ELA (6-12)

Trace Space Back To You

December 5, 2012

NASA @ Home and City is a virtual tour of NASA-related science that is everywhere we look. Students visiting NASA @ Home and City can rotate buildings and take a look inside to discover everyday items, the development of which has been influenced by space exploration. Each item within a building has a narrated explanation of how that item was influenced by NASA technology. For example, students can take a look inside the bathroom of a house to learn how technology used at NASA has had an impact on the development of cosmetics and toothpaste. Click Here to Visit Website This information…

Turn a Book into a Digital Classroom

December 5, 2012

Subtext is a free iPad app that allows classroom groups to exchange ideas in the pages of digital texts. When you and your students annotate a book or a document in Subtext, notes are linked to a specific passage, so there’s a built-in emphasis on the source text and close reading. In addition, Subtext allows you to layer all types of web content over texts—videos, photographs and links to articles, blog posts, maps and even locations on Google Street View. Immediate access to a variety of related information encourages students to compare and contrast different media and creates a more complete picture of a…

Trace the Origins of Aphorisms

December 5, 2012

Aesop’s Fables—also called “the Aesopica”—are a collection of stories intended to teach moral lessons. The stories are credited to Aesop, a Greek slave and storyteller thought to have lived between 620 and 560 BCE. The Aesop’s Fables interactive book, presented by the Library of Congress, was adapted fromThe Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter, published by Rand, McNally & Co. in 1919. The interactive book contains more than 140 classic fables, accompanied by charming illustrations and interactive animations: a choosy heron eyes the fish swimming at his feet, a fox swishes his tail, a mouse chews a rope and frees a lion.…

Help Students Become Better Searchers

December 5, 2012

Google has created a series of lessons to help teachers guide their students to use web searches meaningfully in their schoolwork and beyond. Google Search Education provides free Search Literacy Lesson Plans and “A Google a Day” Challenges. The search literacy lessons help teachers meet the new Common Core State Standards and are grouped based on level of search expertise: Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. “A Google a Day” Challenges help students put their search skills to the test as they use technology to discover the world around them. The challenges are organized into the following categories: Culture, Geography, History, Science. Click Here to Access Free Search Resources…

Open a Book and Drive for 10

December 5, 2012

The Fast Break for Reading campaign is a joint initiative between the International Reading Association(IRA), the American Basketball Association (ABA) and classroom teachers nationwide to encourage students to read for 10 minutes a day, with a goal of a million minutes read nationwide by the conclusion of the program. After you sign up for the program, you can download the official Program Reading Log and Certificate of Participation. Photocopy and distribute the logs to your students, who will record their minutes. At the end of each month, collect the logs from your students, tally the total minutes for that month and submit your students’ reading “tally” for…

Examine How We Use Words

November 16, 2012

A Way with Words is an upbeat and lively hour-long public radio show about language examined through history, culture and family. Cohosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett talk with callers from around the world about slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well. They settle disputes, play word quizzes and discuss language news and controversies. You’ll hear conversation about new words from pop culture, sports, science, music and art; the language of current events; political jargon and other words in the headlines; the latest language breakthroughs; family expressions and linguistic heirlooms—old-fashioned things your grandparents and parents may have…

Get Students Excited About Reading

November 16, 2012

Tales2Go is an award-winning children’s audiobook service that works like Pandora, giving educators and students instant and unlimited access to thousands of name-brand titles from leading publishers to play on desktops, laptops and Apple mobile devices—in the classroom and beyond. Use the audiobooks with individual students or in groups, in conjunction with printed text or for some fun listening. Click Here to Start a Free 30-Day Trial

Create Meaningful Learning Experiences with Mobile Devices

November 16, 2012

Mobile Learning Reflections is a free ebook intended for anyone interested in using mobile devices as instructional tools. The 80-page ebook is full of detailed examples of leveraging mobile devices to create meaningful learning experiences for students. You can read the ebook online or download a free copy for yourself from this Issuu website. Click Here to Visit Website Click Here to Download Free Ebook

Subject Text and Images to “Close Reading”

November 16, 2012

America in Class (AIC) Lessons, from the National Humanities Center, are tailored to meet the Common Core State Standards. The lessons present challenging primary resources in a classroom-ready format, with background information and analytical strategies that enable teachers and students to subject texts and images to the close reading called for in the standards. Each AIC lesson is built around a framing question, an essential understanding and a single primary resource or a small manageable set of resources. A background note illuminates and contextualizes the material, and another note offers teaching advice. Each lesson culminates with key passages and analytical questionsthrough which teachers can lead students to the essential understanding, and…

Create a Multimedia Canvas

November 16, 2012

Edcanvas is a free web tool that allows teachers to create multimedia-rich lessons and share them with their students. These lessons may include YouTube videos, slides, files, text and images that you can download either from the web or from your computer. To start creating your lesson on Edcanvas, you will need to sign up for a free account. You can also use your Google account or Facebook account to sign in. Once logged in, click on “create a new canvas”; a short video will show you how to create your first canvas. With Edcanvas, you have the ability to arrange all lesson items in one board that…