It being pretty early in the summer, I know you’re not really thinking about developing that perfect lesson plan. However, in mid-September, when you’re frazzled from start of school madness, parents’ night, and you realize you don’t have a lesson for tomorrow, you’ll want to refer back to this website, Science with NOAA Research.
The New York Times, on its own, is a great resource for teachers and students. But when you add a special area just for teachers, it gets even better. The Learning Network helps teachers and students wrangle the information on their site into useful content for the classroom.
The Learning Network caters to three groups: students, teachers, and parents. For students, the daily news is summarized, and there are daily features, like test-prep questions and news quizzes. For parents, there are tips on how to discuss current events with kids, and a family movie guide. The section for teachers is the most robust of the three, offering daily lesson plans throughout the school year, crossword puzzles, and even a guide to publishing a student newspaper. They’ll email the lesson plans directly to you, which might be a good way to encourage a technophobe to try out some new lesson ideas, and the archives are always available and searchable in all content areas for grades 6-12. -GRETCHEN SCHAEFER
New York Times: The Learning Network
We here at Instructify love to hear from you. Would you like to leave some feedback on this posting or just send me a message? Simple: just go up on your roof and paint your remarks in big, block letters. If you’re in a rural area, you might arrange some rocks in a field. Then in the comments section under each posting simply send us the coordinates.
Yeah, I suppose maybe you could leave the actual comments in the comments section, Captain Buzzkill. I’m just trying to get you motivated about different ways that you might possibly use Google Earth.
Maybe you might be interested in using Google Earth to explore the Civil War, look at the global diamond trade, or engage students in math and geometry by looking at different mountains’ ski slopes. Take a look at these lesson plans for Google Earth, for example. You’ll find lessons spread out across five content areas: social studies, math, science, language arts, and cross curricular. The lessons start at basic how-tos for users (which aren’t just for stinking newbies — experienced users might even find new features to investigate), then branch out into both student-controlled and teacher-controlled lessons.
The best part is that these lesson plans are already prepared for you. The file formats will vary, but now you don’t have to stay up until 1 a.m. doing prep work and planning. Who knows? This new abundance of time might afford you the chance to start a new hobby…like arranging cryptic messages for satellites to read. I’m just saying. -NICK YINGLING
Google Earth 5 adds more educational features
There are many sites and tools to enhance math instruction out there, but there’s a world of difference between a site featuring math facts on virtual flash cards, and one with tools and games that students can use to actually solve problems. Shodor’s Interactivate falls into the latter category.
Interactivate provides a variety of tools and activities to help teach math. From simple spinner applets, to sample dialog of how to teach certain concepts, it’s a great stop for math teachers both old and new. The applets aren’t flashy, but they get the point across. (And really, how many times have you seen a flashy kids’ site with absolutely no point?) Interactivate provides lesson plans as well. The lessons are aligned with standards for North Carolina, South Carolina,Tennessee, and Virginia, as well as the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). In addition to being linked to standards, Interactivate is also linked to packaged curriculums like Connected Math, MathScape, and MathThematics. All the tools you need to follow the plans are on the site. Have a student teacher this semester? Interactivate’s Lesson Plans and Discussions resources can be great training wheels for a preservice teacher.
Interactivate is free on the web, but if you have a specific need for the resources to be available offline, you can get a CD with your $25 donation to Shodor, an organization whose mission is to “improve math and science education through the effective use of modeling and simulation technologies.” It’s a good product for a worthy cause. -GRETCHEN SCHAEFER
An educational behemoth does it again. Besides excellent book and book fairs, Scholastic also offers a blog described as “a daily roundup of the best resources and activities” at What’s New @ Scholastic? Of course, they mean the best resources and activities created by Scholastic, but you could do a lot worse when looking for a new teaching strategy, lesson plan, or activity.
The site is an aggregator of resources and ideas published on the various sections of the Scholastic website. Some recent and interesting posts have been about integrating Valentine’s day into the classroom. An elementary activity involves a song and a lesson about sharing, whereas a middle school lesson involves learning (school appropriate) Valentine’s day vocabulary. Another highlight is the Top 10 Activities for February. Like any other blog, you can subscribe to it using your favorite feed reader.
