This sites boasts of 50 different educational games on its site. It also recommends trying a new one everyday. The games do actually cover a wide variety of topics: comparing decimals, making sentences, and confusing words to name a few. I played the Making Sentences game, which can be played by students of all ages to reinforce the essential elements of a sentence. I did get all 10 correct if anyone feels up to the challenge:)
This is a wonderful site for students to use with multimedia presentations. It offers royalty-free music that can legally be used by our students for public presentation. The music is actually of high-quality and is abundant. This site further lends itself to the discussion of what can legally be used.
This site has several videos showing some different strategies from middle school writing classrooms. The strategies are valuable and range from how to create a culture of writing in the classroom to how to get student writiers to enbrace the power of revision.
This can be a great site for gathering a great deal fo information from and about students. It is very easy to create a survey about just about any topic. One potential use that I see is using it as a pretest.. I would have the students take the survey on survey monkey about general ideas of the upcoming unit. I would then post the big questions about the unit throughout the room. I would then post some charts showing the scores (aggregate) from before and after the unit, highlighting the learning that took place.
Up to 5 GB of FREE storage in the cloud. This can be accessed at school and can eliminate the need for flashdrives. It is more user frinedly than Googledocs.
This is a website that allows you to add up to six events to a timeline, which can be a great way for students to organize and make sense of materials, especially in a book with a confusing plot.
This is a great website where you can download audiobooks to a computer. They then can be transferred to an MP3 player for listening. I have done this for sections of books that we have read in class. All you need is a public library card
For those who don't know, the DeForest Library subscribes to this service. It allows you to enter your library card number and download up to three free songs every week. I use it to add music to my atmosphere in the classroom.
A great word puzzle activity page. There are hundreds of rebus puzzles on this site. Students can check to see if they have gotten the correct answer simply by using a pulldown bar. It can helps students use word and picture clues to enhance critical thinking.