July 10th Posts

National Geographic for Kids is all sorts of fun for students and teachers alike.  Many of the topics covered on this site include several different multimedia options.  There are photos, videos and maps.  The website is user friendly and easy to search.

Education World has loads of worksheet resources for teachers.  The worksheets are organized by topic or category and clumped together in a logical fashion.  This website can save teachers hours of time by doing a smart scan of what is already prepared and available.

http://xkcd.com/ is an online comic that covers a bunch of educational topics.  Search a topic and several options will appear.  Of course, read the comics before hand and ensure they are appropriate but what students wouldn't want to get hooked on science with a comic?

NOAA Educational Resources

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) offers a large array of educational videos, activities, lesson and tools for all sorts of atmospheric and geographical phenomena.  The neatest section I explored is all about tsunamis.  This is a great website teachers could use if current events are discussing natural disasters.  As we dive deeper into hurricane season, teachers can introduce severe weather conditions with the free resources provided on this site.

Free Lesson Ideas from the Government

The Federal Resources for Educational Excellence has a fantastic websites full of great ideas.  And I mean FULL of ideas.  The site is arranged by subject matter and then specific topics.  For example, there is a US History Subject section but included is that is famous people, business, government and more!  Each of these subgroups are broken down into specific content matter.  Topics are also broken down by category: animations, primary documents, photos and more.  Everything is organized well and the links to more and more resources seems endless.  A great free resource for teachers.

Literature Games

Scholastic Kids is a great website that combines technology with literature.  This site is a good resources for language art teachers.  It gets students involved with the characters on a different level than the simple imagination of a person reading a novel. Some of the games are just for fun but some are also informative and teach good lessons.  I also found a great game about the challenges of being the president for my curriculum class assignment.  

Please sir, I want s'mores

Amber and I are planning to make a how to presentation on building the most delicious fire-side treat we could think of...s'mores.

1. Whittle a stick
2. Collect fire wood
3. Build a fire
4. Get graham crackers and chocolate
5. Roast the marshmallows
6. Combine the ingredients
7. Wash hands
8. Put out the fire

Background music could be fire crackling

GeoGebra is a geometry teacher's lifeline. This free software is available for both the student and teacher of goemetry lesssons. Not only are there tools to build, measure and compare shapes but there are also great options for sharing projects. Teahcers can create assignments online that students can access in the library or where ever they chose to do theit studying. To take the networking a step further there are GeoGebra institutes to link local users into communities.

The event calander lists workshops and classes in various locations users are welcome to attend. The services provided on this site seem to be endless.

Coursera

Coursera is free an online learning center for continuing education in various fields.  Most courses consist of online lectures, assignments, and quizzes and last several weeks.  Leading universities like Princeton, Stanford and the University of Michigan all sponsor courses on this site. This is more of a tool for the teacher to expand their content knowledge skill then for the students themselves.

Check out the link above if you are even slightly interested in explore this site more because once you click the link you will likely want to register for everything.