Shmoop: A Growing Study Guide Site

Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers, I have come across a site called "Shmoop". Currently, it has a lot of study guides that may be useful to language arts and writing/reading teachers, and maybe some for social studies as well, but as it grows, you should find some materials for science and math as well. I did some exploring and you can find a ton of information on topics like Shakespeare works, poetry, supply and demand economics, and much, much more! If you want students to have some extra information on a topic, this might be for them. The downside I can see is that the guides almost work like Cliff Notes at times and students may try to just read the study guides instead of the actual book. Anyway, a great site to at least look at. Who knows...maybe a great site for teachers to brush up on before they teach a topic and never tell the students about it!!

http://www.shmoop.com/

Screenr can Help You Show Students Around the Web!

Or maybe even parents?!! I have placed a link to a Screenr screencast that I made to show you how it can helpful. In my screencast, I show parents a little bit about our school website and how to navigate around it. Some of our teachers used websites like this last year to make screencasts for students. Oh wait...what is a screencast? Well, my way of describing it is basically a way to record what websites you are on and how you are navigating them as well as being able to put your voice to your video so you can walk someone through what you are doing. I guess the best way to understand it to watch mine and then practice making your own.

Side note...I also used this site to record a screencast that showed my Mom how to use all the features of Facebook. :)

my screencast: http://screenr.com/2KX (you may have to copy/paste this into your browser...it is not linking for me!)

website to try your own: http://screenr.com/

Thank you to Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me about this site!

Website that Reviews Educational Apps

Do you have an Ipod Touch, IPad, or Iphone? Do any of your students? This website find and reviews all sorts of educational apps and they do it in great detail! They even give grades on how well they function, how useful they are, etc. I even found a couple that I put on my ITouch after reading their reviews. If interested, give it a look.

http://www.iear.org/

As always, thank you to Richard Byrne and his website Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me about this site and making me want to explore more!

View Pure makes your Youtube Video Play without the Background Clutter

I like to play several Youtube videos in class, but my students seem to always be trying to find out what "related videos" they can watch or what ads are being shown. Usually not a bad thing, but sometimes bad videos or ads or comments are visible and this is not a good thing. Well, View Pure fixes this because it lets you play the same Youtube video with a white background. Here is the same video (one of my favorites with the educational moral being "doesn't matter how hard you work if you are not working on the correct problem".) both through Youtube and through Youtube View Pure. See the difference? Enjoy!

original video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbY-Ofg8WaQ

View Pure video:

http://viewpure.com/KbY-Ofg8WaQ

View Pure website where you enter your copied website link into the box and hit "purify":

http://viewpure.com/

Science Games Galore!

Periodic Table Tetris alone made me want to explore these games more. Upon further exploration, I learned Tetris isn't always available on the one site, but I did play a Sheep launching game based on vectors that was rather fun. Plus, this link contains 9 other sites that contain science games that are geared towards various levels, abilities, and topics. I tried a few and thought they were pretty good. If you teach science, you might want to try a few as well! Thank you to Free Technology for Teachers for the link!

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/04/10-sources-of-educational-science-games.html

Monthly Math Posters for Free!

Thanks again to Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me of this opportunity and website. If you go to the website, you can print any of their posters of the month from 2005 to 2011. Each poster has a math problem/logic problem that can challenge students and make them think. There is also some math games on this site too I think. Enjoy!

http://nrich.maths.org/6840?setlocale=en_US

Word Games for Language or Keyboarding Activities

Need more fun ways to practice keyboarding or typing? Or need fun word games to have students test or try when they are done with their language project for the day? Give this mega-site a try. It has tons of word games and keyboarding games for students to try and test their skills. Maybe a little more educational than miniclip games!!

Thanks to Free Tech for Teachers for the link!

http://www.wordgames.com/