Three Village Instructional Technology Blog

February Teacher Update From Scholastic - February Themes

2012-02-01T10:56:00.000-05:00

Book Reviews for Kids, By Kids

2012-01-10T09:01:00.003-05:00

Scholastic has a great service called Share What You Read that students can use to create and read book reviews online. Scholastic provides a simple form on which students can write and submit their book reviews. Students do not have to create an account to use the book review service.

Scholastic's Share What You Read service is very easy for students to use and for teachers to incorporate into the classroom. The advantage of using the Scholastic service over a creating a wiki for the class is that the Scholastic service saves teachers time. The Scholastic service does not require users to create an account prior to writing a review. In fact, the only information they ever ask for is the student's first name, grade, and state.
This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers

Microsoft Security Essentials

2011-12-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

According to the Microsoft’s website this is the anti-annoying, anti-expensive (its free), anti-virus program. This anti-malware software can be used with Windows XP or higher including windows Vista and Windows 7. Microsoft Security Essentials will guard against viruses, spyware, and other evil software. It provides real-time protection for your home PCs and laptops is simple to install, easy to use and it runs quietly and efficiently in the background so you don't have to worry about interruptions or making updates.

2011-11-04T15:00:00.002-04:00

Typing Adventure is a nice little game that young students can use to practice their typing skills. To play the game students just have to visit the game site, read the directions, and press start. The game scenario presented to students is a character leaping from stepping stone to stepping stone. To move along the path students have to type the letters of the stones they want to jump to. Students earn points based on speed and accuracy.

Reposted from Free Technology for Teachers

The Science Behind the News - The Why Files

2011-10-28T11:10:00.001-04:00

The Why Files is a good website that I discovered in a Classroom 2.0 discussion. The Why Files is a resource designed for students to learn about the science of stories in the news. The Why Files doesn't cover every news story, just the stories that have clear connections to science concepts. For example, one of the stories on the front page over the weekend was about the start of Hurricane Season. The story goes on to explain in text, image, and video the science of hurricane formation.

Applications for Education
Most of the material on The Why Files is geared toward an elementary and middle school audience. The teachers' section of The Why Files offers pdf guides and quizzes that you can use to teach the science of the stories featured on the front page of The Why Files. The Why Files could also be a good resource for students to explore independently or with their parents.
**reposted from Free Technology For Teachers

Everyday Mathematics

2011-10-05T13:21:00.009-04:00

Resources for Everyday Mathematics In Smart Notebook Software Grades 3-5

     3rd Grade
     4th Grade
     5th Grade

Resources Relating to Everyday Math.
As we've already found out -the EveryDay Math games are not interactive for SMARTBoard however this site provides EveryDay math/curriculum according to grade. Everything is listed according to the standard. Most work with the SMARTBoard.

http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/edm/K.htm

Video series of teachers using Every Day Mathematics in the class room grades K-5.

Everyday Mathematics video series
Once on the page look in the Click a Link box to pick a sample lesson by grade level.

Back to School Resources Courtesy of Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

2011-08-25T14:46:00.000-04:00

Link to Kathy Schrock's web
Back to School Checklists
...this site links to sites to help you get off to a good start

Back to School from Scholastic
...icebreakers, plans, and units for the K-5 grade levels

Back to School Lesson Plans
...teacher-submitted ideas for that back-to-school time

Back to School Technology Activities
...teacher-submitted ideas for technology use at the start of the school year

Back to School Theme
...all types of back-to-school lessons and ideas

End of Year Planning
...links to lessons and activities for the end of the school year

First Day of School Sites
...a link to all types of sites to help you get ready for the first day of school

Icebreakers and Energizers
...a nice list of beginning-of-school year activities

Icebreakers for the First Day of School
...teacher-tested ideas for the first week back to school

Icebreakers, Warm-up, Review, and Motivator Activities
...icebreaker activities for every age

Icebreakers, Warmups, Energizers, & Deinhibitizers
...some icebreakers for older students as well as link to other sites

Internet4Classrooms: Back to School Resources
...great links about everything from classroom set-up to discipline

Reading Units Website

2011-05-13T12:56:00.001-04:00

Website with unit lesson plans for a variety of intermediate (grades 5-8) books. This site provides teachers with chapter by chapter vocabulary, printable questions, and activities for students. There are over 80 books indexed on the site.

great website to assist with guided reading groups. This website has questions and activities for many popular and classic books. Thanks to Jason Hugues at Minnesauke for the link!

Firefox Add-ons for teachers

2011-05-10T15:11:00.001-04:00

Nuke Anything is a Firefox add-on that could be handy the next time you choose to print a webpage. With Nuke Anything installed in your browser you can right-click on any element of a webpage and remove it before printing that page. When you right click on an element a red outline will appear so that you can be certain you're not removing something that you didn't intend to remove. If you have students or colleagues that are in the habit of printing articles to read offline, try getting them in the habit of using Nuke Anything. Using a tool like Nuke Anything could save a lot of wasted ink and paper. For people who aren't Firefox users, you might want to check out Joliprint.

Kadoo A fast easy way to share files

2011-05-03T13:32:00.001-04:00

Share files with students use the cloud service Kadoo. You can upload files that can be accessed by students using a web browser or a hand held device like the iphone or ipad. Simply set up your free account and upload your files, including video files for students. You have up to 200 MB per upload and 5 GB of storage space.

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor

2011-04-26T10:16:00.001-04:00

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor has a New Online Guide to Common Canal Structures. The guide is intended as a quick and easy reference for millions canal visitors and students looking to identify some of the historic and current-day working structures along the New York State Canal System. “The guide offers every fourth grader who studies the Erie Canal the opportunity to see the canals’ famous locks, low bridges, and other working parts,”

New York State Education Department’s Document Showcase

2011-04-26T10:05:00.010-04:00

The New York State Archives provides a wide variety of archives and records management publications for specific audiences such as researchers and genealogists, records managers and archivists, students and teachers, state and local government officials, as well as for the general public.

