NOVA Online: Teachers

Need a good resource for science, math and history? Wander over to NOVA Online: Teachers. This a free resource tied to standards and includes downloadable video, audio, flash interactives, and teacher guides. You can browse by subject or check out the 'Watch, Interact, Explore' section.

Project Vote Smart

It is, once again, voting season. Sign wavers are on street corners, smiling and trying to entice your vote. Everyone's candidate is the best candidate, apparently. So how can voters make an informed decision? There are quite a few resources that do their best to keep voters informed but, today, I will highlight only one - Project Vote Smart. This site contains information for voters on political leaders, their positions on issues, and campaign finance. It also has a special section for teachers, with lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school. The lessons use the Project Vote Smart website to help students explore the politicians of their state and what they stand for. This is a great site, not only to teach students about voting and their representatives, but for adults who want to get an unbiased comparison of the candidates.

A wonderful place to...

Back in January, I recommended the website for The Exploratorium and talked about it in a broad sense. Today, I want to focus in on the site's Explore page. There's so much on this page, I don't know where to begin...
Let's start with the hands-on activities. Students can learn about seasons and shadows using a basketball and paperclips, make a noisemaker called a sound sandwich , build a solar system , make a telescope ... and that's just a few examples.
Interactive activities include viewing the night sky , the secret life of flowers , and an investigation of what makes animals (and other things) cute.
All of the above come from a multitude of pages and websites they have created. At this writing, there are 523 Things to Make and Do and 146 websites. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you could probably use this site with the entire year of your science curriculum. If you haven't explored this site yet, please make time to do so. You won't regret it!

Constitution Day

First, let me apologize for not posting all summer. Did you even miss me or were you out having too much fun? I didn't mean to take a vacation from posting... it just happened. But I'm back at it and hope to be more consistent with my postings this school year.

Constitution Day occurs shortly after the beginning of the school year so it probably gets overlooked amidst the chaos. But, for those of you who are interested, there is a free live Webcast (brought to you by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt & HISTORY™ ) on Friday, September 17, 2010. According to the information I have received, it will be a 45-minute program featuring "leaders from government, news, and entertainment". Houghton Mifflin Harcourt & HISTORY™ will also provide primary source documents, activities, and other curriculum resources online to help you prepare for and follow up the Webcast. To see further information and/or register, please click here.

Hope you had a great summer!

Civics

Now that the school year is just about over it is time to start thinking about the Fall, right? Well, here's a little something to get you started.

It can difficult to find material on civics topics that is interesting to the students. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s “iCivics Project” has done a wonderful job of producing reliable information in a way that is engaging to students. The site contains games to help introduce students to the Separation of powers, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Branch. I actually started playing Do I Have A Right? where I got to run my own law firm and deal with Constitutional issues. Pretty cool, huh? The teachers section is arranged by curriculum topic with interactive webquests and lessons that provide everything you need to teach your students.

And don't forget that Constitution Day is Friday, September 17. Visit Sunnylands Classroom to register for free Constitution Day 2010 resources. According to a promotional email I received from annenbergclassroom.org, 2010 resources will include:

Several films:
A Fair and Impartial Jury: Jury Selection – Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company (mailed only to those who sign up by September 3rd)
A Conversation on the Constitution with Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy: The Right to an Impartial Trial by Jury

And many interactive educational games on the Constitution:
The Bill of Rights
Being John Marshall
Branches of Power*
LawCraft*
Executive Command*
Court Quest*

* produced in partnership with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s “iCivics Project”.

So get a jump on the new school year and check these out.

Children's Book Week 2010

Children's Book Week is May 10th-16th. Here are a few good resources for finding good books.

As a parent and a former school librarian, I really love ABookAndAHug.com by Barb Langridge. Barb has been a bookseller, children's book specialist at a public library, and has a cable television show in Baltimore for which she interviews children's and young adult authors and illustrators. Her website truly reflects her understanding of children's books and how important it is to connect the right books to the right children. Her booklists are easily browsed or searched and I especially like that she has tagged books for boys, girls, reluctant readers, and "middle reader - careful content". Middle reader - careful content are books for children ages 8-11 who read above level and aren't ready for more mature subject matter. We have all had difficulty finding books for this group! An added bonus are the links to her interviews with authors/illustrators on the Books Alive! page.

Some other great resources to check out are the seven "editorial websites" from the Book Report Network. Here are brief decriptions of what they have to offer.

• Graphic Novel Reporter - Learn about it, read reviews, see whats up and coming. Covers graphic novels for kids through adults.


• Teen Reads - Set up for teens to share information about their favorite books and authors.


• Kids Reads - Intended to share information with kids about their favorite books and authors but I personally feel that it is more appropriate for parents, teachers, and librarians.


• Book Reporter - Reviews and book suggestions for the adult reader.


