Category: Social Studies

Kids in the House

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Kids in the House2166 views


What it is: Kids in the House is a great website for kids to learn about Congress, how laws are made, about the Clerk, and the history of the House of Representatives. This interactive site includes great links, definitions, explanations, and games. It also features a section called “Tools for Learning” where teachers can find educational resources and a lesson plan library.

How to integrate Kids in the House to the classroom: Take a break from the text book for this one. Kids in the House will help your students understand how Congress works, how laws are made, and the ins and outs of the House of Representatives. This is a good one to use before our election in November. Kids in the House uses kid-friendly language and cartoons that will really help your kids understand what can be a difficult subject to get a handle on. Use the site over several days as a sort of webquest. The Time Traveler section will teach them about the history of the House of Representatives, then take a virtual field trip of the Capitol Complex, the House Chamber, and the National Statuary Hall Collection, finish up the mini unit with games that reinforce what students have learned on Kids in the House. As a side note, this is way better than the way I learned (or didn’t) about the House of Representatives! This site could be used by the whole class in a lab setting or set up as a learning center in the one or two computer classroom.

Tips: The glossary on Kids in the House is a great one, as students are exploring the site, the glossary changes based on the key terms of the page. Students can look up words as they are working.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Kids in the House in your classroom.

Dipity

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What it is: Dipity is a site that makes it simple for your students to create and share interactive timelines about any subject or topic. It allows students to embed You Tube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, flickr, Picasa, Last FM, and more right into their timelines. Dipity makes timelines relevant and fun for students and best of all, students are creating timelines in “their language” of Digital Native. You have to check this one out…look at a sample timeline to see how truly superior these timelines are to the traditional paper/pencil timeline! Okay seriously, have you ever seen something so cool?!

How to integrate Dipity into the classroom: Dipity is the perfect tool for creating a timeline for any subject in your classroom. Students can bring history to life by embedding relevant You Tube video into their timelines. Create a timeline of your day by combining Dipity with your classroom tweets from Twitter. Timelines can be created by students individually or as a class and posted on a class website as a study resource. Dipity makes your classroom interactive and engaging for students. This is where real learning takes place! To introduce Dipity to your students, invite them to create a timeline of their day or their lives using Dipity (if they have a family Flickr account they can embed pictures right into their timeline).

Tips: Students can look at the content they add to Dipity in four different views: Timeline, List View, Flipboook, and Map View (this only works if the timeline has been tagged with locations.)

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Dipity in your classroom.

Computer Lab Favorites

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What it is: Computer Lab Favorites is a collection of 50 one stop learning activities created
by Scholastic. The activities are self contained and interactive.
Students can play Dude the Dog, Scientific Labeling, Human Body Math
Hunt, Around the World, Mapman challenge, Puzzled States, Classify
This, Moon Olympics, Pick the Perfect Word, Choose a Word, and many
more. Students can spin a virtual game wheel to play a game. The site
is broken down by subject and also by grade levels k-2 and 3-5.

How to integrate Computer Lab Favorites into the classroom:
As the school year winds down, allow your students to review all they
have learned over the course of the year by playing these great
interactive activities. Students can spin the game spinner and have a
game selected for them or choose a specific subject or topic of play.
Save this site for next year, it is the perfect way to introduce a
topic or put some life back into reviews! The games are content rich
and a lot of fun to play!

Tips: This would be a good site to set as the home page on your classroom
computers. It has enough games and content to keep you coming back all
year long!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Computer Lab Favorites in your classroom.

iCue

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on iCue2271 views


What it is: iCue is NBC’s newest venture into the realm of education. The sites aim is to create a collaborative 2.0 learning community that “incorporates gaming, discussion, and video resources in a safe, student-friendly online environment.” This is an excellent resource for getting your students interested in the world they live in through relevant news, videos, and a place to discuss them. The iCue video player is very robust and has the ability to take notes, leave comments, and create links for the video. The “Cue cards” can be saved in a student area for future reference. This site is a truly inventive way to teach with current events!