The Civil War In honor of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, the New York State Archives presents its latest edition of Document Showcase. Document Showcase is a regular feature that highlights a topic from State history using records from the New York State Archives. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/showcase/index.shtml.

Remembering World War I the New York State Archives holds a plethora of records pertaining to the role New York played in the Great War and has placed many of them online with accompanying lessons. The website is comprised of more than 350 historical records that are grouped by topics. The topics are interesting and varied, including: Animals, Children, the Armenian Genocide, Army Health, African Americans, In the Trenches, Homecoming and Memorials, Industry, and much more. Teachers can use this site to incorporate primary sources into classroom instruction. A "Build Your Own Worksheet" option offers teachers the ability to customize a lesson. Teachers may use the lesson provided, or write in their own caption, historical background information, and questions; then print out the lesson with the document. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/projects/wwi/index.shtml

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and Its Legacy As a reaction to the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, New York State formed a Factory Investigating Commission to inspect and examine the working conditions in factories and businesses in all the major cities in the state. This web exhibition highlights the Commission’s investigation and its impact on the development of laws for workers, including women and children. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/exhibitions/triangle/fic_triangle.shtml

Read Works

2011-04-13T11:54:00.002-04:00

ReadWorks provides teachers with a proven, research-based program focused specifically on teaching reading comprehension. Lessons, units, and non-fiction reading passages. Online, webinar, and distance training to improve teaching practice. It's free. As educators, our non-profit mission is to close the achievement gap in reading throughout the country. Lessons and units explicitly teach the essential Concepts of Comprehension. Research and extensive experience as teachers have shown that reading comprehension is the area of reading instruction most challenging for both students and teachers.

KHAN Academy: Watch. Practice. Learn almost anything—for free.

2011-04-04T12:16:00.002-04:00

What started out as a few Math videos this site now has 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history. Useful as a resource for students to consult when they are working on mathematics assignments and cannot get direct instruction from a teacher.

Curriculum 21 Web

2011-03-30T11:27:00.001-04:00

The Curriculum 21 contains a clearinghouse which is an interactive listing of web 2.0 tools which teachers and students have found most useful sorted by topic. Site also contains news feeds of breaking news from a variety of sources in and about education and resources for curriculum mapping.

The STHS Library New Tools

2011-03-28T13:18:00.001-04:00

Google Certified Teachers, Joyce Valenza and Kristen Swanson, have assembled a good collection of Web 2.0 tools and guides for teachers. The collection is part of STHS Library Guides. Their new tools catalog is organized by function (wikis, podcasting, etc) and topics related to technology use in schools (media literacy, fair use, privacy). The STHS Library New Tools is a good site to refer your colleagues to when they need a quick reference to learn about new tools.

Learn a Language for students to practice spelling words and phrases in the language that they are studying.

2011-03-22T10:40:00.001-04:00

Learn a Language offers flashcards and games for learning eight different languages. Learn a Language offers activities in Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, French, Japanese, Chinese, and English. The format for Learn a Language is the same for all eight languages. Users select a language then choose if they want to study individual words or phrases. Whichever they choose the format that follows is the same. Users can study flashcards then play a game called Lingo Dingo. Lingo Dingo requires players to accurately type a word or phrase before it disappears. The object of the game is to construct a dingo by earning points for correctly typed words and phrases.

Learn a Language could be a good place for students to practice spelling words and phrases in the language that they are studying.

This Day in History Thinkfinity.org

2011-03-01T15:18:00.005-05:00

Link this and other wigets from Thinkfinity.org directly to your Web page, Moodle or blog.

Dushare: an incredibly easy way to share files

2011-02-28T10:57:00.001-05:00

Dushare is an incredibly easy way to share files with students. It lets you transfer files by way of a web browser as fast as you can upload and quickly share a file with all of your students by way of a unique url.

The site could not be easier to use, just pick your file, decide if you want it password protected to download, and then share the file. Dushare requires no login or registration to use so it is appropriate for students under 13. You can even chat with the person you are transferring the file to over Dushare. File sharing just doesn’t get much easier!

Kidsblog

2011-02-09T11:32:00.001-05:00

This is a great blog to blog along with your students. As the teacher you can have as much control as you want on post and comment approval. You and your students can add images and multimedia and embed web objects. Very basic themes. Designed mostly for grades k-9.

The Art Project Powered by Google

2011-02-07T12:57:00.002-05:00

The Art Project powered by Google features interior tours of seventeen world famous art museums.

Select a museum from the list on the homepage and you can virtually tour it using the same interface style you experience in Google Maps Streetview. Inside the museum just double click to zoom to a location. You can also open a floor plan overview and click on a room to navigate to that part of the museum. The best part of the Art Project powered by Google is the option to create your own artwork collection while visiting each museum. As you're touring a museum click on the "+" symbol on any work of art see it in greater detail, to add it to your collection, and to open background information about that work of art. To create a collection you must be signed into your Google account.

Qwiki - A New Search Engine

2011-02-01T11:11:00.002-05:00

QWIKI is not a search engine like Google. Instead it’s more like a picture dictionary. For every search term entered, QWIKI responds with a definition which is read aloud plus a series of pictures, gathered from the Web and presented as a kind of slideshow that illustrating the search term. While the pictures actually come from many different web sites, the text for each item or article is written by QWIKI staffers. Test it with a search "water cycle" you will see a visual of the process as well as an audio description. Then click the "contents" tab and you will get a print visual of all the content and links at the bottom to a variety of related Quiki files.

Teacher Vision

2011-02-01T10:24:00.002-05:00

TeacherVision® is dedicated to helping teachers save time. Find 20,000 pages of classroom-ready lesson plans, printables, and resources. There is a subscription rate for some materials but there are also a lot of materials that are free. k-12.