While it’s obviously not as cool as Instructify (have you noticed how often this phrase is used in our posts?), by checking up on What’s New @ Scholastic, hopefully you’ll find something new, and more importantly, useful. -REBECCAH HAINES
Boost your Students’ understanding of Congress with The Communicator5 teaching blogs you should be reading
Welcome to the last week of 2008. It’s been a fun year for us here at Instructify, and we hope that 2009 brings good tidings and an onslaught of (attainable) resolutions for you and your classroom. Here are a few lists to end the year right.
77 Colorful Words - Stop trying to think of another word for “red” and just use this handy reference guide to pick the right one. Not much here except for different words for all your favorite basic colors, but there are a few activities that might be great for some simple fun around the classroom. Via TeachersDesk.org.
Archaeology’s Top 10 Finds - While most of us are content not digging in the earth for relics of history, there are many who go in search of our world’s buried treasures to discover more about the past. The real life Indiana Joneses at Archaeology Magazine have compiled their top 10 finds for 2008, and amongst the list are such wonders as the Masked Mummy and, erm, “Brown Gold” in Oregon. Check out the rest at MSNBC’s CosmicBlog.
430 Best Books of 2008 - When your students aren’t busy reading all that “required” stuff, let them know about these books, courtesy of Goodreads. The rankings are based on user votes, so social media decides who’s who in the world of lit here. Which, I guess is why it is no surprise that Stephanie Meyer holds the #1 & #2 slots for books in her Twilight series.
50 Best Websites of 2008 - Time Magazine presents this list of helpful, fun, odd, and otherwise creative websites that hit the scene in 2008. These are the best that 2008 has to offer for the World Wide Web, and cover topics ranging from finding good gas prices to peer advice to celebrity gossip. Surprisingly, Instructify didn’t make the cut this year, but there’s always a chance to make the 2009 list, right? Happy New Year, everyone. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr
Thank goodness YouTube is no longer the end-all-be-all of video uploading. There are tons of video sites out there now, and the options for educational and tutorial video hosting sites are so abundant, you might just be missing out by not exploring them.
A new player in the “tube” game is Yobler, which refers to itself as “Your Learning Tube,” which allows users to share educational videos, audios and articles with their friends. Yobler is a hub for instructional and education videos, including everything from accordion lessons to Adobe Flash tutorials. The interface is simple and similar to YouTube, with channels and the ability to search by keywords, but Yobler also provides sections for audio lessons and article sharing in addition to video. Not only can you view or listen to the educational tutorials on Yobler, you can even submit and share your own with the Yobler community.
Need to know how to do something? Want to share your knowledge? Maybe you want to create an educational video in your classroom and share it with the world?? Check out Yobler! -LAUREN FROHNE
Start A Video Conversation with Seesmic
The New Frontier of Video Sharing: Viddler
10 Virtually Instant Ways to Improve Your Life - I’m all for improving my life, but why does it have to take soooo long? Here are ten easy ways to pull yourself up by your boot straps courtesy of Stepcase Lifehack. If you find yourself wanting to change something about your life, then why not start out with the simple stuff like Don’t over-generalize and Don’t take things too personally.
12 Ways to Use Project Censored in Your Classroom - Project Censored is an intiative designed to help aggregate news stories that often go under reported. This guide offers ways teachers can educate their students in fair journalism methods and help them understand the practice and importance of research. There are in-class activities and projects on the list, so if your students are studying media and journalism, this is a good place to start them on the right path.
101 Scholarships Just For Teachers - From TeachingTips.com comes this amazing list of scholarships available for teachers working their way through college. It might be too late for most of us, but if you have some students who are interested in becoming teachers themselves, give them this list to ease college’s financial burdens. Some are region specific, so all 101 might not be completely pertinent. By the way, be sure and check out some of the other amazing lists on TeachingTips, they’ve got some great stuff there.
