Foreign Language

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…

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…

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

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…

Spread Great Educators’ Great Ideas

November 16, 2012

TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. TED-Ed’s videos aim to capture and amplify the voices of the world’s greatest educators. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. The “Flip This Video” button allows you to turn any useful educational video, not just TED’s, into a customized lesson that can be assigned to students or shared more widely. You can add context, questions and follow-up suggestions. You can distribute your…

Turn Outlines into Mind Maps

November 1, 2012

Text 2 Mind Map offers a way for users to turn typed outlines into mind maps. To create a mind map, users type an outline in the textbox and then click “Draw Mind Map” to create their map. If, after creating the mind map, they need to add more elements, users just add the information in their outline and click “Draw Mind Map” again. The mind map can be downloaded as a PDF or PNG file. The map can also be shared via email, Facebook or Twitter. Click Here to Access Free Online Mapping Tool This information is provided as…

Connect with a Virtual Volunteer

November 1, 2012

Digital Wish, the nonprofit technology-integration organization, now offers Virtual Volunteers, a new service on its website that allows teachers to post classroom projects and ask for a virtual volunteer who can serve via video conference; it also allows volunteers to sign up, describe their various capabilities and volunteer to help with a class project. Throughout the school year, the organization will recruit for volunteers in corporations, entrepreneur networks and scientific associations to encourage members to help educators with their class projects. Digital Wish emails profiles of newly posted expert volunteers to teachers who are members, and volunteers will receive email newsletters…

Get the Q&A Started

November 1, 2012

What was a hot hairstyle for the founding fathers? What does the famous poem “The Raven” have in common with a scientific text about mollusks? How can you tell when the writing is on the wall? Questions like these can come alive for you and your students at the Smithsonian Institution’s Seriously Amazing website. Click Here to Visit Website This information is provided as a courtesy for BISD teachers and inclusion here does not indicate an endorsement by the district. It is important to thoroughly evaluate a website before using it with students. For help with this please contact the Learning Technologies…

Collaborate and Share Creative Ideas

October 17, 2012

iBrainstorm, a free brainstorming app for the iPad and the iPhone, allows users to record brainstorming sessions using a combination of free-hand drawings and sticky notes. Users can share and collaborate with up to four other users. Sharing notes and drawings between users in a local setting is a simple matter of “flicking” an item to another user. Click Here for More Information Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store This information is provided as a courtesy for BISD teachers and inclusion here does not indicate an endorsement by the district. It is important to thoroughly evaluate a website before using it with students. For help…

Encourage Daily Writing

October 17, 2012

The Toasted Cheese literary journal publishes daily writing prompts on a monthly calendar on its website. The whole month is laid out for teachers with a different prompt for each day. If you don’t see anything you like on the current calendar, you can click through the previous months to find old prompts. The site also hosts a Weekly Writing Chat [Sundays at 1 p.m. (ET), 10 a.m. (PT)] as well as Monthly Articles on Writing and Quarterly Writing Contests based on one or more of the prompts from the calendar. Click Here to Access Free Writing Prompts This information is provided as a courtesy for BISD teachers and inclusion…