The Science of Football

2010-12-20T11:17:00.002-05:00

The Science of Football is a series of ten videos from NBC Learn explaining and demonstrating math and science concepts as they relate to football.

The Science of Football could be a good way to get students who enjoy sports, but don't necessarily enjoy math and science, interested in learning math and science. Lessonopoly offers lesson plans corresponding to each video to support your use of the videos in your classroom.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:

The Science of Skateboarding, Bicycling, and More

Sport Science - The Science of Baseball

ESPN's Sport Science

3M and Discovery Education Launch Interactive Web Portal for Families and Teachers Celebrating the Science of Everyday Life

2010-12-15T13:16:00.001-05:00

Science of Everyday Life provides teachers, parents and students with a fun and interactive platform to explore the surprising and important role that science plays in our daily lives. Science of Everyday Life introduces a new opportunity for fun and creative learning with family activities and interactive tools designed to encourage exploration and engagement with the science that is part of the most relevant “laboratories” in our world – our homes, classrooms and communities.

Science of Everyday Life provides content to empower teachers and engage families and students including:

• Innovations from yesterday to today through brain teasers, virtual labs and an interactive timeline.

• Unique inquiry-based lessons, aligned to national standards, addressing key areas of science and the technology and innovation behind them.

• School-to-home family activities encouraging students to discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school.

Lets Crate File Sharing Web

2010-12-06T15:03:00.002-05:00

Let's Crate is very easy to use. To use Let's Crate just drag a file from your desktop to the Let's Crate page. After a short uploading period they'll be stored on the cloud. Let's Crate then creates a unique url that you can send to others so that they can access your file. The unique url expires after 30 minutes unless you create a free Let's Crate account in which case you can keep files on Let's Crate as long as you need them. Let's Crate is a nice alternative to sending mass emailings of large files. Instead of emailing documents to students and parents you can just direct them to a URL. This frees up space in your email application and in your recipient's email application.

Writing Prompts Designed To Use with Elementary and Intermediate Students

2010-12-01T14:31:00.002-05:00

The Teacher'scorner.net has writing prompts designed to use with elementary and intermediate students. Each selection has a good visual (If you choose PDF and print) as well as the prompt. There is a list of links for prompts for each month about halfway down on the page.
Thanks to Andy Weik, CES at Mount School for the website.

Babylon’s dictionary and translation software available to K-12 schools and their students free of charge.

2010-11-29T12:52:00.002-05:00

Babylon Ltd., a provider of language learning solutions and dictionary and translation software, has announced a new donation program for K-12 schools worldwide, called “Babylon in Every School.” The program makes Babylon’s dictionary and translation software available to K-12 schools and their students free of charge.

“Our solutions bridge the gap of languages for more than 80 million people worldwide,” said Alon Carmeli, Babylon’s CEO. “Our generation’s mission is to leverage the internet and technology in order to make it a better world for the younger generation. Bridging the language barriers improves communication and knowledge. We believe that Babylon’s project will help today’s youth become tomorrow’s leaders.”

Babylon’s dictionary and translation software offers results from more than 1,500 sources in 75 different languages. It provides access to dictionaries and encyclopedias from some of the world’s most distinguished publishing houses, such as Oxford, Britannica, Merriam Webster, Pons, Duden, Larousse, and more. In addition, Babylon provides full text and web page translation in 33 languages and delivers results in more than 25 languages from Wikipedia.org, the company says. http://www.babylon.com/k12-program.html

Seven Search Engines for Students

2010-11-08T15:36:00.002-05:00

Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. In all there are 35,000 websites that have been reviewed and approved by Sweet Search. In addition to the general search engine, Sweet Search offers five niche search engines. The niche search engines are for Social Studies, Biographies, SweetSites (organized by grade and subject area), School Librarians, and Sweet Search 4 Me (for elementary school students).

KidRex is a new kid-safe search engine powered by Google custom search. KidRex uses a combination of Google's safe search mode and their own database of filtered keywords, phrases, and websites. In the event that a questionable website does get past the filters, KidRex has a site removal request form.

Ref Seek is a search engine designed for academic use. Ref Seek seems to eliminate the advertising and paid links found on Google, Ask, Yahoo, and other commercial search engines. Ref Seek's intention is to serve only search results that are academic in nature. The difference between Ref Seek and a generic Google search lies lower than the top results in search returns. As you compare search results between Ref Seek and Google you will find that the second and third pages of search results on Ref Seek contain results that seem to be more "academic" than what is found on the second and third pages of a generic Google search.

Famhoo is another option for kid friendly searches. Famhoo draws on the collective results of the major search mainstream search engines like Google, AOL, and Yahoo. Famhoo simply provides a stricter family filter than the filters available on mainstream search engines.

Ask Kids is the kid friendly, kid safe version of the popular search engine Ask.com. Ask Kids is divided into five categories of which one is a general search option. The five categories are School House, movies, games, images, and video. The School House category provides students with suggested topics and links to resources for those topics. The School House also serves as a general search tool. In the other search categories Ask Kids makes suggestions for search refinement. A great aspect of the search results that Ask Kids provides is the option to refine searches based on a student's age.

Wolfram Alpha is billed as a computational search engine and this is exactly what it does. If students have any questions involving numbers, Wolfram Alpha is the place to go. Wolfram Alpha can be used for other searches, but it's not nearly as useful for general inquiries as it is for computational questions.

Google Scholar is one of Google's lesser-known tools. Google Scholar is a search engine designed to search scholarly journals, Supreme Court records, and patent records. In some cases the results will link to abstracts of books and articles that you will then have to obtain from a library or book retailer. In other cases results will link to fully viewable documents.

