teachingresources

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This page is devoted to providing links to helpful online resources for teachers as they plan to integrate technology into their teaching. There are also links to resources that are more focused on specific content areas and may or may not include the use of technology. If you have a particular site that you like please let me know and I'll add it. You can also find a variety of lesson plans within this Wiki by looking through the individual lesson plan pages shown below. You will also find tools that might be helpful in the specific content areas.
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Language Arts

 * [|Into the Book]This site is great for learning about the many different reading strategies.
 * [|Starfall] This site has a lot of learning activities for beginning readers. Students can listen to stories to learn vowel and consonant sounds, practice their ABC's and lots more.
 * [|BookPALS Storyline] This site has a variety of popular children's books read by different actors that students can listen to. It's a great way to provide students with a chance to be read to by many different people.
 * Storynory has a large collection of free audio books that you can download and use with students. Don't expect to find the latest authors here though. The collection is full of classics like Cinderella and other fairy tales as well as many other stories.
 * Awesome Stories is a site with a large collection of search-able stories on a wide range of topics. The stories are integrated with audio, video, images and other multimedia elements to help engage students and support their reading and learning.
 * [|Dance Mat Typing] This is a fun way to learn how to type correctly on a keyboard.
 * [|Critter Jumble] This game helps you practice spelling different words.
 * [|Voice Thread] This is a great tool to use to create collaborative reading and writing projects and much more.
 * [|Kerpoof] Kids can create and share online stories, greeting cards, pictures and even animated movies with this tool.
 * Comiqs This site allows you to create your own comics using either your own photos or the clipart and images provided on the site.
 * [|SillyBooks] Students can upload their own writing to this site and read stories uploaded by other students as well. Each month a student story is selected and then turned into an animated movie and featured on the site.
 * Pinky Dinky Doo is, as implied by the fanciful name, for younger students. The site has a variety of games, podcasts and other resources to help support emergent readers and writers.
 * [|Big Universe] This site allows students to create their own online picture books as well as explore books that have been created by other users. You can embed your finished products in different websites and blogs once you are finished.
 * Myths and Legends is a great tool to use to support students as they write, well...myths and legends. Students can use the collection of graphics and images to create scenes for their stories. You can even upload audio files to enhance your writing. Stories are then displayed as slideshows for others to view online.
 * [|Tikatok] is another tool that allows you to write, publish and embed your on book online. You can also order a print copy of your book for a price.
 * [|Lulu] is another online publishing tool with an interesting twist. This site allows you to upload your story or book and then sell it either as a printed book that people order or as a download. They set the publishing price and you decide how much above that price you want to charge. You can actually make money by publishing your writing!
 * ePub Bud is an e-book publishing tool that allows you to create your own e-book to be read and downloaded by others. You can upload your own images and use their text editor to write your book. They also have a large collection of eBooks for children that can be downloaded for free.
 * [|Shelfari] This site allows you to create a virtual bookshelf where you can keep a list of recommended books for others to see. You can see what other people are reading and recommending as well.
 * [|myWebspiration] is an online version of the popular [|Inspiration] tool. The one big difference with this online version is that you can easily collaborate with others to create maps and other graphic organizers.
 * [|Scholastic Story Starters] is a tool designed for 1st-4th grade students to help generate ideas for stories and guide them in their writing.
 * You just can't beat the [|School House Rock video library] when it comes to finding ways to reinforce concepts from across the curriculum.
 * [|SpellingCity] allows you to create your own list of spelling words for your students to use to test and prepare for the ever popular spelling test...or celebration that takes place in elementary classrooms across the country each Friday.
 * [|Roy the Zebra] has a variety of interactive games to help kids learn and practice reading and writing skills.
 * [|Pikikids] is one of the many online cartoon/comic strip creation tools that students can use to make their own comic strips about a wide range of topics.
 * [|PBS KIDS Island] is a great tool for helping kids practice different reading skills. Kids get to play a variety of games that feature different PBS characters and you can even track their progress to see what they have accomplished.
 * Pixton is another comic creation tool that has a version specifically for schools that allows you to set-up your own classroom and have control over student accounts. There is a fee for a school license ($1 per user currently) but you can purchase a license for just one month, use it in the classroom, and then not renew the license until you need it again.
 * Ironic Sans is the self-proclaimed "shorter thesaurus". It allows you type in a "long" word and gives you a list of shorter alternatives making it useful for students who may be struggling with larger vocabulary in a piece of reading.
 * PicLits is a simple tool that allows you to pick an image from their extensive library of high-quality pictures and then write a caption or title overlay on the image. There is even an option to drag and drop words from lists categorized by type of speech as a way to support students in their use of descriptive language.
 * Conjugation.com allows you to select any verb and see the many different ways it would be conjugated.