101 Things to Do When You’re Bored - I don’t know how anybody could possibly get bored when there are hundreds of Instructify posts to read, but if you find yourself with some idle time, then try out a few of these activities to rescue yourself from ennui. Lists Galore recommends flying a kite, starting a blog, or you know, making a list. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
Photo credit: Wetsun on Flickr
There’s a whole world down there, and you can bring it to your student engagingly and easily with Ocean Explorer from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). This site has a number of “explorations” based on actual work being done by NOAA scientists, with well-developed lesson plans (some even have adaptations for teaching deaf students). You can pick a lesson by subject, or by a specific exploration project. All lessons are correlated to national science standards.
An example is the lesson on the January 2008 Bonaire expedition in the Caribbean. The lessons offered for Grades 5-6 include one on Pi by looking at surface area, or a more language-arts-oriented lesson where students design a public information campaign to save coral reefs.
Included below is a link to a video from Dr. Robert Ballard, famous ocean explorer and NOAA scientist. The video explains the motivation behind the Jason project and this site which is to publicize ocean exploration, and to engage and educate the next generation of oceanographers. -ALICE MERCER
NOAA Ocean Explorer
TED | Talks | Robert Ballard: Exploring the ocean’s hidden worlds (video)
Related Stuff:
Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Briny Deep? Monsters of the Deep Sea
Talk About the Weather Without Being Boring: NOAA Education
Foragin’ for the Species: Catalogue all Life on Earth with the Encyclopedia of Life
Photo Credit: Ocean Blue by Micah A. Ponce
50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do - Do you know how to build a fire? How about CPR, do you know it? Or give directions? All of these things are essential life skills that you should know if you don’t already. This list from Marc and Angel covers everything from swimming to changing a tire in order for you to be more self-reliant.
6 Things Money Cannot Help You Achieve - Even Bill Gates and Steve Jobs still have to deal with the same time that you and I do, even if they could buy and sell you and me in a heartbeat. Surely there are other things than the ones presented on this list by Dumb Little Man, but these 6 make good sense. Money can’t buy you self-esteem, unfortunately, nor will it buy happiness.
52 Character Building Thoughts for Children - These might not be great tips for your older students, but the elementary crowd could really benefit from them. Leah Davies, M. Ed. brings us these great quotes on KellyBear.com. There are some real gems here, like this: When I am sad, I help myself feel better by thinking of things that are good in my life.
9 Ways to Save At The Movies - I know this isn’t completely related to teaching, but since school is out for most of us, we might have some more free time on our hands. Unfortunately, free time allows you to spend more money. If you plan to see any of the awesome, or not awesome movies this summer, here are some ways you can save from The Consumerist. My favorite on the list: Be careful with the concessions. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
(photo by Jo Jakeman on Flickr)
Just as I was thinking
Is it April already?
It is is almost not April
anymore. In fact,
I feel
horrible
because April is
National Poetry Month
after all, and we have
hardly
taken notice of it.
Here are a few websites
that you might enjoy–
that your students
will surely appreciate,
like the taste of blackberries–
or perhaps something less tart
like mango
or peaches.
Scholastic Celebrates National Poetry Month - Find some great activities and projects for students to work on. Includes tips and inspirational readings from notables such as Jack Prelutsky and Maya Angelou.
Shel Silverstein.com - Everyone’s favorite fantastical poet and artist has a great Flash-based site with activities for the young ones and plenty of ideas for poetry projects in the classroom.
PoetryTeachers.com - This site claims to be the “#1 Site For Poetry Teachers on the Web”. They do, in fact have some great tools and activities to get your class reading and writing poetry.
PoetryPoetry.com - Sometimes you have to hear a poem read aloud in order to really cherish it. PoetryPoetry presents this great database of audio files of poets reading their poetry. “The Vault” contains such notables as Robert Bly, David Hernandez, and many other readers and features. the rest of the site also has poetry writing tips and exercises.
Shadow Poetry.com - This site offers a way to connect with other poets around the world through a member based community message board. The site also offers support and resources for poets including contests, chapbook publishing information and an array of books and magazines to check out.
AllPoetry.com - Another online community of poets, this site offers the ability for poets to get feedback and take free online writing courses.
FavoritePoem.com - We’ve written about this one before, but it seemed appropriate for this post, too. Enjoy Americans reading their favorite poems and explaining why the words mean so much to them.
With a seemingly endless number of resources on the web for poetry, this list is only a smidgen of what is available to you and your students. If you have ideas of activities or resources you’d like to share, we’d love to hear how you’re enjoying National Poetry Month. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
(photo credit: kk+ on Flickr.)