That Quiz - Math test Activities for Students and Teachers of All Grade Levels

2010-10-21T15:15:00.002-04:00

Register now for a free teacher account and assign our quizzes and tests of your own design to your students. You receive complete test results including all grades and wrong answers

Free Worksheets for Teachers

2010-10-21T14:49:00.001-04:00

http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/

Free worksheets for teachers that can be used with the document camera, scanned for an interactive white board or printed for student use. Math ELA, science and social studies categories as well as early educaiton and seasonal topics. Thanks to Jason Hugues from Minnesauke Elementary school for this link.

Your Next Read - Book Recommendations

2010-07-10T21:18:00.003-04:00

Your Next Read is a neat little site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here's how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click on any of the books appearing the web to create another new web.

Applications for Education: Your Next Read could be a great resource for teachers that are trying to locate fiction works that their students might enjoy. Rather than having to rely on your own list of books, you can have students name books they've enjoyed in the past and instantly find some other appealing titles.

School Clip Art - Hundreds of Free Files for Students

2010-07-10T19:46:00.004-04:00

School Clip Art is, as the name implies, a resource for locating free school-safe clip art. School Clip Art's galleries contain hundreds of files that teachers and students can use in slideshows, videos, and other digital presentations. You'll find galleries for sports, seasons of the year, holidays, and other special occasions.

Applications for Education: If the standard clip art that comes with PowerPoint or Keynote doesn't have what you're students need, have them browse through the galleries of School Clip Art.

Free PDF to Word Converter

2010-06-18T10:42:00.005-04:00

PDF to Word is a tool that extracts the text of your PDF document to your choice of a word document or rich text file (RTF). To use it simply upload your PDF document, choose Word or RTF conversion and enter your e-mail address. (don't forget to opt-out of markeing e-mails, unless you like spam). PDF to word will e-mail you when your file is ready for download.

Veezzle - Find Free Stock Photos

2010-06-09T09:24:00.003-04:00

Veezzle is an image search engine that should bring some clarity to that process. An image search on Veezzle will yield results that contain only royalty-free, free stock images.
Applications for Education: Your students could use the advanced image search tools of Google and Yahoo, but those options aren't always easy for students (or teachers in some cases) to understand. Veezzle provides students with a simple way to find images that they can use in their digital presentations

THIRTEEN launches new Regents Exam test prep video collection with REGENTS REVIEW 2.0

2010-06-03T15:02:00.004-04:00

THIRTEEN, one of the public broadcasting stations of New York, in collaboration with the New York Network, a service of SUNY, presents a newly launched collection of 50 short-segmented video resources on VITAL New York, an extensive library of free digital media resources produced by public television. These resources are designed to help students prepare for the Regents Exams. The videos, presented by New York State teachers, cover Chemistry, Earth Science, Living Environment, Physics, Global History & Geography, U.S. History & Government, Integrated Algebra, English Language Arts, French and Spanish.

Regents Review 2.0 on VITAL NY
Regents Review 2.0 Broadcast Schedule on WLIW21

Regents Review 2.0 Full Length Programs from NY Network

VITAL NY: http://vital.thirteen.org/

2010-05-17T11:31:00.003-04:00

EduTecher offers links to hundreds of web tools and sites and provides concise information on how the tools may be useful in the classroom setting. On this site teachers can:
Explore valuable webtools and resources
Share links with colleagues and students
Contribute by sending in your favorite links
Narrow or expand your search by clicking on subjects and grades on the left of the links page.
The homepage also provides a “recently added links” panel on the right for up-to-date links.

The Comics Lab

2010-05-05T11:13:00.005-04:00

The Comics Lab is a non-traditional (also called FUN) exercise in which students can develop and refine their creative writing skills, while learning how to develop storylines or plots. Comic strips contain similar attributes to short stories, with a beginning, middle and end. The Comics Lab aligns with the standards for the Language Arts. These standards can be found here.

There are 5 main components to the Comics Lab site:
The Interactive Comic Creator
Comic Strip Templates, where students can draw their own comic strips by hand
Video instructions on writing
Video art instruction
Written instructions

Most students tend to start out creating a comic strip without adequate preparation and let the plot develop in a haphazard manner. It is important for the instructor to have the child think through the plot development in a structured manner. Do you write the punch line first…and then backup two frames to make a creative statement? Some of these questions and techniques are covered in the instructional videos.

National Archives Digital Vaults Project

2010-04-30T12:46:00.006-04:00

..."browse through the hundreds of photographs, documents, and film clips and discover the connection between some of the National Archives' most treasured records.” Excellent way to obtain primary source documents for social studies classes. This Flash-based site (also available in HTML) allows you to collect assets, track your path, search, and create a poster, movie, or your own pathway.

Readability

2010-04-30T12:28:00.004-04:00

Readability is a simple tool for your computer at home that makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you're reading. You can select from a variety of font styles, sizes and margins. Just install Readability in your Web browser at home. This will make reading from the web free of advertisements or frames with other data from the webpage. Play the tutorial video on the website to see how to install on your own computer.

Download Online Video for Classroom Use

2010-04-26T09:28:00.015-04:00

Have you ever wanted to convert files without the need to download software? ZamZar will convert the file and alert you via e-mail how to download the file to your computer

Daniusoft Video Converter Free

Daniusoft Video Converter Free is an easy-to-use and intuitive free Video Converter that can handles all video audio even HD videos in batch conversion mode, this great Video Converter can not only convert video/HD Video to AVI, WMV, MPEG, MOV, FLV, MP4 easily and quickly. but also can extract audio from video to MP3, WAV, WMA.

Thus, With this free Video Converter Software, you can convert video to YouTube compatible video formats FLV to share your movie on internet, make your video files editable as wmv, avi so you could load them on Windows Movie Maker, or convert video for portable media players like iPod, PSP, Zune, mobile phone, etc.

In addition, this best free video converter allows you to DIY your video with video editing options: cropping video, trimming video length, merging two or more video clips, adjusting video effect etc.

Other sites you can use to download YouTube videos for use on your local hard drive.

Catch YouTube is a free tool for converting and downloading YouTube videos. Catch YouTube offers eight formats for video conversion. The video conversions are fairly quick depending on the length of the video.

