UTWCIW

Ties in with physical science, Medieval history. The game lets you smash a castle. What could be better?

This site promotes active, healthy lifestyle choices and provides dozens of easy-to-do activities involving healthy eating and physical activity. The site also gives teachers ideas of how to kickoff and implement the program in school!

TED is a nonprofit website intended to "spread knowledge and information from the world's most inspired thinkers." TED contains information on a wide variety or topics. Particularly valuable are video presentations from experts in so many areas.

"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world!" Ted.com features thousands of short videos of people talking about topics such as technology, entertainment, business, science, global issues, etc. The videos are organized in several ways such as by newest release, date filmed, most comments in a week, most persuasive, funny, and much more! You can also participate in live question/answer discussions with some of the speakers and join ongoing blog conversations with people around the world on important topics related to the videos. I just showed my students a talk by a famous composer who directed a virtual choir and they were very inspired!

The Info Please site provides the same type of information as the traditional almanac. It is great for current events, statistical information, or facts about a wide variety of topics. One drawback for this site when using it with students is that it has advertising banners.

The Fact Monster website provides elementary students with an online almanac. It contains similar resources found on the Info Please website, but Fact Monster is more suitable for elementary students. The site provides fun, engaging games and quizzes as well.

I am excited to try this with my students. I sometimes struggle to find informative sites that are kid friendly so this will be a great additon to the worldbook online.

Part of the Newseum website, this link will give you access to the front pages of more than 800 different newspapers from around the world. You can search by name or region. You will even find several newspapers from Wisconsin! Copyright laws still apply.

Very cool. This gives me a great idea about how to show students that are major issues are not always viewed in the same way in different parts of the country. You have just helped me create a much stronger persuasive essay unit. Thanks,Greg.

This site allows you to create your own flashcards, create an online study group, and play your own study games. There is also tons of already made material, so it is likely you won't need to create your own. Quizlet really useful for students that are struggling in a certain area or that need help with their study skills. You have to create a login, but the service is free. I like this resource because it can be used and modified for any age or skill level.

An online classroom - teachers can create a classroom, post questions, assignments and feedback. Students can answer question and post assignments.

A couple different activities for students to use which offer immediate feedback.

This sorts out TED talks by subject. Some of the TED talks are just extraordinary!

This a great resource for students to collaborate with their notes for a project. I have my eighth graders use it for research for their group projects and they also have to share the documents with me, which allows me to see their progress and make comments without having to collect any paper from them. Another great thing about Google Apps is the ability to access it anywhere the students have internet. For them, it's like having a built-in flash drive via the internet.

I haven't used Google Apps with my students yet but am looking forward to showing them how to use it. It will be very useful for them when they are transfering work from school to home.

There is now a comment feature in DOCs, so a teacher can comment on student work without messing up the original. Comments show up as highlighting.

Google Maps is a valuable resource for many reasons. It will allow users to find specific addresses and view the satalite images. Users can click on the yellow person on the screen and drag it down to get a street view of the specific address if the image is available. Google Maps could be used across the curriculum to view many different monuments and other areas around the world.

This is such a useful tool! Both the regular google map perspective and the street view perspective can be helpful when learning about maps. (especially with young students who do not understand the concept of perspective)

Google Maps is the best site out there for getting directions. Their maps are always up to date and the routs they give are easy to follow. The street view is particularly helpful if you don't know where you are going. You can know what to look for when trying to find a new place. This could be very helpful to students learning to drive.

A great website for teachers, students, and parents. Teachers can get lesson plan ideas, additional resources to complement Scholastic News subscriptions, order items and books for the classroom, and print mini-books and other reproducibles. Students can have discussions with others who are reading the same or similar books and learn about new books and authors. Parents can find activities for their child and even learn about how their child's reading develops.

Resources for Everyday Mathematics, including online games sorted by grade level and unit.

Search for your next great read.

Moodle is a wonderful tool for teachers to give students the experience of working in an on-line classroom environment, since they will most likely be taking some classes in that format in the future. Moodle is a great way to get links out to students, have them work through some topics and then have them take a quiz within Moodle. Students really enjoy the imediate results of taking a quiz in Moodle. It takes a bit on the teacher's end to get things set up, but is well worth it when it comes to assessment.

I have yet to use Moodle, but I know that it is a great way for students to have conversations and comment on assignments. I'm sure that it's a great tool, and I'd love to use it in the future. The one question I have about using it is, what do you do with the students who don't have internet access at home? I didn't know that you could take quizzes in Moodle as well! I wonder how much set up it takes in terms of time on the teacher's end?

I also like the you can imbed videos in moodle. This a great way to show a video clip and then have students discuss the video online.

Dictionary. com is the largest and most trusted free, online dictionary. The site features a dictionary resource, thesaurus, flashcards, crosswords, and word games for homework practice and has an easy- to-use translator feature. When you look up a word, it not only gives you the definition but also an audio pronounciation, related searches, synonyms, nearby words, and information regarding the word's origin and history. As I approach my songwriting unit, I'm excited to have my students use this feature to find descriptive words as they write lyrics.

Online version of the New York Times

You can do an advanced search on Google images to find public domain and creative commons that students are free to share and reuse.

I'm actually making a very conscious effort to make sure that our students do understand that not everything on the internet is "free" to be used as they see fit. This can be a very solid tool.