Math

 * [|Crack Hacker's Safe] In this game you have to find the pattern to open the safe.
 * [|Test the Toad] This is a fun adding game.
 * [|Spacey Math] In this game you have to solve the math problem in order to keep the alien spaceship from attacking.
 * [|Tangrams] This site has different tangram puzzles that you have to solve.
 * [|Buzzing With Shapes] This game is like Tic Tac Toe but you have to identify shapes to make 4 in a row. It works best to play with a partner.
 * [|Counting Money] This site will help you practice counting money.
 * [|Money Practice] In this game you drag coins to a cup to equal the amount shown.
 * [|Math TV] is a series of videos each of which first presents a problem and then goes through the process of solving that problem.
 * [|HippoCampus] has a great selection of resources for math, science and social studies that are geared towards middle and high school students. The material is arranged much like a multimedia textbook with narrative videos, timelines, images and more.
 * [|Math Arcade] from the [|Fun Brain] site is a nice collection of math games for 1st-8th graders.
 * Lure of the Labyrinth is a "quest" type immersive game that is designed around a middle school algebra curriculum. Students have to complete different tasks as they move through the game and these tasks and challenges all reinforce the algebraic concepts they need to learn.
 * The Real World Math site has several great ideas for using Google Earth to teach math.
 * Mathway is a math problem solving tool that allows you to enter a problem and then see both the answer and how it is solved. You do need an account in order to see the steps in the solution, but the account is free.
 * Fantastic Contraption is multilevel tool that helps students learn about basic principals of physics. At each level you are given the task of moving an object a certain distance by using the available tools.

Science

 * [|EdHeads Simple Machines]This is a great site to help kids learn about simple machines and be able to identify simple machines in everyday life.
 * Here is a link to a site that provides a panoramic view of the moon along with audio clips from the real astronauts as they toured the moon's surface. http://www.fullscreenqtvr.com/moon/
 * [|Google Moon] is much like Google Earth but it provides images of the moon instead. You can find information about the different Apollo missions that landed on the moon and see pictures that were taken during those missions.
 * The [|Volcano Explorer] allows you to learn more about volcanoes by creating your own volcano and watching it erupt.
 * [|This site] has an interactive diagram of the rock cycle that you can use to learn more about the different types of rocks and how they are formed.
 * [|Geo Mysteries] has some neat scientific mysteries for kids to solve that include animations, photos, explanations and more. Check it out and see if you can help Rex the Dino solve some mysteries.
 * The [|Solids and Liquids Module] provides you with the chance to see what happens to different objects when you heat them up and cool them down.
 * [|Click here] to see a variety of cartoon animations that help to explain solids, liquids and gases and their different properties.
 * [|Build Your Wild Self] is a great site to help students learn more about different types of animals and their various characteristics. Students can design their own animal and even download an image of it to their computer.
 * [|ARKive Education] provides access to a wide range of modules on different science related topics. Each module contains images and videos pertaining to the targeted topic or concept. The modules download as complete Power Point files that you can use and modify as needed.
 * [|TestToob] is a [|YouTube] style site that is focused on student created science videos. Students can upload their videos, watch and comment on the videos of others and even enter contests with their videos. The site is monitored for appropriate content.
 * [|Fantastic Contraption] is a great tool to use to help middle school students better understand physics. You use a variety of tools to build different contraptions in order to accomplish a pre-determined task.
 * [|HippoCampus] has a great selection of resources for math, science and social studies that are geared towards middle and high school students. The material is arranged much like a multimedia textbook with narrative videos, timelines, images and more.
 * Games for Science is a virtual world dedicated to science. It has different islands students can explore to learn about a variety of different science topics and concepts. You can explore as a Tourist but to get full use out of the site you need to sign-up for an account.
 * The Carbon Cycle Game is a simulation that allows students to become a Carbon atom in order to travel through the entire Carbon cycle and see where Carbon is stored in our environment and atmosphere.
 * Science.Bob has a large collection of science-related resources including videos, experiments, science fair ideas and research help.
 * Pollen Park is an interactive site that teaches students about how flowers and plants reproduce through the spreading and distribution of pollen.