How to integrate iCue into the classroom: iCue is a great way to keep your students interested and engaged with current events. The site will be excellent to use on a daily basis during this election year. Students can watch videos, start discussions and debates based on current events. This site has great potential for really making students use critical thinking and higher order thinking skills. The related games are entertaining and will help reinforce what students are learning.

Tips: This site will eat up bandwidth. Make sure that your network can handle it before assigning the whole class to be on iCue at once! Learn more about what NBC is offering for the classroom at www.hotchalk.com.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using iCue in your classroom.

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Read the Words

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Read the Words3287 views


What it is: Read the Words is a free website that offers an audio player that will read anything you want. The Reader on the audio player can be listened to online, downloaded to a mp3 player, broadcasted as a podcast, or posted on a website or blog. The first step to creating your reader is selecting what you want read, this can be uploaded from a PDF, MS Word, HTML file, or input manually, cut and pasted, through RSS or URL. Step 2 is selecting a reader for your purposes, there are 14 readers to choose from. The readers speak English, Spanish, and French. Each reader has unique voices and some have accents. You can control the reader’s speed and pitch. Best of all it takes approximately one minute to generate an hour long recording.

How to integrate Read the Words into the classroom: Read the Words would be an excellent way to guide a webquest for students, create a reader to steer students through each activity in the webquest. If you have mp3 players available for checkout, create a reader for guided reading. These can be used in class during silent reading time or checked out for home use so that the student learning day can be extended. The readers would be excellent for history or science reading where vocabulary can be challenging. Read the Words is perfect for your auditory learners and because you can have text that is already in your lesson read, the differentiation for these students is short and sweet. Read the Words would also be great for English language learners or for English speakers learning Spanish or French.

Tips:
Take some time initially to listen to each of the readers. Choose the one that is easiest for your students to understand and best fits your purposes.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Read the Words in your classroom.

Zoho Challenge

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Zoho Challenge2576 views


What it is: Zoho may look familiar to you if you have been with me for a while. Zoho has a great online suite of office productivity tools such as spreadsheets, word documents, and online presentations. If you haven’t ever tried out the Zoho tools, they are definitely worth a look! Zoho has a new fabulous tool for teachers, called Zoho Challenge. Zoho Challenge allows teachers to easily conduct tests online in 4 simple steps. Zoho Challenge allows for multiple choice questions and descriptive questions. Results are displayed immediately for you and your students (although this setting can be altered to fit your needs.) Time limits can be specified, difficulty levels calculated automatically, and online access to students details. Zoho Challenge also has the ability to send emails to your students with their scores. Zoho makes it simple to create multiple exams, add candidates, schedule tests for future dates, look at student performance, find out who passed the test in a quick glance, view a “report card”, and view a graphical representation of overall results.

How to integrate Zoho Challenge into the classroom: Zoho Challenge can be used for any classroom testing. It makes it extremely easy for you to grade tests and see the results graphically. Zoho Challenge will save you time and quickly show you who understood the tested material and who needs more practice. Zoho Challenge is best used in a computer lab or mobile lab setting.

Tips: Test results can be sent home to parents via email…cool!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zoho Challenge in your classroom.

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Book Flix

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Book Flix2635 views

 

What it is: Book Flix is a new offering by Scholastic that instills students with a love of reading and learning with paired fiction and nonfiction online. Book Flix is a subscription based service that is delivered over the Internet for teachers, librarians and parents. Right now you can try Book Flix in your classroom for free with a trial. The basic trial offers one pair of books about rain but a full free 30 day trial of all 80 Book Flix offerings is also available for schools. Book Flix offers a neat experience pairing fiction and nonfiction books. Students can watch and listen to the books read to them, read them independently, meet the author, play accompanying games, and view related kid friendly web links. There are quality lesson plans for teachers for each Book Flix. Check out the freebies and see how Book Flix might benefit your class, if you never order Book Flix the freebie is worth using!

