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Tired of teaching from the text book? Having a hard time fitting environmental science instruction into the school day? Well EcoKids can change all of that!

EcoKids is a Canadian interactive website created to engage students in environmental activities. This site is full of resources for teachers such as lesson plans, printable resources, and helpful links. It even has specifically designed lessons for ESL (English as a Second Language) students using the different environmental themes. Teachers can access information on Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, Land Use, and Earth Day to initiate any environmental or science lesson, or provided a great follow up to an end-of-unit study. This site even has a Fact of the Day that teachers can use to initiate classroom discussions or writing activities about the environment. Looking for an environmental project for your classroom or school? You can visit different links on the site that show different types of environmental projects students and schools are involved in for ideas.

Students can access the site and engage in games to practice what they have learned in the different areas of Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, the North Pole, and Land Use. The games integrate the environmental themes with reading, math, science, problem solving, and social studies. Students can work on their writing skills by responding to questions posted periodically on the site, or commenting on the blog. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

EcoKids

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The summer movie season is in full swing. For a lot of your students, the last thing they’re thinking about right now is reading books. It may be too late to reach them this summer, but when they return you’ll definitely want to point them toward Digital Booktalk, a site that creates movie-style trailers for books.

Digital Booktalk was created by the University of Central Florida’s Department of Digital Media. Their goalwas to entice reluctant readers to try books they may not have given a chance because they’re, you know, books. Works like Mutiny on the Bounty look pretty action-packed in trailer form, even by today’s standards. Want some intrigue? Have a look at the trailer for Counterfeit Son.

If you want to do a class project, or if some students need a little nudge to get involved in your discussion of MacBeth, Digital Booktalk also accepts student-produced trailers (you may want to read up on producing videos for class first).

Though you and I still love a good book, movies have become our culture’s entertainment medium of record. With Digital Booktalk you can bridge the gap between the page and the silver screen. -BILL FERRIS

Digital Booktalk

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Web English Teacher presents this list of travel-based books and their accompanying lesson plans. Most of it is perfect (and required) summer reading and includes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness, among others. The selection of lesson plans for each travel tale contain links to outside sources, including writer biographies, vocab lists and e-notes. There’s even a cool video lesson on Jack Kerouac.

The works featured here all deal with travel, so they make perfect summer excursion books. If your students are traveling, urge them to keep a diary of their own adventures, and compare those stories to the ones here. The reading levels vary from elementary to high school, so there’s something on this list for any student who wants something to read on his travels. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Web English Teacher’s Travel Lit Lesson Plans

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Read at Work is deceptive, underhanded and sneaky. Fortunately, its also very educational and fun. Designed to look and act like a Windows desktop, this application goes widescreen and mimics everything on a normal desktop, and presents folders containing various short stories, poems, and classic works. The fun comes in when you click on one of the titles and a fake PowerPoint presentation pops up. The original texts are placed in various blocks of graphs, bulleted lists and charts for your reading pleasure.

It appears that the application was developed by bibliophiles at the NZ Book Council who had no time to read classic works of literature at their desks. Nonetheless, it’s well constructed and an interesting way to read literature. If anything, you might be able to use this to inspire your students to new ways of approaching literature. Or if you are, yourself, an overworked bibliophile desk jockey, you might like to catch up on your reading without getting caught. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Read at Work

Do your students need help pronouncing a tricky or unfamiliar word while doing research? Or are you an ESL teacher helping kids with their English pronunciation. If you use Firefox (and you definitely should), you should add the Pronounce extension. Just highlight the word that’s giving your kids trouble, right click and choose “Pronounce” from the menu. Firefox will then speak the word out loud with correct English pronunciation.

We’ve covered pronunciation tools before, such as howjsay. The Pronounce extension has a slight edge for two reasons: since it’s integrated into your browser, you don’t have to go to another website to look up the word, thereby saving you time. And second, the pronunciations come from Merriam-Webster OnLine, so you get the the definitive American pronunciation, as opposed to howjsay’s British pronunciation of words like “aluminum” or “blueberry.” -BILL FERRIS

Pronounce
Pronounce Tells You How to Say It via Lifehacker

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I have to shake my head every time I hear some Congressman arguing for cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because, “Cable TV provides plenty of early childhood educational programming.” Don’t get me wrong, my son learned a ton about inductive and deductive reasoning from watching “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer,” but for actual reading skills like letter identification, phonics and blending, Public Television is the best source of materials. I will never forget how hilarious and memorable Gawain’s Word made learning the concept of blending. But how to get these great lessons into your classroom on your time?

