for every letter of the alphabet and let students add pictures that they come across to the letter board that it matches. Pinterest has a bookmark tool that you can put in your bookmark bar to make this as easy as one click! Students can put their first name in the description so you (and other students) can keep track of who found what. Like a year-long web scavenger hunt! Older students can create their own Pinterest boards. Pinterest would be a great place for them to collect images that they feel say something about them-an identity board. These boards can be shared with others and added to all year. Not only will you get to know your students better, but other students will find connections they didn't know they had. Pinterest is a nice visual way for students to share their web findings. Pinterest even lets students decide if they want to be the only contributor to their board or if they want to open it up for collaboration so others can add their findings to the board. Way cool. I have two Pinterest boards that may be of interest to you, one is Classroom Inspiration where I am keeping ideas of things I want to do with students or for our classroom. The other is School Design where I am collecting inspirational designs that I want to see in our school when we build our own building.

Invitation only, request an invite.

From the ALA

Another must see Mastery Connect is both an online standards tracking tool (parts of it are free) and a free iPhone/iPod/iPad app. Because the app is truly free, I'll start with it. The Mastery Connect app is a handy way to keep the Common Core standards accessible while you teach. The app sorts the common core standards by grade level, subject and strand. This is REALLY nice for quickly locating and referencing standards. Mastery Connect the website is the real gem. The site is brilliantly designed, easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing and best of all, it works the way you think it should. With the Mastery Connect Master Tracker, teachers can assess core standards, monitor student performance and report student progress to parents and administrators. Master Tracker makes formative assessment that is standards based manageable to keep track of. Rearrange standards in the Master Tracker based on the order that you teach them in. View only the standards you are currently assessing, and view the entire standard as a pop-up. Within Mastery Connect, teachers can create and share common assessments. Similar in feel to other social networks, Mastery Connect lets you connect with other educators to share assessments, interact and offer each other support. It is easy to expand your PLN into the space, just find teachers with similar interests and goals and start sharing! And now for my VERY favorite part- bubble sheet scoring. Mastery Connect uses GradeCam technology to make assessment about as quick as it could be. Just hold up bubble sheets to your webcam or a document cam and it is instantly scored and entered into the Master Tracker associated with the student it belongs to and the standard it is addressing. Seriously cool. I am not a big fan of multiple choice testing (mostly because I think it is a lazy way to find out what a student knows and doesn't give a true picture of what a student knows or can do) but I think I have figured out ho

Issuu is a Web 2 tools that allows you to publish PDFs. You can produce the documents in any program that you like - I prefer PAGES on the Mac. Once you have created a stunning document to impress the world, simply log on to Issuu and upload your PDF. The whole process takes about 2 minutes and you now have a digital magazine style document. This can be embedded into a blog or onto your website.