How to integrate Book Flix into your curriculum: Use Book Flix that match up with your current curriculum, the fiction and nonfiction books and websites will greatly enhance what you already have in place. The quality of interactive books really is impressive and will give students a greater appreciation of both fiction and nonfiction literature.

Tips: Try out the basic Book Flix freebie first with the topic of rain, if you like the concept you can sign up for the free 30 day full trial with access to all 80 Book Flix. The freebie should carry you through the end of the school year (or pretty close). Test it out on your students and see how they like it 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Book Flix in your classroom.

Picturing America

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What it is: Picturing America takes hold of the notion that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and applies it to teaching American history. The National Endowment for the Humanities is providing American art masterpieces into classrooms and libraries. The idea behind Picturing America is that bringing our nation’s artistic heritage into the classroom gives students unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. The Picturing America program is completely free for schools and libraries and provides them with 40 high-quality masterpieces, a teacher resources book, and the program website.

How to integrate Picturing America into your curriculum: What better way to teach your students American history than actually bringing history into the classroom and providing students with real ties to the past? I wish that I had the opportunity to learn history this way! Picturing America is going to bring authentic conversation into your classroom about American history. It would be the perfect use of web 2.0 collaborative tools where students can discuss the history and the art in Picturing America. Picturing America masterpieces would also be easily integrated into the art classroom or in literacy as writing inspiration. The teacher resource book is going to provide you with wonderful tie ins to your current curriculum. This is an amazing program, I encourage you to take part in it!

Tips: Apply for the Picturing America program today.

A big thank you to my friend Jill who shared this site with me!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Picturing America in your classroom.


PalBee

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on PalBee3868 views

 

What it is: PalBee is a free online video conferencing/recording tool. When you become a registered member of PalBee you have the ability to create an unlimited number of video conferencing sessions, each can be an hour long, with up to 5 attendees. PalBee also allows for visual collaboration on the online whiteboard. The Whiteboard allows you to upload images and write or draw on top of it.

How to integrate PalBee into your curriculum: PalBee could be useful in the classroom in several different ways. The first is for its intended purpose, video conferencing. If you have a pen pal or buddy classroom, set up times throughout the year for your students to video conference. All that you need is a web cam and Internet connection. Your students will really enjoy conferencing with students in another state or across the world. After you have conferenced with your buddy classroom, consider collaborating on a project together. PalBee provides a great workspace for students to share ideas. PalBee can also be used as a place to record tutorials for your students. You can individualize instruction and record several lessons that can be saved by PalBee and used from year to year. If you have students who are having trouble reading, extend their learning day and “go home” with them using PalBee. A struggle in many schools is getting parents to read with or help their child study at home. If a parent isn’t available or doesn’t make it a priority, students can get onto your saved PalBee recordings and learn with you at their own pace. This may have the added benefit of modeling reading and studying to parents. Have a parent who can’t make a parent teacher conference? Set up a PalBee meeting with them that better fits into the schedule.

Tips: Set up a classroom account for PalBee where all of your recordings can be saved for quick access.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using PalBee in your classroom.


Time for Kids

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What it is: Time for Kids is an outstanding current events magazine for kids but did you know they also have a great website? On www.timeforkids.com students can read current events, play games, and get homework help. Games are all current events based and fun to play. Homework helper provides students with rapid research help, writing help, and facts from around the world. The teacher section of the site is amazing. You can find worksheets, mini lessons, and graphic organizers. They are separated by grade and subject making the site very easy to navigate.

How to integrate Time for Kids into your curriculum: Use Time for Kids to teach students current events in a fun, different way. The games on the Time for Kids site will motivate students to dig deeper into current events. Use the worksheets, awesome mini lessons, and graphic organizers in conjunction with the site. If you already subscribe to the Time for Kids magazine, this is the perfect extension for students.

Tips: Do not miss the teacher portion of this website! These resources are unbelievable and best of all…free!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Time for Kids in your classroom.