Inkless Tales

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What it is: Inkless Tales is a neat literacy website with a mission statement that I love: “You can do anything. Try, try again. Don’t give up. Experiment. Write, draw, explore, and more!”  Inkless tales has features that will infuse your literacy classroom with life including: an animated alphabet, coloring pages (for print or online), online games, offline fun (finger puppets, downloads, crafts), Mother Goose rhymes and riddles, online stories to read, poetry to read, poetry to listen to, poetry to write, Inkless tunes, tongue twisters, and a place to learn science.  Inkless Tales is an absolute treasure trove for the primary classroom.

How to integrate Inkless Tales into the classroom: Inkless Tales was created by author Elizabeth Williams Bushey with the goal of bring quality literacy content to children around the world in an online environment.  She has hit the nail on the head with this site.  Inkless Tales makes an excellent literacy center on classroom computers.  Students can visit the Inkless Tales site to read, practice their alphabet, play learning games, etc.  Inkless Tales also makes an outstanding poetry center where students can read, listen to, and write poetry.  The animated alphabet would be fun to use when learning letters on a projector connected computer or an interactive whiteboard.

Tips: I learned about Inkless Tales from @2sparkley on Twitter, an educator you must follow!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Inkless Tales in your classroom.

Virtual Dinosaur Dig

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What it is: The Smithsonian site is full of amazing activities and interactives.   A few weeks ago I stumbled on their Virtual Dinosaur Dig interactive and immediately sent it on to our second grade teachers who are teaching a dinosaur unit.  During the Virtual Dinosaur Dig, students act as paleontologists who find a virtual fossil, learn how vertebrate paleontologists excavate the specimen, learn about the anatomy of the specimen and where it lived, view an illustration of what the specimen may have looked like, transport the speciman to a museum, and reconstruct the speciman (a stegosaurus) at the museum.  Each step of the interactive gives students information about the tools used to excavate, and why the tool is used.  Students get to virtually use each tool to excavate, transport, and reconstruct the dinosaur.

How to integrate Virtual Dinosaur Dig into the classroom: This Virtual Dig makes students virtual paleontologists.  The activity is perfect for a interactive whiteboard or projector.  Choose a student team of paleontologists who will help with the excavation.  Each student can use one of the tools and explain their portion of the excavation to the class.  While these students are at the board demonstrating the excavation, students at their seats can fill in their official “Paleontologist Field Guide” to record the steps and tools used in the excavation (I created the field guide for our second grade teachers and will post the pdf version below).  The Virtual Dinosaur Dig could also be used as a center activity for teams of paleontologists to visit on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting.  Students can fill out their Field Guides as they work.  After the virtual dig, set up a hands on dig.  Students can “excavate” chocolate chips out of a chocolate chip cookie by carefully digging with toothpicks.

Tips: I created this Paleontologist Field Guide journal to accompany the Virtual Dig.  Included in the pdf is an answer guide. Print these pages back to back to create a book that is folded down the center.  dino dig field guide The field guide asks students to match the tool picture with its name and order the sequence of events during the excavation.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Virtual Dinosaur Dig in your classroom.

Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth

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What it is: Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth with the combination of Discovery channel “Planet Earth” and Google Earth.  Witness animal behaviors, dive into the deepest cave on the planet, and come eye to eye with a 30-ton humpback whale in this interactive tour.  Explore the earth through Discovery channel’s Planet Earth series embedded in Google Earth.  Just zoom into a location in the Planet Earth tour and view video clips from the popular 11 part series.  The tour is free to download and plays directly in Google Earth.

How to integrate Video Tour of Planet Earth into the classroom: Geography lessons come to life in Google Earth.  The Video Tour of Planet Earth infuses even more life into your classroom with an up-close look at the incredible animals and vegetation around the world. This tour is an excellent resource for teaching students about habitats, ecosystems, geography, animals, animal kingdoms, and more.  Your students will be able to virtually ‘fly’ to locations all over the world and get a real life look at each stop.  This is an outstanding resource to view on the big screen with a projector or an interactive whiteboard.  Allow your students to take turns acting as tour guide at each stop.  Students can preview the video, do some additional research and present their findings as the class visits their stop along the tour.  Set up the tour on classroom computers for a fun geography or science center.  Use a stop on the video tour as a writing prompt for journaling.

Tips: Google Earth is a free download, if you don’t already have it, this is a MUST have for every classroom.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth in your classroom.

Big Universe

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What it is: Big Universe lets you read, create, and share children’s books online.  Read hundreds of children’s picture books right from your web browser.  It’s like having a huge library of big books for your whole class to read and enjoy.  Publishers that contribute picture books to Big Universe include: Charlesbridge, SeaSquirt, Lobster Press, Saddleback, Matthew Price, ISSA Step by Step, Andersen, Dawn Publications, Tanglewood Press, ee, Teacher Created Materials, Illuminations Arts, Weekly Reader, and Elora Media.  Big Universe has both fiction and nonfiction picture books to read with your students.  Books are easy to search by category, grade, reading level, interest age, and language.  Students can create their own ebooks on Big Universe or share books on a virtual bookshelf.  The catch: the free version of Big Universe offers a limited look at the premium publisher books (you can read through half the book before being prompted to upgrade or close the book).  You can read any of the user created books for free.  With the free version you can only create one ebook per user account.  Students can create bookshelves and share an unlimited number of books, recommend books to others, and add friends.  The accounts on Big Universe are reasonably priced (especially considering how much it would increase your classroom library).