Convert My Tube is a free service that allows you to convert a video to your choice of eight different formats for use on your local hard drive. To use Convert My Tube, simply enter the url of the video you want converted, select your desired format, and then download the video.

YouTube Snips is another good tool for downloading YouTube videos for use offline. To use YouTube Snips simply enter the the url of your chosen video and download the video in your preferred format. YouTube Snips gives you the choice of three formats, MP4, 3GP, and FLV. In my test of YouTube Snips the download was very quick.

http://mediaconverter.org/

Additonal video resources for teachers provided by Richard Byrne a high school social studies teacher from his blog http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

http://snagfilms.com/
http://schooltube.com/
http://dotsub.com/
http://teachertube.com/
http://ted.com/
http://history.com/
http://bigthink.com/
http://fora.tv/
http://current.tv/

Earth Day Resources

2010-04-14T12:27:00.005-04:00

Brought to you in partnership by Waste Management and Discovery Education, it's your complete source for exploring the 4 R's of environmental education - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover. This Earth Day, it couldn't be easier to turn over a new leaf. Whether you're looking for quick Earth Day project ideas or year-round resources, ThinkGreen.com/classroom is the answer. Visit today to access nearly 100 K-12 lesson plans, videos, activities and interactive tools. That leaf, and the tree you found it on, will thank you.
What you'll find:
New Earth Day project ideas for K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12
Lesson Plans, Videos and ActivitiesK-5: Teachers and students discover different properties of various recyclable materials and learn surprising new uses for old things.
6-8: Students consider the environmental impact of too much waste, and take action to design solutions for the problem.
9-12: Students explore the process of recovering energy from waste.
Supporting videos, interactives, virtual labs, worksheets, and more

Connect with the Microsoft Office community

2010-04-14T11:50:00.002-04:00

There are many great ways to get help from Microsoft experts and other Office users. Office Answers is a community-based support site where you can ask and answer questions, or just browse other's answers. Check out the different forums on Microsoft Office. The Office blog has the latest information from Microsoft Office experts including free clip art, templates, media, video, training and news. You can also follow Microsoft Office on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Top Resources on this site are:
Get up to speed with Microsoft Office Word by taking our free, self-paced training courses.
Free training
Video demonstrations of many of the top tasks in Microsoft Office Word.
Video demos
Updated solutions and information for your Microsoft Office Word Questions.
Solution Center
Microsoft Office Word 2007 Top Issues, Most Read, Most Searched, and Usage Help for features.
Help and How-To
Office Online includes a variety of Templates, Downloads, Clip Art and more to help you create professional looking documents.
Templates & Downloads

The American Association of School Librarians Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning

2010-02-22T12:08:00.003-05:00

AASL Announce Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announces a new resource for school library media specialists and their teacher colleagues. The Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, a list honoring the top twenty-five Internet sites for enhancing learning and curriculum development, is considered the "best of the best" by AASL. The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning were named so because they foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. All sites are free, web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. They also provide a foundation to support AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Valuable information on each site, including tips for effective classroom use are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsites.cfm

The Library of Congress now offers a free resource for educators

2010-02-22T11:47:00.004-05:00

The Library of Congress has designed this new resource to facilitate the process of integrating primary sources into classroom teaching. This online resource includes professional development modules and classroom lessons and primary sources from the Library of Congress arranged thematically. It is designed to teach both content knowledge and critical thinking skills.

Created by teachers for teachers, these ready-to-use materials provide easy ways to incorporate the Library’s unparalleled primary sources into instruction. Teacher-created lesson plans using Library of Congress primary sources.
Themed Resources: One-stop access to the Library’s best exhibitions, activities, primary sources, and lesson plans on popular curricular themes.
Primary Source Sets: Sets of selected primary sources on specific topics, available as easy-to-print PDFs. Also, background information, teaching ideas, and tools to guide student analysis.
Presentations & Activities: Presentations and activities offer media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.
Collection Connections: Historical context and ideas for teaching with specific Library of Congress primary source collections.

Convert Microsoft Office 2007 files for use with version 2003

2010-02-05T13:08:00.005-05:00

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats
If you are using Microsoft office 2007 at home and want to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file formats to use at school you can install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. You will then be able to save and open your files in the 2003 version at school. Just click on the Office Logo to the left and follow the download instructions

Thanks to Ed Moloney, Technology Education Department at Gelinas JHS

Web site offers free online math lessons

2010-01-06T14:30:00.005-05:00

Although this item deals with math, the link itself has other disciplines as well:

This web site offers free online math lessons. The California-based Web site Brightstorm offers online math help for students with video lessons created by teachers. Most of the site's math lessons are free, but the company also offers fee-based lessons in preparation for standardized tests. "Anybody who is confused with their homework can come to our site, search for the concept, find it really quickly, and then they can get an explanation that is concise and to the point from a really talented presenter who is also a great teacher," http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/drive_to_discover&id=7196389 or http://www.brightstorm.com/

(this from Alan Baum, Principal WMHS)

SMART EXCHANGE

2010-01-02T22:12:00.013-05:00

Find resources for your classroom and connect with other teachers who use SMART boards. On this website you can search for lessons, images and web pages that can be used with the SMART interactive white board. You can browse by keyword, subject, grade or NYS core curriculum. Teachers can also upload and share a resource that they have found successful or connect with other teachers on the message board. This website is a great compliment to the SMART Notebook lesson activities on the SmartTech website.

View,Save and interact with SMART Notebook files online. This website will provide a way for you to access update and edit your SMART notebook files when you are on a machine that may not have SMART notebook software loaded. This website can also be used by parents/students to view lessons at home that you have created in SMART notebook and posted to Moodle

All My Faves Web Browser

2009-12-31T19:17:00.004-05:00

All My Faves is a visual logo directory that specializes in the top 10 faves of each category. Making the internet an easier place to find teacher resouces. Click on the Education tab and you will find resources for each subject area as well as books, computers and many other educational themed websites.

