Category: Middle/High School

The Differentiator

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on The Differentiator2893 views

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What it is: This is a neat tool for teachers.  The Differentiator is based on “A Taxonomy of Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives”.  The Differentiator helps to guide you as you create learning activities and lessons for the various learning needs in your classroom.  First choose a thinking skill from one of six categories (remember, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, or creating).  Next, pick a way to to differentiate the content.  Then, you will choose a resource that students will use.  Select a product for students to create it can be visual, constructed, oral, multimedia, or written.  Finally choose the group size.  As you choose items for each category a learning objective sentence will be created.


How to integrate The Differentiator into the classroom: The Differentiator is a great tool to focus your learning goals.  It helps you to quickly and succinctly create objectives for the different learning styles in your classroom.  Not only does this help to focus your lessons, it can also help students to direct their learning.  Students who understand what learning goals they are working toward, and how they will get there, will be more successful.


Tips: There is a great little informational tutorial video that you can access by clicking on the “Need Help?” button in the top right corner of the site.


Leave a comment and share how you are using The Differentiator in your classroom.

One Minute Countdown

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on One Minute Countdown2088 views

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What it is: Another great tool from Triptico, One Minute Countdown is a simple web tool that acts as a countdown timer for the classroom.  The countdown is perfect for using at a center on classroom computers or on an interactive whiteboard/projector.


How to integrate One Minute Countdown into the classroom: I find it difficult to give students adequate thinking time after asking a question.  Usually as teachers, we call on the first hand that shoots up.  This can be a hindrance for students who require a little longer to process and think about the question asked.  Use the One Minute Countdown to pace yourself and give students built in time to think.  The One Minute Countdown Timer can also be used for classroom games, or as motivation to move quickly during transitions (see if your students can beat the clock).


Tips: You can choose whether or not you want a sound to play when the countdown has finished.


Leave a comment and share how you are using One Minute Countdown in your classroom.

Block Poster

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Block Poster22897 views

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What it is: Block Poster is a neat site that I learned about on Twitter. Block Poster lets you choose any image, choose how many sheets of paper wide you would like your poster to be, and then creates a pdf file of your new image that is blown up.  The result is a massive pixel poster to hang on a bulletin board or the walls of your classroom.


How to integrate Block Poster into the classroom: It can be difficult to find good technology posters that relate to my classroom.  I was thrilled when I learned about Block Poster.  Any image can be turned into a poster that can be printed on any printer!  So cool!  Create posters with unique messages for your classroom, posters that include the names of your students, or motivational posters.  I am currently creating a Wordle message for my classroom that will be made into a poster using Block Poster…I’m pretty excited about it!


Tips: The smaller the image is to begin with, the more pixellated the full size poster will be.  This can be a neat look!


Leave a comment and share how you are using Block Poster in your classroom.

Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin2788 views

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What it is: You really can’t beat free clip art and this collection of clip art beats all I have seen for the classroom.  Phillip Martin has created a great educational collection of free clip art for classroom use.  Great features: it is easy to use (when you click on a subject or topic you are taken straight to the clip art selection, this is not true of most free clip art sites), there are no advertisements flashing and taking you to other clip art sites, all of the clip art is perfect for educational use, and the clip art is really great quality.  This is seriously one to bookmark right now!

How to integrate Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin into the classroom: This clip art is ideal for educational use, there are so many great images that would liven up any worksheet, blog, class website, newsletter, slide show, flipchart, notebook, or classroom wall. The clip art would make creating a bulletin board a snap.

Tips: If you Phillip Martin (who created the clip art) has the following on his website: I would like to relocate to New York City. So, I’m asking for some networking here. You’ve seen the art. Do you know a private school that needs an art teacher ? Or, I could turn to publishing with Children’s books, magazines, literature or for museums, UNECSO or the UN. Or I could paint murals in hospitals or private nurseries. I’m open to suggestions. Are you connected?

If you can help him out please do!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin  in your classroom.

Simple Timer

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Simple Timer2654 views

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What it is: Simple Timer is just what you would expect based on the name, a simple timer (imagine that).  The timer can be projected or used with an interactive whiteboard during classroom activities or work time.  There is a timer and a count down feature.  To time an even just click the ‘start’ button, you can pause and restart the timer at any time.  To set a countdown timer, just set the time you would like the timer to countdown from and click the start button.

How to integrate Simple Timer into the classroom: Simple Timer can be used in a variety of ways.  I like using timers with my students as a motivator.  For example, “Let’s see how quickly and quietly we can put everything away and line up.” Each time you line up you can try to beat the previous time.  I add 10 seconds if someone is talking.  This is also a great way to make tasks manageable for students who struggle with focus. If they can see a visual of how much time is left with one activity it is much easier for them to continue through to the next activity.