Enter Teachers’ Domain, a resource for teachers from WGBH in Boston. There are a number of special collections, Early Literacy (with Between the Lions), Civil Rights, and Polar Sciences. A special collection is in the Open Educational Resources which will allow you to download, share and remix. Get some of this educational video goodness and start blending up some learning in your class. -ALICE MERCER

Teachers’ Domain: Gawain’s Word: box
Teachers’ Domain: Open Educational Resources
Teachers’ Domain: Home

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12 Superfoods You Need to be Eating - If there’s anyone who loves to eat, it’s me. Unfortunately, I don’t always pay too much attention to what I am putting in my body. Lucky for me, and everyone else out there who trying to get beach ready, StartCooking.com offers this list of some of the foods you might already be eating, and some that you should start. Thankfully on the list: peanut butter. Nom.

60 Selected Best Famous Quotes - “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”—Wayne Gretzky. For this and other gems of wisdom, point your browser over to Litemind to discover some highly thought provoking quotes just in time for dinner party season. Or, I guess you can dole some out in your classroom to help you students realize how well-read you are. I’m thinking this is where I’ll go when I need something to open my first novel.

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library - I never thought I would include a blog called The Art of Manliness on a education blog, but here I am. This list isn’t exclusively for men, of course, but it does offer some great reads for those of us who don’t fancy Little Women. Maybe this list can inspire some of your guy students to want to read this summer. Not surprisingly included on the list, A Catcher in the Rye.

15 Ways to Teach Kids About Money - Most of us are pinching pennies right now, but that doesn’t mean our youngsters know what the words “recession,” “inflation,” or “insufficient funds” mean. Right now might be the best time to teach them though, according to this list from Family Education:

Help children learn the differences between needs, wants, and wishes. This will prepare them for making good spending decisions in the future.

Those are words we can probably all benefit from. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Wikis can be a useful tool in the classroom because they allow your students to not only create content, but maintain and edit it as well. With Wetpaint’s free Wiki creation tool, you can set up a specific type of wiki for whatever your subject matter might be. Students can then begin plugging in info based on your specifications. One of the most powerful aspects of creating a wiki is that they can be used for virtually any subject. If you’re reading The Sound and The Fury, students can add character descriptions, chapter and section summaries, or symbols used. If you’re an Algebra teacher, students can aggregate the wiki with their “favorite” proofs and theorems.

Wetpaint’s creation tool is simple and intuitive, and only requires a valid email address to sign up. It’s easy to set up and invite your students and set permissions on who is able to view your wiki. If you want to bridge the gap between the web and the classroom, this is a great place to start. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Wetpaint Free Wiki Websites

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Let me tell you a story. It’s about standards (like writing, and oral presentation). But it’s also about engagement, and having students create media and image-rich reports. When they get together, well that’s a love story that ends with a beautiful marriage of content, visuals and, most importantly, dear teachers, learning. Who wouldn’t want that in their class?

It’s all so easy with VoiceThread. This tool has an intuitive interface to upload, or link to images, and simple-to-use commands to add voice narration (you can do it by telephone if you don’t have a mic), and even upload video and sound files. If that’s not enough, you can add typed text, and doodle.

For examples of VoiceThread in action, take a peek at VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki. You’ll find teachers using VoiceThread for art projects, special needs education, and much more. Use VoiceThread for digital storytelling, and your class projects will all have a happy ending. -ALICE MERCER

VoiceThread
VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki

VoiceThread of this article

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We should probably notice the trend of Manga and other comic literature making its way into the hands of students everywhere, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so fast to pull it away from them. The Graphic Classroom is a blog dedicated to helping teachers and librarians find high-quality literature in the form of graphic novels and comics. There are recommendations for different grade levels, ranging from illustrated classics like Treasure Island for middle schoolers to Art Spiegelman’s astonishing graphic novel Maus for ages 15 and up.

You can search the blog for ideas of graphic literature to use in your classroom, and even find some ideas of what is not recommended. (Journey Into Mohawk Land? Yeah, probably not…) Graphic lit is a medium that is as important as any in today’s age, so it is just as important for educators to understand how to teach it. Let your students know about Free Comic Book Day, which is this Saturday May 3rd. The Graphic Classroom recommends the anthology Graphic Classics, which includes stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and Mary Shelley. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

The Graphic Classroom

I have always depended on the kindness of talking cartoon animals. Whether I learned about hibernation from Yogi Bear, or was exposed to opera by Bugs Bunny, animated animals are dependable and oft-overlooked fonts of knowledge. Why should learning to read be any different? That’s why, when teaching your elementary students their ABCs, let them have a look at Sight Words with Samson.

The Samson in question is a dog wearing a track suit who speaks with a vaguely German accent (I think - it’s hard to tell). The site lets kids play games that strengthen their word-building. After starting off by viewing a word and listening to it spoken out loud in a sentence, kids are challenged to pick the word out of a lineup, or to spell it. With practice, your students will be able to know and spell words on sight.