Media Infusion

2009-11-02T14:10:00.004-05:00

Media Infusion
A PBS Teachers blog offering strategies and resources to help you create rich, engaging learning experiences with multimedia. Free Resources for Teaching & Learning grades preK-12. Here you'll find classroom materials suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade levels. Thousands of lesson plans, teaching activities, on-demand video assets, and interactive games and simulations. These resources are correlated to state and national educational standards and are tied to PBS' award-winning on-air and online programming like NOVA, Nature, Cyberchase, Between the Lions and more.

2009-06-08T10:23:00.002-04:00

Although Microsoft office (or one or more of the components - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc) may be on many of the computers in the world, there are free alternatives.OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. It also allows for cross-platform sharing of files.The features are parallel to those available from MS Office and it is FREE!You may download the suite from http://www.openoffice.org/. There are tutorials available for the suite on the website

Type onto a PDF document

2009-05-18T13:49:00.005-04:00

Free Site that will allow typing on a PDF file. If you need to modify a PDF file or fill out an online application/form in PDF check out this site to type on the PDF form directly.

** This site recommendation comes from our colleague Donna at the Gelinas JHS computer lab- - Say thanks when you see her!

Teacher's Domain

2009-05-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

Teachers’ Domain is an online library of more than 1,000 free media resources from the best in public television. These classroom resources, featuring media from NOVA, Frontline, Design Squad, American Experience, and other public broadcasting and content partners are easy to use and correlate to state and national standards. Teachers’ Domain resources include video and audio segments, Flash interactives, images, documents, lesson plans for teachers, and student-oriented activities. Once you register, you can personalize the site using "My Folders" and "My Groups" to save your favorite resources into a folder and share them with your colleagues or students.

Teachers’ Domain has added a new section called "Inspiring Middle School Literacy: Reading and Writing in Science and History." These self-paced classroom activities are designed to enhance the literacy skills of struggling readers in grades 5-12. Teachers choose a science or history topic, then have students proceed through reading passages, videos, and interactive activities, using a glossary to build vocabulary and a note-taking area to submit writing assignments

Teacher’s Domain also has The Regents Review 2.0 collection which includes 50 videos produced by New York Network, a service of the State University of New York, in collaboration with the Association of Public Broadcasting Stations of New York. This collection will help students prepare for the Regents examinations. The link is below

http://www.teachersdomain.org/special/rr10/

In this Collection:
• Chemistry
• Earth Science
• Living Environment
• Physics
• Integrated Algebra
• Global History and Geography
• U.S. History and Government
• Foreign Language

Podcasting Made Easy!

2009-05-04T11:28:00.003-04:00

...an easy-to-use, online voice recording utility; no log-in or password is needed, and you can download the file (in WAV format) email it, or embed it. Students and teachers can link directly from Moodle to the podcast. This is and easier way to podcast if you do not need the special effects, sounds, etc.. that Audacity provides.

Science Web Resources

2009-04-14T15:15:00.003-04:00

Science Websites

Some interactive resources are:
Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado at Boulder

The Chem Collective: Online resources for teaching and learning chemistry. Carnegie Mellon

Touchspin Chemistry Two Pan Balance

Touchspin Chemistry Virtual Triple Beam Balance

Interactive Periodic Table of Elements

Periodic Table of Videos

Virtual Scientific Calculator, eCalc

VITAL http://vital.thirteen.org

Visionlearning http://www.visionlearning.com

There is also a listserve for Chem and Physics teachers although I am not sure how active they are. All are through Suny Oneonta. Below is the sign up page.
http://external.oneonta.edu/mentor/listserv.html

AVerMedia Document Camera

2009-03-30T21:03:00.008-04:00

From retracing a voyage on a map to viewing squirmy worms, to examining up close on how a light bulb works, or just going over written work your students can have the advantage of a visual learning environment with the AVerMedia Document Camera. From the easy to use software, ink annotations, to the camera's ability to auto focus, once you have used this camera you will be hooked. The students are engaged and motivated, especially when they get to share their work using the document camera. The teacher can demonstrate exactly what they want. Never again do you need to make and use transparencies. Primary grade teachers love them because they can project lessons with manipulatives, so all the students can see the lesson being modeled. Secondary teachers can share math solutions, display text for reading or writing activities, and displaying the steps in a science experiment. Students are excited to share their work, which therefore increases student engagement and makes lessons more lively and exciting. Teachers can easily put a worksheet or paper under the camera and work through a few samples with the students. Then they can see exactly what is expected of them.

Check out their training videos at the link below:

http://www.avermedia-usa.com/presentation/videos_training_300af.asp

Uses for the Document Camera in the Classroom
http://www.umesd.k12.or.us/techlinks_100ideas
http://www.pre-kpages.com/elmo.html
http://www.timbedley.com/articles/article05.htm
http://www.proteacher.org/c/810_Document_Camera_Uses.html
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00002162.shtml
Thanks to Eric Gustafson, MST Setauket School for the additional links!

All About Explorers - Teaching about the Internet

2009-02-22T22:11:00.008-05:00

All About Explorers was developed by a group of teachers as a means of teaching students about the Internet. Although the Internet can be a tremendous resource for gathering information about a topic, we found that students often did not have the skills to discern useful information from worthless data.
So we set out to develop a series of lessons for elementary age students in which we would demonstrate that just because it is out there for the searching does not mean it is worthwhile.

The Networked Student

2008-12-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

More SMARTBoard Sites

2008-12-09T10:50:00.004-05:00

As more and more of you have access to the SMARTBoard you realize that The SMART Board interactive, electronic whiteboard can enhance instruction and learning. The SMART Notebook software makes it possible for teachers to create content rich, dynamic lessons which address specific student skills. Below is a list of websites that have Pre-Made Notebook Activity lessons to download. Some of these sites also have tutorials and short videos on using the SMARTBoard. Special Thanks to Jessica Borneman at Setauket Elementary School for her contributions to this list! If anyone wants to add a site to the list please e-mail me.