Social Studies

 * [|Virtual Earth] is an alternative to [|Google Earth] that doesn't need to be downloaded but still allows you to do many of the same things such as search for different locations and view them as a map or satellite image.
 * [|TerraClues] is a tool you can use to create geography-based quizzes or scavenger hunts for students. You can create clues and tag the answers to different locations on the map or even have students create their own maps.
 * [|Mapwing] can be used to create virtual tours of different geographical or physical locations. You can upload your own images to use in a tour add comments at each stop of the tour and much more.
 * [|Dipity] is another online timeline creation tool where you can include images, videos and text in your timeline. You are also able to embed your finished timeline and share authorship with others so that they can add events to is as well.
 * [|AllofMe] is one more timeline tool to check out.
 * [|ILike2Learn] provides many different map and geography based quizzes that you can use with students.
 * This [|Lewis and Clark] simulation allows students to travel along the same trail with the famous explorers and learn about their trip.
 * [|MapVivo] allows you to create your own online travel journal complete with images and embedded videos. You can plot your route across the map and create a trip representing all sorts of journeys.
 * [|HippoCampus] has a great selection of resources for math, science and social studies that are geared towards middle and high school students. The material is arranged much like a multimedia textbook with narrative videos, timelines, images and more.
 * TimeSpace allows you to view news stories, videos, articles and images tagged to the geographic location where they are taking place.
 * The National Archives Experience is a digital vault of over a thousand primary source documents and images that users can search and then use to assemble a poster or movie directly through the site.
 * Primary Access is similar to the archives experience in that students have access to a variety of primary source artifacts that they can assemble into a basic, online video.

**Resources for Technology Integration**
Here are some sites you may want to check out for ideas on integrating technology in the classroom.
 * [|Kathy Schrock] has a great list of resources for teaching with technology as well as the other content areas.
 * [|Blue Web'N] has several hundred links to resources for teaching with technology, lesson plans, curriculum projects and much more.
 * The Apple Learning Interchange has a list of projects and lesson plans for using technology that mostly involve the use of Apple software and hardware. Most projects could be adapted for use with non-Apple products.
 * [|Microsoft] has it's own list of lesson plans and project ideas that (surprise, surprise) feature the use of Microsoft products. Like the Apple lesson plans, most of these projects can be modified for use with other similar software.
 * [|Internet4Classrooms] has a variety of links to sites with lesson plan ideas. Some of the sites feature technology-enhanced lessons and others have more traditional lesson plans.
 * [|Google Lit Trips] is a clever way to make use of Google Earth while reading different novels. The selection of novels is limited but it's worth a look to get some ideas.

Resources for Lesson Planning
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 * [|goENC] has a searchable list of resources for teaching math and science across all grade levels.
 * [|The Discovery Channel] has a large selection of lesson plans to search through and review.
 * [|Gateway to the 21st Century] is the product of the NEA and several state affiliates. It includes a wide range of online resources for lesson planning and instruction.