How to integrate Big Universe into the classroom: Big Universe is an awesome way to expand your classroom library and share quality picture books and stories with your students. The big books on Big Universe are ideal for use with an interactive whiteboard or projector.  Students can read along and see the rich detail in the illustrations.  Big Universe also makes for an excellent reading center on the classroom computers.  Allow students to create their own book on Big Universe to add to the library.  They will be published authors!  Students can share the books they are reading on Big Universe on their own virtual bookshelf.  They can swap book recommendations with friends and share stories they create.

Tips: If it is possible for your school to purchase a school license of Big Universe, students would have access to an extensive library of books at school or home.  This is a fantastic way to get hundreds of books into the hands of your students.  Because they can be accessed from any Internet connected computer, students can enjoy the books and stories from nearly anywhere.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Big Universe in your classroom.



eduperience

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What it is: eduperience is an easy blogging tool for students and teachers based on the WordPress platform.  “Start a blog in seconds with unlimited storage, bandwidth, premium themes and plugins.  It is too easy to publish Your academic calendar, newsletter, video, podcast, and photo.”  You can choose to use an eduperience sub domain or your own domain hosting.  Automated weekly and monthly backup of your blogs ensures safety.  You can choose to earn up to 90% revenue on advertisements shown on your blog.  eduperience is a great blogging platform for both students and teachers.

How to integrate eduperience into the classroom: eduperience is an easy way for you to get a classroom blog up and running.  Use a classroom blog to post current assignments, class discussions, calendars, links to other websites relevant to classroom learning, and notes to your students.  Students can use blogs as writing journals, an online portfolio of written work, or to collaborate with other students.  Students tend to write more and with higher quality in an online environment.  This is due in part to a greater sense of audience.  Students know that teachers, students, and parents may be reading their writing.  Blogs are also a great addition to the science classroom where students can reflect on experiments and labs.

Tips: eduperience offers outstanding 24/7 support.  This makes it simple to get started with blogging, even if you haven never done it before!

Related Resources: think.com, Live Binders, edWeb 2.0, Weebly, Word Press, Blogger,

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using eduperience in your classroom.

DomoNation

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What it is: DomoNation is a free animation website that is powered by Go! Animate.  The site is very intuitive to use and makes impressive cartoon animations.  Students can create animations with backdrops, characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects.  Students can create on scene or several to make up their animation.    The interface is very simple to learn, the drag and drop platform will be familiar to students.  To make their cartoon come to life, each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by clicking on the character and choosing from a drop down menu.  Special effects, such as weather occurrences or zooming, are simple to add to the project.  Animations can be saved for personal or public view on the DomoNation site. This is an impressive little web application that makes students the director of their very own movie.

How to integrate DomoNation into the classroom: Allow students to present their knowledge creatively using DomoNation instead of requiring the traditional report, diorama, or poster plastered with pictures and information.  Students can create an impressive alternative book report by creating an animated book talk, interviewing a character from the story, or re-creating an important scene in the story.  Students can display their knowledge about a historical figure by “interviewing” the historical person of interest or an eye-witness of a historical event.  DomoNation would be a great platform for creating public service announcements (how about the importance of hand washing with the H1N1 outbreak?) or short video commercials that persuade in a debate. Students can write a screen play and then transform it into an  animation. Animations are also a great way to illustrate vocabulary words and story problems in math.  In the foreign language classroom, students can create short cartoons practicing the new vocabulary they are learning.   The possibilities are endless!  Hold a DomoNation premier party day in your classroom so that students can watch each other’s finished animations and learn from their peers.

Tips: Direct your students to the Create page of DomoNation, some of the content created by other users may not be appropriate for your school.

Related Resources: Kerpoof, Shidonni, XtraNormal, DoInk

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using DomoNation in your classroom.

Geo Mysteries

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What it is: Geo-mysteries are fun interactive mysteries about rocks, fossils, and minerals from the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.  Students can choose one of three Geo-mysteries to solve: The Mystery of the Floating Rock, The Mystery of the Broken Necklace, and The Mystery of the Golden Cube.  Students work to help Rex the dinosaur solve the geography mystery by watching a short video clip, and then going through simulated experiments to solve the mystery.  These are great short activities that will help your students understand properties of rocks, fossils, and minerals.  Kids will have fun working as a detective to solve the mysteries.

How to integrate Geo Mysteries into the classroom: Geo Mysteries is a fun twist to learning about rocks, minerals and fossils.  What I love about the site, is the way it makes students problem solvers and guides them through using clues and critical thinking to solve a mystery.  This is a good site to use as a center during science, two or three students could visit the center at a time working to solve a mystery.  After each group of students has been through the center, the whole class can come together and share their findings.  If you have access to a projector or an interactive whiteboard, you can complete the mystery as a whole class.  Invite students up to the board to interact with the material.   This is also a great site for students to work through individually in a computer lab setting.  In the computer lab setting, students can work through the material at their own pace.