Notebook Activities on SMARTTECH Essentials for Educators
SMARTBoard Resource Page
Longwood School District’s SMARTBoard page
Lakeland Schools SMARTBoard notebook files
SMARTBoard Lessons on the TeachersGuide.com
Summit School District SMARTBoard Lessons and Templates
http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/sb/templates.htm

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

2008-12-08T11:11:00.004-05:00

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning.

SKRBL: Shareable online whiteboard

2008-12-03T15:15:00.004-05:00

Did you ever wish you and your students could work online together?

Simple and easy online multi user whiteboard, start skrbl, give out your URL & start working together. Sketch, text, share files, upload pictures all in one common shared space. Use the button and the button to switch between freehand drawing, and text mode. skrbl saves and syncs your whiteboard automatically... what could be easierThere are no new tools to learn, nothing to download, nothing to install. Brainstorm on the simple whiteboard to start thinking together, everyone sees the same screen, everybody gets on the same page. Register for free give out the url to students and you are set to go.
Check out my skrbl at http://skrbl.com/92241901 add to my board to let me know what you think.

The Writing Teacher: Tips, Techniques and Strategies for Teaching Writing

2008-12-01T13:13:00.002-05:00

The goal of this blog is to increase the quality of our students’ writing skills by sharing knowledge among experts and practitioners. The authors plan to share theory, practice, and research through articles, feedback from readers, and a numbers of web events. They will have teachers, writing assessment experts, academics, and others write about what they’ve tried, what works, how to implement ideas, and current theories on the subject of writing. They also plan to include lots of ideas regarding ways to get students writing more, since that’s the surest way to improve writing!

PBS Martha Speaks for grades K-2

2008-11-25T10:38:00.002-05:00

Based on the best-selling children's book series by Susan Meddaugh, "Martha Speaks" follows the adventures of Martha, a loveable dog whose appetite for alphabet soup gives her the ability to speak. The Martha Speaks Web site has lots of stuff kids can do on their own. The games, videos, and activities are fun, and they help kids learn new words, too!.The new series premieres September 1 and is designed to bolster the vocabulary of 4- to 7-year-olds within the context of great stories in engaging, comical ways. For more information, including interactive games and lesson plans, visit the Martha Speaks site at PBS KIDS.http://www.pbs.org/teachers/newsletter/redir/http:/pbskids.org/martha/ The show helps kids learn what new words mean. This will help them when they learn to read

New York Times Classroom Edition Free Subscription

2008-11-25T10:18:00.003-05:00

The New York Times Electronic Edition is a digital replica of the complete New York Times newspaper exactly as it appears in print, including every section, article, photograph and advertisement. Take advantage of our other free curriculum guides and activities for a wealth of lessons using any daily issue of The Times, in nearly every subject.
Try it now! Click here and enter the following on the log-in screen:
User Name: 234567890 Password: 234567890
Then click OK. On the next page that opens, click on the image of The Times or the link. The front page of today's New York Times will be launched in a separate window.

Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952 - 2008

2008-10-15T10:51:00.002-04:00

The Living Room Candidate contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads played during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.

Keep up-to-date on the 2008 election with Google Maps

2008-09-24T11:13:00.003-04:00

On Election Day, it will take at least 270 of the possible 538 electoral votes for John McCain or Barack Obama to win the Presidency. Use this map with students to predict possible state combinations each candidate needs to win the election. Clicking on a state will change the total electoral vote count per candidate. Students can also load into the map the latest CNN, MSNBC, Pollster, USA Today and several other national polls.

Create Your Own Comix Strip

2008-05-29T11:58:00.003-04:00

Created by Bill Zimmerman, Author of the book “Make Beliefs”Art by Tom Bloom
Teachers can use this comic strip game to encourage youngsters to improve language, reading, and creative skills. By writing dialogue for comic strips, students can practice using new vocabulary words, engage in make-believe conversations, practice writing sentences, hone storytelling skills, and work independently or collaboratively.

Read • Write • Think.org

2008-05-13T10:52:00.004-04:00

Read • Write • Think.org provides educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction. This site contains:
· Lessons – that incorporate detailed instructional plans and student ready materials
· Standards- organized around the IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts.
· Web Resources – websites on reading and language arts.
· Student Materials – interactive online activities students can use in class or at home.
· Calendar – daily information on significant literary events with lesson plans, web resources and classroom activities for each event.

ThinkFinity.org

2008-04-28T10:27:00.002-04:00

Educator Resources: free, fast, first-rate

Hundreds of teachers use Thinkfinity for free, exciting, top-quality materials that are quick, accessible and easy to use. Content created by trusted experts and leading educators with thousands of standards-based lesson plans .
Register with MyThinkfinity for free to organize your favorite lesson plans, and for access to the newest and most relevant materials.

Two websites that have been recommended for use in the area of math; particularly with the SMARTBoard

2008-04-14T10:31:00.005-04:00

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives for grades K-12 http://nlvm.usu.edu/

Cool Math.com http://www.coolmath.com/graphit/

Computer Repair and Trouble Shooting

2008-04-07T14:46:00.002-04:00

If your computer is acting up Marshall Loeb of Market Watch, put together an article in Newsday, Sunday March 16, 2008 that may help you out. He sited the April Issue of Kiplinger’s Magazine, where associate editor Thomas Anderson identifies ways you can try to repair your PC before spending money on professional help. Here are some of his tips.

· Look for online help. Online forums such as http://annoyances.org/ for PCs and http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ for Apple users.