• Reading Group Guides - Need a guide for your book group? Here's the perfect place to start looking. There are over 3,000 guides to choose from.


• Author Yellow Pages - A searchable directory of author websites. There's also a list of author newsletters you can sign up for.


• Faithful Reader - Need to add to your Christian fiction and non-fiction collections? This site's for you. Lots of lists and reviews.

I hope these sites are as helpful and interesting to you as they are to me. Happy Children's Book Week!

Visuwords™ Online Graphical Dictionary

Looking for a new way to teach students about word meanings and associations? Check out Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary . Type in a word, hit enter and get a diagram showing word associations. The user can then interact with the diagram - zoom in, shift the model around, grab a node to clarify connections, hover over a node to get the exact definition of that word. Use it as a dictionary. Use it as a thesaurus! Just play and learn! It's pretty cool.

I'd love to hear from you if you can think of specific activities for your students with this resource.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology - NestCams

Spring has sprung and it is a great time to introduce students to the wonders of nature. The NestCams provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology gives students the opportunity to view birds courting, mating, laying eggs, and raising young. There are live cams that students can access to watch the nesting cycles of various birds around the country. And since the lab has been filming these nesting attempts since 2000, there are many to choose from in the archives.

Students can also participate in CamClickr, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology citizen science project, by becoming a Bird Sleuth. They can sort and tag NestCam images while learning about bird behavior. Instructors can download free lessons to help their students use CamClickr. There are also Bird Sleuth lessons that you can purchase but they are pretty expensive.

If you want to learn more about birds and birding, visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds.

Census in Schools

Want to teach your students about the Census?

Census in Schools is a website designed to help students learn why the Census is important. There are lesson plans and other teaching material for teachers, fun activities for kids in grades K-5, and activities to teach kids in grades 6-12 about how the census "affects [their] world. "

Women Working, 1800-1930

The Harvard University Library has a wonderful collection focusing on women's role in the United States economy. With 500,000 digitized pages and images, Women Working, 1800-1930 can be browsed by genre (e.g. books, photographs, diaries - what I would call format) and subject. Terms and phrases can be searched in the catalog or the full text transcriptions of the digitized material.

The Teacher Resources section brings together primary resource materials organized into selected themes taught in social studies. Each theme contains featered sources with links to resources to explore further.

But my favorite part of this site is the Today's Diary Entries - selected diaries are opened to the current day's date for your reading pleasure. You can also page through the diaries if you don't want to wait.

A nice site for the study of Women's History or just to browse for fun. Who wouldn't enjoy reading The American frugal housewife : dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy (1835) by Mrs. Child (Lydia Maria, not Julia).

American President : An Online Reference Resource

American President is brought to you by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Featuring essays about each President, it also provides information about the First Ladies and each President's cabinet members. The site lists the Presidents by era - from the Early Republic to today's era of Globalization. Each Presidential page contains quick facts and links to more in-depth information (e.g. Life before the presidency, Domestic Affairs, Impact and Legacy, Key Events). These informational essays are vetted by scholars/presidential experts.

Speeches are available in the Presidential Speech Archive where you can view text versions of all the speeches. Many later speeches are available in audio and video formats, as well.

The Multimedia Archive boasts over 4,000 hours of audio and video. The contents of this archive can be browsed or searched by keyword with filters for date and type of material. There is also a new Multimedia Gallery that can be searched by keyword or browsed by President, Era, or Topic. This appears to contain only photographs so I'm not sure where the multimedia part comes in. Maybe they will add other media types later. Or possibly they consider it multimedia because the picture gets larger when you click on it and a caption appears? That's probably the only thing about this site I wasn't that impressed with.

Want to find out what presidential events occurred during any given month. Go to the Archive of Events. Click on your month of choice and you will find a treasure trove of events throughout U.S. History and an essay about each.

But wait, there's more! I can not fail to mention the Presidential Oral History project which currently has oral histories of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. See what they and their colleagues have to say about their presidencies.

Last, but not least, are the Presidential Recordings. You know... all those secret recordings of their meetings and telephone conversations. The recordings have been organized by topic and, through the Presidential Recordings Program Digital Classroom Initiative, classroom activities are provided.

Is that it? Well, I think so... but I could have missed something. There's a lot of stuff on this site. Maybe you should take a look and make sure I got everything...

Award Winning Web Sites

I stumbled upon this list at pbs.org while looking for something else and wanted to share. The sites on this list "invite visitors to interact through non-linear storytelling and social issue games. Accompanying lesson plans explore the arts, culture and society."

First on the list is BEYOND THE FIRE: Teen Experiences of War recommended for grades 7-12. This site allows students to experience the life of teenage refugees through the eyes of teens who have actually experienced it. The provided lessons deal with issues of child soldiers and comparing the experiences of teen refugees. Students can sign up for a passport, collecting stamps as they visit each teen. Once the student collects all 15 stamps they can publish comments on the site.