Sight Words with Samson also has other resources, including printable flashcards, lesson plans, and worksheets. In my opinion, though, the online word games are are your best bet. The video game factor will keep kids more interested, and Samson will hopefully open your students’ eyes to the wonderful learning possibilities of listening to talking cartoon critters. -BILL FERRIS

Sight Words with Samson

11 Odd but Simple Ways to Improve Your Health
There’s nothing like a good nasal rinse. Or how about a fast to detoxify your body? These offbeat health tips can keep your body running smoothly. After all the stress you put it through every day in class, you at least owe yourself a skin brushing.

1001 Books You Have to Read Before You Die
Need a good book to read? Check out this exhaustive (and exhausting) list of great books. You’ll find everything from Oscar Wilde to Douglas Adams, plus lots, lots, lots more. If you want to read all 1001 of these before you croak, you’d best get started soon.

George Orwell: 6 Questions/6 Rules
The author of 1984 and Animal Farm presents these rules for writers to live by. My favorite: “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” What a stupdendous idea!

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A lot of life skills don’t fall within the scope of science, math or English class. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to squeeze in some valuable real-world lessons into your teaching, though. The Positivity Blog presents this list of lessons the author had to learn the hard way. By imparting concepts like the 80/20 Rule (we get 80% of the value we receive from only 20% of the things we do) and the value of making mistakes to your students, you can help them be productive members of society.

How to Ace Your Job Interview: 88 Surefire Tips and Tricks
Your students are about to head out into the world, and that means they’re going to need to get a job soon. Make sure you pass along these tips from the Online Education Database about how to secure employment. The list addresses everything from cover letters to grooming. A lot of it seems like common knowledge, but you know people don’t make lists like these unless there were a bunch of clueless applicants out there. These tactics will give your students an advantage over the competition, and they might even come in handy for your own future job search.

Photo credit: lagiuspo on flickr.

Counting your Blessings: 5 Ways to Increase Happiness - I know that this probably doesn’t apply to you, but if you are the least bit unhappy, there might be some info here that will turn your frown upside down. Via Goodlife Zen (I know, what a wretch-worthy great title for a blog), this list will help you realize how important gratitude is in both giving and receiving.

The Top 10 Qualities Of A Good Teacher - Here’s something wonderfully relevant and perfect for you. Sure, there are probably hundreds off qualities that make a good teacher, but the blog Ripples of Improvement has boiled it down to the top 10. How many do you exhibit? (Also, surprisingly not on the list: a sense of humor. Hmm.)

100 Best First Lines from Novels - Not that I’ve read 100 novels, but someone surely has. Check out American Book Review’s list of the best of the initiations in fiction. If nothing else, these might inspire you to think of some of your own, and they might prove to be great prompts for students. Anything’s better than “It was a dark and stormy night…” (My personal fav: “All this happened, more or less.” -KV)

Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008 - Again, a very topical and appropriate list for you teachers and learners. There might not be much new on here that you aren’t already using or have at least heard of, but maybe now is the time you start to use them to your advantage. Courtesy of Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.

Alas, this might be my last MBTN for a little while, but I’m confident in my co-authors to bring you the best of the web in numbered list form at the beginning of each week. If they don’t you let me know, friends. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

(photo via: solar ikon on flickr.)

The world keeps shrinking. Online technology makes learning about other areas and cultures feasible for everyone without the hassles of obtaining a passport and figuring out exchange rates. ProjectExplorer makes the process even easier by hosting several online excursions around the globe at one website.

ProjectExplorer is a collection of virtual field trips with video, pictures, and journal entries that chronicle the adventures abroad. The site currently features trips to South Africa and Shakespeare’s England (via historical sites rather than by time machine). Each trip has multiple tour guides for each grade level (one for elementary, one for middle, one for high school, etc.), so you can be sure your students will get the information most appropriate to them.

Traveling is a wonderful way to learn about history and culture in other parts of the world. It’s also a great way to max out a credit card and miss a lot of school, so it’s nice to know sites like ProjectExplorer won’t leave your kids behind. -BILL FERRIS

ProjectExplorer

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If you’re teaching Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and you get the feeling that some of your students would rather be stranded on the island than reading about it, steer them toward the Chasing Crusoe Multimedia Project. This is a beautifully done site where you can check out facts about the marooned men who were the inspiration for Defoe’s character, watch visualizations of the construction of Crusoe’s residences on the island, play the “Marooned” trivia game, and much more.

You don’t have to be reading the book to make good use of this site. It’s completely bilingual, with text and audio, so it would be a great resource for a Spanish class (and it’s a whole lot more interesting than “Destinos”). Or, if you teach Social Studies, you might want to draw on the “Isla Mas a Tierra” section, which gives a vivid description of life on the impoverished Robinson Crusoe Island.

I know teachers are crafty as castaways, so if you think of another cool use for this site, let us know in the comments! -MARIELLE PRINCE

Chasing Crusoe

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