Tips: The Geo Timeline on the Geo Mysteries site is fantastic, make sure to check it out and point it out for your students to explore.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Geo Mysteries in your classroom.

eField Trips

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What it is: eField Trips are a neat idea for students to ‘travel’ virtually to learn about the world.  These virtual eTrips are composed of 4 parts.  The first part is a pdf called the Trip Journal.  Teachers download and print out the trip journal to guide students on their journey and to give them a place to record what they are learning on their trip.  Second is the virtual visit, this is a flash video where students go on the actual trip at their own pace.  Generally trips take about 15 minutes to complete.  Third is a form where students can ask experts questions they have about the trip they took.  Actual experts will respond to the question in 1 to 2 days.  The fourth is a live chat.  These chats allow students to interact with the experts in a live session at a scheduled time.  Available eField Trips include: Pearl Harbor, bats, underwater ecosystems, brown vs. board of education, butterflies, western exploration, caves, climbing Denali, desert dwellers, Dred Scott, Earthquakes, mountains, and glaciers, fires roll in an ecosystem, Glacier Bay, Grand Tetons, invasive species, whales, renewable energy, sea turtles, mammals of Denali, manatee, reptiles and amphibians, wetlands, and more.  I would categorize eField Trips more like a webquest than a virtual field trip.  These are great webquests!

How to integrate eField Trips into the classroom: These eField Trips would be an excellent extension (or replacement) for text book reading.  Students can work through the eField Trip at their own pace in the computer lab setting.  I like the Trip Journals that guide students on their journey and keep them thinking critically about what they are encountering.  For younger students, take an eField Trip as a whole class using a projector or an interactive whiteboard.  Each student could still fill out a Trip Journal as the class goes on the journey.  Because the etrips require reading, struggling readers may be paired up with confident readers or a helper.  I really like the interaction that students get with experts after the field trip.  As students are going on their journey, they are bound to come up with additional questions.  Students always love sending and getting mail, eField Trips gives students the opportunity to do both.

Tips: One thing that I don’t love about this site, it is hard to navigate back to the homepage.  This isn’t a problem for students completing the trips, but it is a little frustrating as a teacher planning a trip.  

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using eField Trips in your classroom.

The Carbon Cycle Game

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What it is: The Carbon Cycle Game is a free online game that teaches students about how carbon cycles through the Earth system.  It is appropriate for 4th-9th grade students learning about the carbon cycle.  As students play the game, they will learn that carbon cycles naturally through living and non-living parts of the Earth system in a complex, non-linear way, that burning fossil fuels adds carbon to the cycle, the impact of additional carbon dioxide on global warming, and that carbon is essential for living things.  Students will travel around the game as a little carbon atom.  They will stop at key places on the game board and get a pop-up of information about the carbon cycle.  At any point students can click on key words in the pop-up and will be directed to a page with additional information.  Students will also land on question marks that pop-up questions testing students about what they have learned so far.  When students answer questions correctly they earn game points.

How to integrate The Carbon Cycle Game into the classroom: The Carbon Cycle Game would be best played individually in the computer lab setting or on classroom computers in groups of two.  The site says that this game is appropriate for grades 4th-9th but I found the vocabulary and reading to be a little advanced for fourth grade students.  If using the site with younger students, I would recommend visiting it in pairs of students or as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard.  If you play the Carbon Cycle Game as a whole class, split your students into two teams so that each team can take turns answering the questions in the game.  The Carbon Cycle Game is a good way for students to learn about the Carbon Cycle and the questions ensure that students are understanding the reading.

Tips: Check out the teacher section for some great lesson plan ideas using the Carbon Cycle Game.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Carbon Cycle Game in your classroom.

Science Bob

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What it is: Science Bob is a great resource library for the elementary science classroom.  It is an excellent place for students to explore science concepts.  Students can get some fun science fair ideas, experiments (that can be done offline), research helpers, science questions/answers, and science videos.

How to integrate Science Bob into the classroom: Science Bob is a great anticipatory site to use with students.  Videos can be watched as a class to introduce a new science topic or just to build a little excitement in the science class.  Let students explore the experiment section and choose an experiment to perform.  Each student can choose a different experiment to test at home.  Hold a class science day where students can share the experiment with the class.  Let them be the science ‘expert’.  As students conduct experiments, they can practice going through the scientific method.  Science Bob is a great stop for parents and students looking for science fair projects.  Start each science class with a fun science fact in the science question and answer section.  This is a great site to get your students excited about science and ready to learn more.

Tips: The “research” section of Science Bob is packed full of other amazing science websites.  They are organized by topic for simple searching.

I am often asked where I learn about all of these educational websites.  I have a variety of sources (RSS feeds, searches, books) but my favorite source is my OUTSTANDING PLN on Twitter.  If you aren’t on Twitter, I highly recommend it.  I have created a page where you can see all of the wonderful people in my PLN on Twitter.  This is a great place to start your own Twitter powerhouse.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Science Bob in your classroom.