Tips: If you have a student who has trouble staying on task, put them next to a classroom computer with their own timer or countdown clock.  This way you can set it for shorter intervals for that student.  Each time they have made it to the count down they can stand up and stretch before beginning the next activity.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Simple Timer in your classroom.

Link Up

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Link Up1823 views

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What it is: Link Up is a web app that helps kids link words to categories.  Each game requires two categories with six linked words each.  Once you have created a game you can save it to access at a later time or to share with others.  Students use Link Up by dragging links between categories and words.  The game is easy to customize and create on the fly.  It would be a great site to use with an interactive whiteboard.

How to integrate Link Up into the classroom: Link Up is a great way to help students organize information and discover similarities and differences.  Use Link Up for word sorts in science, language arts, geography, social studies or math.  Students could sort living vs. non-living things, events in WWI vs. WWII, long vowel words vs. short vowel words, odd vs. even numbers, and a host of other topics.  The click and drag interface makes this site perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard as a whole class activity or as a center on classroom computers.

Tips: Link Up allows you to save and share your activities (hooray!) this makes creating activities for lessons significantly easier.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Link Up in your classroom.

Binary Game

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Binary Game3849 views

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What it is: Binary Game is a fun Tetris like game where students can learn about and practice binary numbers.  Students are given a target number that they must match by adjusting the 1’s and 0’s.  My fellow computer teacher tried to teach me about binary numbers last year with a binary clock he has (yes we are geeks!) but I didn’t fully understand until playing this game.  Students will have the concept down in no time!

How to integrate Binary Game into the classroom: This is a great little game to fill in those extra minutes in the computer/tech classroom.  The Binary game helps students understand the concept of Binary Numbers and could be a great introduction to a more in-depth study of computing.

Tips: This site runs in Flash, make sure your player is up to date.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Binary Game in your classroom.

Word Magnets

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on Word Magnets16387 views

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What it is: Word Magnets is a fantastic little website that lets you type or copy and paste words into a field and create virtual word magnets out of them (think of the popular word magnets sold for refrigerators).  After you have typed in the words to transform into magnets, you can choose a “magnetic” background for your words.  There are several backgrounds to choose from including grids, venn diagrams, time lines, arrows, stair steps, targets, boxes, numbers, alphabet, circles, webs, flow sequences, tables, present/absent, and many more.  After you choose your background, students can create sentences, sort, and interact with the virtual magnetic words.  Words can be added to the board at any time and the color of the background and size of the magnets can be adjusted.

How to integrate Word Magnets into the classroom: The background options for your word magnets are really the highlight of this website.  You can do everything from word sorts, to venn diagrams, to practicing alphabetic order.  Create tables; sort words by their root, prefix, or suffix; link ideas; practice building sentences; create a time line of events, take attendance…the possibilities with this site are endless!  If you are going to use this site for taking attendance, I would suggest creating a master list in a saved word document that you can copy and paste from (this will save you from re-typing names every morning).  This is an excellent site for an interactive whiteboard or to use as a center activity.  This is an easy way to create customized interactive lessons for your classroom.  Because you enter the content, this site is appropriate for any grade level.

Tips: One thing I wish this site had: the ability to save.  If you want to save words to interact with over and over, create a document that you can copy and paste from.  If you want to save a copy of the word magnets after students have interacted with them, take a screen shot of it.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Word Magnets in your classroom.

Fantastic Flexible Foldables

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Fantastic Flexible Foldables5382 views

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What it is: I love online activities that students can take part in, but because most of us don’t have the luxury of a 1 to 1 school setting, good old paper manipulatives are winners in the classroom.  Fantastic Flexible Foldables is a collection of mini math books and games that you can print out and create with your students.  You and your students can create a fraction mini-book, a factors and multiples mini-book, a fortune teller fractor game, a geometry tetraflexagon, an integer infinity square, Flippers (fraction, decimal, music), and lines trihexaflexagon.  These foldables help your students to interact with and practice math concepts that can be difficult to grasp apart from manipulatives where they can see the problems worked out.  The Flexible Foldables by Carol DeFreese are well thought out and have step by step picture instructions for folding and using these with your students.  Carol has also generously provided blank foldable templates that you can download and use to create your own foldables.

How to integrate Fantastic Flexible Foldables into the classroom: These foldable templates really are fantastic.  They are a wonderful addition to the math classroom.   Even if you don’t focus on any of the skills that Carol has created foldables for, download her blank templates and create foldables that will help your students learn difficult math concepts.  These foldables will help your students visulaize and interact with math in new ways.  This is an incredible resource and even more incredible that it is free!  Sometimes the best part of technology is the way it allows for the sharing of ideas and teaching methods… this site is proof of that!

Tips: Files on the Fantastic Foldables site are in pdf or .doc formats.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Fantastic Flexible Foldables in your classroom.