Collaborize Classroom

Collaborize Classroom is currently a free software for teachers to create a social network with your students.  You have until October 31st to create your own community (social network) to collaborate with your students in a safe environment.  You can see a video on the main page of a teacher sharing her experience using the software with her students.  Sign up is simple, all the usual information.  Once you decide to join there is a simple wizard that you can go through to setup your network with your students.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

With this edition I will include a fantastic site for art teachers who might be interested in having students create computer generated art.

Mathematics
ACT Math Question of the Day - This site is great for understanding the concepts and problems that students will face when taking the ACT.  It is broken down by the different math curriculum based on the percentage it would appear on the ACT.  Each problem is then in a Flash video with an explanation of how to get the correct answer.  These make GREAT bell ringer activities.  Students can complete it and then be shown how to solve it to check their answers.

Science
Sixty Symbols is a site that has videos related to various symbols in physics, science, and Astronomy.  These videos would be very useful in high school science classrooms.  It helps to clarify many of the confusing symbols that we see in science classrooms.

English
Interactive Folio: Romeo and Juliet.  Found on Free Technology For Teachers, this is a great interactive for learning about Romeo and Juliet.  The interactive does a fantastic job of helping students interpret the text from Shakespeare.  You can search through the various Acts, Scenes, and Page numbers if looking for a specific resource. 

Social Studies
American Journeys: Eye Witness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement.  Primary documents from the Vikings all the way up to the 1800's.  This site is fantastic for finding resources about early America.  There are several documents and images that you can search through, as well as a Teacher Resource area.  This would be a great starting point for research.

Art
Sculptris is a 3D sculpting software for your computer that you can download and use to create 3D images.  I highly recommend viewing the video to see it in action. 

ZooBurst

Zooburst is a site that allows the user to create 3-D pop-up books.  If you have a web-cam then the books use Augmented Reality.  Zooburst offers two different account types (free and premium) for you to choose from.  the concept is rather interesting.  You can search for characters and input speech bubbles for the characters and arrange them in the 3-D space on the book.  With the basic account you are limited to 10 books and 10 pages per book.  The books can be embedded into a web page as well.  Zooburst offers another way to create Digital Stories across the curriculum.

My TeachMeet KY Presentation

From my previous post about Technology Alternatives for the Standard Homework Assignment I will be presenting the following presentation at TeachMeet KY in Bowling Green.  Thought I would share it with my readers.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

This is my third edition of links/resources related to specific core curriculum.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to sustain this, but week after week I find something new that I can share with others.  Hope you find one useful.

Science
I have two this week for Science.  Scale of the Universe is an interesting interactive that allows you to see how big the universe is and how small we are.  I highly recommend sharing with students.  There is some background music, so you might want to have speakers on mute.  The second resource is Encyclopedia of Earth.  A great resource for geography and biology classes.  You can search for articles by subject and also find resources for educators as well.  If you are really motivated, you can become a contributor to the site as well.

Social Studies
The Supreme Court by PBS is an interactive website available for teachers to have a better understanding of the Supreme.  On the site you can find videos, games, time-lines, and lesson plans.  Another neat feature is that you can create a log-in and guess how the court will decide on this seasons cases.  This would be a great site for both Civics and U.S. History. 

English
Write for Ten is a website for free-writing.  The idea is to get people to just write for ten minutes and then share that on the web page.  The other idea is to help you work on a long document by writing on it for ten minutes at a time.  You will have to create an account to participate, but even if you don't, the concept of writing for ten minutes would be a great addition to the classroom.  This site might help foster some ideas.

Mathematics
The following is a site that has several Math Interactives that could be used with an Airliner or SMARTBoard.  "This multimedia resource includes interactive math activities, print activities, learning strategies, and videos that illustrate how math is used in everyday life. The resource addresses the following mathematics topics: Fractions; Integers; Percentages; Rate/Ratio/Proportion; Square Roots; Exponents; Patterns; Algebra; Linear Equations; Polynomials; Angles; Circles; Surface Area and Volume; Area and Perimeter; Triangles; Pythagoras; Trigonometry; Similarity and Congruence; Transformations; Shape Classification; Data Display and Graphs; Central Tendency and Distribution; and Probability."