Next is Circle of Stories which introduces students to the oral tradition of Native American storytelling. Recommended for grades 6-12, the lessons allow students to explore the Native American cultures, the issues they face today, and the importance of recording their family history.

Third is Off the Map which is all about visionary art and ten people around the world who have created their own "visionary paradise". The site gives students the opportunity to build their own "backyard paradise" online. There are five learning activities for different grade levels.

Fourth on the list is Face to Face which deals with what life has been like for Americans of Japanese, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent after the events of Pearl Harbor and September 11th. Real people tell their stories of "fear, anger, hatred, loyalty, and trust." Lesson plans are designed to give students the experience of being treated as "the enemy". Recommended for grades 6-12, this is an incredibly powerful site.

Last on the list is World Without Oil, which was originally "a realistic simulation of the first 32 weeks of a global oil shortage chronicled in 1,500 personal blog posts, videos, images and voicemails." This simulation has been used to create lesson plans for use with high school students, asking the questions “What if there was an oil shortage? Starting today? How would your life change?” There are also lessons for students to do an independent study.

Five great sites. My favorite is Face to Face. Which one is yours?

Thinkfinity

Thinkfinity is part of the Verizon Foundation's literacy, education and technology initiatives to improve student achievement. Content is provided by various partners - John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council for Economic Education, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science are just a few. The database can be searched by keyword, subject, grade level, resources type and content partners - individually or any combination of those areas.

The site is broken up into 4 tabbed resource areas - Educator, Student, Parent, and Afterschool. There are standard-based lesson plans for the educators and access to free training opportunities. The student area contains a homework help area with online maps (including an interactive map of Marco Polo's route to China and back), and a letter generator to practice letter writing skills. The parent area has resources that will help them help their children, including free online courses on selecting and sharing books with their kids. The afterschool tab showcases selected activities, organized by grade level, with descriptions and tips written especially for the afterschool educators.

Right now they are featuring lessons on Black History Month, the Olympics, and earthquake resources.

I couldn't find anything I didn't like about this site even though I was skeptical when I saw the Verizon logo - corporation sites make me suspicious. It's a highly useful site. Give it a try!

Martin Luther King, JR.

Wow, MArtin Luther King, JR. Day is just around the corner! Being out of the school system, I tend to loose track of these important dates until they are on top of me. Thanks to a local Teacher-Librarian asking about some good resources, I have been spurred to share the following:

The first resource I want to tell you about is The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. You can't really get more authoritative than this. There are some audio and video resources, teacher developed lesson plans, student resources (including an online King Encyclopedia), and transcriptions of a selection of King's sermons and speeches. I was a bit disappointed that some of the sermon and speech links led to a 'buy this book' entry. But, despite that, this site has a lot to offer.

A nice companion to the above resource is the Civil Rights Digital Library and the Civil Rights resources for Teachers at the Library of Congress. The Civil Rights Digital Library can be browsed by event, people, topics or places and Educator Resources they have culled from other websites. These resources include bibliographies, worksheets, lesson plans, and study guides. The Civil Rights resources for Teachers at the Library of Congress has all that you have come to expect from the LOC - primary resources, lesson plans, exhibitions and presentations. Lots of material to dive into with your students!

There is also a documentary made in 2004 called Mighty Times : The Children's March (recommended for grades 6-8) which you can apparently get for free from the Teaching Tolerance Project . It's probably too late to get a copy of this for this year but you can get a jump start on next year.

And for those of you near the Seattle area, there's the 2nd Annual Student March for Peace and Justice organized by Giddens School and the Northwest African American Museum. Join them if you can.

Exploratorium : the museum of science, art and human perception

The Exploratorium is a museum website brought to you by San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts containing (according to them) 18,000 pages. That's pretty overwhelming and I will never actually view all of them. It is a kind of busy website but, that said, it has lots of cool stuff useful to you and your students.

Under Educate is their page of Tools for Teaching. Currently this page is spotlighting Cow's Eye Dissection which includes a video of a dissection (no, I didn't watch it as I have just had my dinner), eye diagrams, and activity instructions (yes, including how to dissect a cow's eye). Other Tools for Teaching include how-to videos of after school/at home activities, hands on activities, a Digital Library containing resources pertaining to their exhibits, Webcasts and Podcasts, and Educator Newsletter and Online Exhibitions. They even have videos of Iron Science Teacher, which is like Iron Chef but with, yes you guessed it, Science Teachers having to design a science or math activity using the "secret ingredient". Pretty entertaining, I must say.

I enjoyed this site and think it has lots to offer. I'm going to definitely explore it more another day and maybe even watch that eye dissection video...