· Call the manufacturer if you think the problem is hardware related to see if it is covered by a warranty. To avoid voice mail and reach a customer service rep you can go to http://www.gethuman.com/

· Windows Defender. If your system has slowed to a crawl, the cause may be spyware, stealth software that installs itself on your pc to track your internet usage. Windows Defender is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. Download the software at: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/

· Insure your laptop. Consumer Reports estimates that there’s a 43% chance your laptop will need repairs in the first three to four years. Laptop insurer Safeware www.safeware.com will insure a laptop for about $70 a year with no deductible. The most common problems, accidental damage and meltdown from a power surge, are not covered by most manufacturers extended warranties. Just repairing the screen on a MacBook can easily run over $400.

· If you need professional help get a recommendation from someone you trust. Training and credentials for this type of work vary so much that you cannot go by that. The vet the business using complaint records from your local Better Business Bureau online at www.bbb.org. You should get:
o Free price quote up front.
o Guarantee and for how long
o How much will a follow-up visit cost?
o Is price by the hour (average is $100) or by service ($200 to install or fix operating system software).
o How much extra for house calls.

Hotchalk: Bring The Word To Your Classroom With Video From NBC News

2008-04-02T09:22:00.004-04:00

From historic footage to the latest events, NBC News and HotChalk will help you bring the real world into your classroom in a safe, secure online environment. Access thousands of video resources from the NBC news archives plus text resources, primary documents, photographs, drawings, charts and graphs. HotChalk provides you with access to a vast digital library of educational content including lesson plans, worksheets, textbooks, articles and images, as well as a wide selection of video to enrich your curriculum for the YouTube Generation. HotChalk is FREE to teachers and schools. Premium content and professional development services are available on a subscription basis.
http://www.hotchalk.com/nbc.html

Alice: "For the next generation of computer scientists"

2008-04-01T09:39:00.004-04:00

Alice is FREE educational software that teaches students computer programming in a 3D environment. Using Alice it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

http://www.alice.org/

E-Ready Teachersfirst’s Resouces for Gifted and Special Education

2008-03-10T12:28:00.001-04:00

TeachersFirst developed this site to help classroom teachers and other educators better recognize and serve students with high intellectual abilities - either in specific areas or generally. The individualized techniques that can accomplish this are often similar to those used when adapting instruction to meet other individualized needs.

It also provides teachers and other education professionals with information and resources about teaching students with disabilities.

Additionally there is a parent resources section for each group.

http://www.teachersfirst.com/sped/gt/start-tchr.html

SMART Technologies: St. Patrick’s Day Fun

2008-03-10T09:17:00.001-04:00

SMARTBoard Lesson for Grades 4, 5, and 6.
This is an ELA lesson using St. Patrick’s Day as the theme. The Activity can be completed individually or in a group. Just click on the link below
· Practice spelling skills using St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary words.
· Practice alphabetizing a list of words.
· Practice finding proper nouns.
http://www.3villagecsd.k12.ny.us/Instructional_Technology/StPatricksDayWordFunUS.notebook

New biology streams from BioMedia

2008-03-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

New biology streams from BioMedia have been added (234) to the Digital Media Library. Biology teachers will love this material.

Sample topics include: Algae; Annelids; Bacteria; Biology of Lakes, Ponds, Streams, and Wetlands; Biology of Seashores; Chordates; Cnidarians; Domains of Life; Echinoderms; Flatworms; Fungi, and much, much more.

The trial for the Digital Media Library can be found here:http://dml.esboces.org
login: teacher
password: teacher/user
Click on the search box in the upper left. On the next screen, key in Biomedia in the text box, and all 234 streams will appear in a list. Teacher guides are also available.

Vital -- Video In Teaching And Learning

2008-01-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

Vital is an easy to use classroom resource with downloadable video clips and math and ELA activites. VITAL now includes over 140 video-based math and ELA activities for grades 3-6.
At: http://vital.thirteen.org/index.php
A printable Teacher's Guide is now available, with sections on navigating the site, creating your own VITAL activities, building visual literacy, and classroom tips for effective video use. Check it out.

Smartboad Just Launched Their Very Own Channel On YouTube!

2008-01-28T12:32:00.001-05:00

SMARTBoad Just launched thier very own channel on YouTube. You can check it out here: http://youtube.com/user/SMARTclassrooms
See the power of using SMART products in a variety of learning environments with this collection of videos created by teachers and SMART staff.

Online Review Games in Science

2008-01-24T15:09:00.000-05:00

The Review Game Zone is a web based review game creation site. Any teacher can easily create games for free using a simple form on this website. Simply input the question data, type the answer choices and that’s it! The games are automatically created and provide interactive review for exams or quizzes. Students can use games that have been created by other teachers on a variety of subjects. This is a new site and does not yet contain all subject areas. This what they have so far for grades 6-11
http://www.reviewgamezone.com

ScienceReviewGames.com, your FREE, fun and interactive site to help you study for science exams! Here you can play games such as basketball, soccer and deal or no deal all while reviewing science topics! Test review just got fun!

Any teacher can create games using a simple form on the website. Simply input the question data, write the answer choices and that’s it! The games are automatically created and provide interactive review for exams or quizzes.

http://sciencereviewgames.com

SmartBoard Resources

2008-01-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

This tutorial is a quick introduction to the basics of SMART Board software. You will see how to launch an application with your finger, write on the interactive whiteboard and how you can save your notes.

Simply follow the link below to see more Two-Minute Tutorials
http://smarttech.com/trainingcenter/tutorials.asp

Notebook software lesson activities
Take advantage of thousands of Notebook software lesson activities for your classroom. Find Notebook software lesson activities by curriculum standards or subject and grade level
http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/Notebook+activities/

SmartBoard Resource Pages
http://technology.usd259.org/resources/whiteboards/smartlessons.htm#Math
http://www.juliethompson.com/SMART.html

SMART Exchange
A community of teachers, administrators and SMART experts sharing ideas, expertise and enthusiasm to create extraordinary moments in the classroom
http://exchange.smarttech.com/