Weekly Core Subjects Resources

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans.  I won't post again till after the holiday as I am going on vacation without my laptop.  Summer is going by way to fast.

English

1.) Eduify is a website to help you write faster and better by providing tutorials, cite and verify sources, and store documents in the cloud.  You can learn more about it from the iLearn Technology Blog

2.) Citation Machine is a simple website to create citations.  Choose a style, insert the information, and then copy and paste your citation. 

3.) Pottermore is an interactive website that will be available in October for all those readers of the Harry Potter books. 

4.) Literature Map is a website where you can type in the name of an author of a book you are reading and it will provide a web cloud of other authors who write similar styles.  Source: iLearn Technology Blog

Mathematics

1.) Multipication.com has resources, interactives, and games for learning about multiplication. 

2.) Desmos is website to create and share rich interactive content.  They have created an online graphing calculator that students and teachers can use.  When a problem has been created/solved, it creates a link that you can share.

3.) Here is a great list of 19 Online Graphing Calculators from the Tech the Plunge Blog which is written by Jeff Thomas. 

4.) PSToM is a website for Parents, Students, and Teachers of Mathematics.  It is an online community with resources, lessons, and activities for learning math.  More information is available from the iLearn Technology Blog.

Science

1.) Roller Coaster is a Physics interactive where you drag a line up and down and create a roller coaster path.  You attempt to make sure the rider does not "puke" or pass out to move on to the next level.  Go through the tutorial and it explains the physics aspect.

2.) The Periodic Table of Comic Books is an interesting way to look at the elements.  It takes the elements and shows which comic book characters have special powers based on the elements.  Very interesting. 

3.) Virtual Pig Dissection is a website where students can virtually dissect a pig.  Would be a good intro activity; don't think it can take the place of "live/dead" experience.

4.) Science Toy Maker is a collection of videos and instructions by a teacher who enjoys rolling up their sleeves to work on science projects. 

5.) Succeeding With Science is a website dedicated to providing resources for teachers and students at all grade levels looking to improve in science. 

Social Studies

1.) Wikihood World is a website with information about locations all over the globe.  Including Longitude and Latitude for the center of the city.  You can find out information about leaders, culture, history, statistics, etc.

2.) TweetCongress is a website that provides information, links, and resources about Congress through Tweets.  It includes Tweets of Senators and Representatives who have accounts as well. 

3.) What Was There is a website where you can take an older picture of an area of a city and "lay it over" a current Google Street View of the area so that you can see how the area has changed.  This would be a great project for students to do in your local town. 

4.) CitizenTube are the top news stories that appear on YouTube.  Every week there will be a recap of the top news stories. 

5.) Mapfaire is an easy way for users to create their own maps.  With a Google Account you can publish your map.  For more information, read the post from Free Technology 4 Teachers.

6.) FBI: The Vault is a website that contains many files and readings of public importance.  You can browse for specific people or even events.  An interesting way to look into the History of the FBI.

Larry Ferlazzo's Best of Series

A while back, as in the first month I started this blog, I wrote a blog post where I shared a link to Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day "Best of Series".  Since that time, his lists of websites has grown substantially; to over 700!  Each link is available in alphabetical order by subject matter.  If you or teachers in your building are looking for resources, this is a valuable starting point for teachers to start their search. 

A tip to search through the website: Press "Ctrl"+"F" and a search box will pop up.  Type in the topic you are searching for (try specific and then general), for example "Geography" and see the lists that he has put together.  Happy searching!!. 

Notes.io

Notes.io is a free website for typing notes online.  It looks very similar to the notepad app on the iPad and iPhone.  Currently when you type notes it creates a short URL for you to share.  A simple tool that students and teachers could use to share notes from classes.  In the future Notes.io plans to provide the option to print, attach images, send via email, and then create an account so that you can save your notes.  One of the benefits of Notes.io is that it provides the size (KB/MB) as you type so that you know how large your notes are.  You can easily copy and paste text as well, but of course hyperlinks will not copy.  The more you type, the longer the page gets. 

Tricider - Brainstorming and Decision Making

Tricider is a website dedicated to assisting users in brainstorming and voting on topics.  Teachers could easily use this with students to take a poll or challenge students to brainstorm ideas for projects or public speakers.  The great thing about Tricider is that no registration is required to use the website.  You ask the question and then send the link to students by email, Twitter, or Facebook.  People can propose a solution or provide arguments for an idea.  As moderator, the user has complete control over what is discussed.  At the conclusion, people vote for the best idea.  Students could also use this when working on group projects as well.  Tricider is an interesting concept that could have multiple purposes in education.

Bundlr

Bundlr is another option for organizing and sharing content from the web.  There are several options out there that I have shared in the past.  Bundlr allows users to sign in using either a Facebook or Twitter account.  Bundlr could be used by teachers to organize websites that they want their students to use for research or to share in class covering a specific topic.  It could also be used to collect current events stories for the purpose of gathering different views.