It’s hard to believe sometimes that America’s Civil War was less than 200 years ago, and how far we have come since then. Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of this war was that it was well documented, perhaps one of the first wars to have so many forms of media available to capture it. The Valley Project has collected and electronically reproduced that media in an online archive that includes images, letters, maps, soldiers’ records, and official documents.
There is more content here than you might ever need, but when it comes to Civil War resources, this collection is tops. The site itself is easy to browse or search, so if there is something specific you might be looking for, you’re bound to find it here. Courtesy of University of Virginia’s Virginia Center for Digital History, so be sure your students cite them for any research they might do. Whether you’re a American History teacher or not, this site could be useful to help students understand first-hand what America experienced not so long ago. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
Give your foreign language students some extra ammunition. No, I don’t mean teach them obscure French curse words. I’m talking about powerful lessons and practice that can supplement the great stuff you’re already teaching in class. They can get it with LingQ.
LingQ lets students sign up for free lessons in the language of their choice (language include Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish). If you’re teaching ESL, they can also study English (or any other language) in their native tongue. In the assignments, if they see a word they don’t know, they can highlight it and hit the LingQ button. LingQ will define it and create a flashcard for later review.
Students will also get a progress snapshot, which keeps track of benchmarks like how many words they’ve learned, the number of hours spent listening to lessons or speaking, etc. They’ll also get a list of Priority LingQs, which are the 25 most important words they should learn at whatever skill level they’re at. Students can review Priority LingQs by clicking on the the word to view the definition, or display them as flash cards.The free account lets students have five active assignments at any given time.
You can pay extra for more active assignments at once, plus points you can use for personal tutoring, though if they heard about LingQ from you, they’ve already got a live-and-in-person language guru. Still, students can get an awful lot of LingQ for free. The only place with more free knowledge is in your classroom -BILL FERRIS
Related Stuff:
Mango: Rhymes with Lingo (Sort Of)
Q’est Que C’est LiveMocha
¿Como se dice Podcast? ESL Pod
Escuchen la One Semester of Spanish Love Song
Not indicative of its title, Worsely School in Canada has an impressive array of resources available to K - 12 Educators here. There are games, tools, and plans aplenty, so you might kill some time just exploring the site. There’s the usual suspects as far as content is concerned — math, science, English, and some areas where you can request the things you’d like to see covered. The site is designed nicely, with intuitive controls, yet lots of pages to click through. However, the resources themselves are incredibly detailed, and have a lot of great visual accompaniment to help you see what they mean.
The Worsely School might not be much different than your own (though it might already have the funding you need to get something like this going– who knows?), so what can you do to make your school as full of resources and materials to share with other teachers worldwide? Public education is truly the “village” that raises our children in today’s times, so its up to us to share and inspire others who share our craft. Let us know in the comments what ideas you’ve had to broaden the educational spectrum. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
5000+ Resources to Do Just About Anything Online - If you have time to look through everything on this list, congratulations. Otherwise, check out Mashable’s list of resources by their categories, which encompass everything from Podcasting to Life Tools. There’s really no reason to explore all 5000+ tools here, but with that many, you’re bound to find something useful.
100 Best Books (For Kids) - TeachersFirst.com gives us this great list of essential books for your young students. Selected by the National Education Association in 1999 - these books are all classics and should be read and reread. Looking through this list is like a virtual window to what made me interested in reading in the first place - Madeline L’Engle, my heart still belongs to you.
35 Chocolate Activities from Becky Settlemoir and Friends! - I don’t know who the heck Becky Settlemoir is, but I like her list. Education World delivers 35 cocoa-licious and educational activities here, but the list might just inspire you to think of some of your own. One of my personal favorites: making chocolate disappear. Nom nom nom…
20 Things I’m Glad Life Taught Me - I’m starting to think DumbLittleMan isn’t so dumb after all. In fact, the musings shared in this article are some great inspirational tactics that might help you keep your life on track, or at least get it back to a place that you feel comfortable and confident. Pass this info along to your students, they’ll thank you for it. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
(photo credit: Robbie1 on Flickr)
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