TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Jun 25, 2017

Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive

 

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Flipped Learning Global Initiative - Flipped Learning LLC

Grades
4 to 12
1 Favorites 0  Comments
  
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative is an international collaboration of educators and researchers committed to flipped learning. This site offers online webinars along with archives...more
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The Flipped Learning Global Initiative is an international collaboration of educators and researchers committed to flipped learning. This site offers online webinars along with archives of previous webinars for professional development. Be sure to check out the Flipped Learning Technology Selection located in the Training section to enroll in a free one-hour course outlining the mistakes to avoid with flipped learning. The community portion of the site includes a forum for interacting with educators from around the world to discuss flipped learning. The archived webinars reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

tag(s): learning styles (18), professional development (388)

In the Classroom

If you are considering flipping your classroom or have begun using this technique, bookmark this site as a resource for professional learning and collaboration. View webinars with your peers as you learn how to flip a classroom together. Have questions? Share your thoughts and ideas on the community forum to get answers from educators experienced in flipping their classroom.

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Just Delete Me - Robb Lewis & Ed Poole

Grades
K to 12
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Clean up your online life with Just Delete Me. This site provides direct links to deleting your account at numerous sites such as Amazon, Facebook, or more. Search for a ...more
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Clean up your online life with Just Delete Me. This site provides direct links to deleting your account at numerous sites such as Amazon, Facebook, or more. Search for a particular site or scroll through to find available links. Each link is color-coded to the degree of difficulty in deleting your account. Just click on any link and follow instructions to remove your account. Just Delete Me also provides a Chrome browser extension that takes you directly to the account deletion page when on an included site.

tag(s): internet safety (112)

In the Classroom

Bookmark this site to get rid of any site registrations required for various classroom uses. Just Delete Me would be an excellent site to use as you wrap up your school year and clean up unneccessary information from classroom computers. Share this site with older students as part of your discussion of online safety and proper Internet usage.

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Wakelet - Jamil Khalil

Grades
K to 12
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Create, curate, and share web content with Wakelet. Save online links, including articles, videos, tweets, and more then organize them into collections called wakes. Share collections...more
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Create, curate, and share web content with Wakelet. Save online links, including articles, videos, tweets, and more then organize them into collections called wakes. Share collections with a personalized link or use the embed code to embed anywhere online. Use the keyword search to explore and view wakes created by other Wakelet members. Save information from other wakes to your account for use in your own wakes. To make your wakes more distinctive, add a cover image, background, and choose the layout you prefer. Wakelet works smoothly with many apps such as Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, and Flip, just to name a few. Note: Wakelet now has a Pro version. This review is for the free version which includes everything mentioned above and Unlimited items & collections, Unlimited share to view, 3 collaborative collections, Publish 4 collections, and Explore other collections

tag(s): bookmarks (47), collaboration (85), communication (136), curation (35), DAT device agnostic tool (143), multimedia (43), news (229), personalized learning (9), playlists (10), social media (53), social networking (68)

In the Classroom

The possibilities for using Wakelet in the classroom are endless! Create collections with tips for writing in different genres, current events, information about specific countries or cities, math games, and much more. Have students set up their own wakes as part of a research project. Put together a wake scavenger hunt to introduce a new unit or as a review at the end of a unit. Share wakes on your class web page for student use at home to review and practice class content. Having the ability to have a cover image and background for your wakes makes them much more interesting and easily identifiable, especially for young or visual students!

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Chatzy - Chatzy.com

Grades
7 to 12
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Chatzy offers no-frills, easy to use private chat rooms with no sign-up required! Fill out the simple start-up form with your name, chat title, message, and participant's emails. Participants...more
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Chatzy offers no-frills, easy to use private chat rooms with no sign-up required! Fill out the simple start-up form with your name, chat title, message, and participant's emails. Participants instantly receive an email with your message and a direct link to the room. Room administrator options include allowing or turning off emoticons, images, and videos. The Save/Print options allow administrators to keep a record of any conversations. There is a setting to use Chatzy on mobile devices with smaller screens, as well. Note: Some school networks block all chat tools, so check in advance whether you can access it if you plan to use this tool at school.

tag(s): chat (42), communication (136)

In the Classroom

Use this site to connect to other classes to open up discussion between your students in one convenient place. Safety is not a concern with this site, since only those with an email invitation/link can participate in a chat. (Your students need not have email. You can simply email the link to yourself and share it with students to enter into their browsers.) Teach good digital citizenship of chat etiquette while using this activity to learn. Connect with other classes to learn about other locations, learn various perspectives, find animals that are similar yet different, learn about the different books others are reading, or survey students on various economic, political, or environmental topics. Be sure to plan content ahead of time, so students have the opportunity to think through the material and formulate a response. Discuss appropriate ways to communicate to others prior to connecting with another classroom. Use Chatzy as a place for students to brainstorm and share ideas about a topic. Use as a simple help forum for students to ask questions of each other and of you. Share a chat room with parents once a month for a question and answer session at a scheduled time.

Use backchannel chat on laptops during a video or student presentations. Pose questions for all to answer/discuss in the backchannel, or ask students to pose their own "I wonder if..." questions as they watch and listen. Keep every student engaged and THINKING as an active listener. The first time you use backchannel, you will want to establish some etiquette and accountability rules. The advantage of backchannel chat is that every student has a voice, no matter how shy. Use this in world language classes, ESL/ELL classes, or autistic support classes for backchannel chat. Challenge students to use their new language skills by acting out a scene from a video or describing the feelings of the actors. When studying literature, collaborate with another class to have students role-play a chat between two characters. In a history class, create fictional conversations between soldiers on two sides of the Civil War or different sides of the Scopes Monkey trial.

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Good.is - GOOD Worldwide, LLC

Grades
7 to 12
3 Favorites 1  Comments
Would you like to read about GOOD news for a change? That is exactly what you will get if you subscribe to this news aggregator. At Good.is, read about conservation ...more
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Would you like to read about GOOD news for a change? That is exactly what you will get if you subscribe to this news aggregator. At Good.is, read about conservation success stories, educating farmers in remote rural villages to increase their crop yield, creating entrepreneurs who design change, inspiring stories about pets, and so much more. What a refreshing way to start the day! Don't misinterpret that description: you will also be updated on current news stories. The choice is yours. Create a free account, choose topics of interest, and sign up for the daily free newsletter to read what's new (and positive) for those topics. If you find something you are truly passionate about you can follow people, and you can contribute articles.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): enrichment (9), news (229), newspapers (91), politics (113), writing prompts (57)

In the Classroom

Good.is is perfect for enrichment, research, or a current events class. Include it on your class web page (if you are comfortable with the description: a community of people who give a d---) for students to access both in and out of class. Have students try out this site on individual computers, or as a learning center. For students who enjoy current events, Good.is is a terrific source of up-to-the-minute positive stories from across the web. There is advertising, but it is not too intrusive. Use this site as one of several current event options when asking students to find real world connections to curriculum topics. You can always send students directly to the full articles on their original sites to avoid displaying the Good.is frame at the top. Use articles as writing prompts for blog posts or practice writing informational texts or persuasive writing.

Comments

Great reading resource on current events! Ladisha, VA, Grades: 9 - 12

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IFTTT - IFTTT

Grades
9 to 12
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IFTTT is a service that connects and consolidates social media tools. With this service, you can browse "recipes" for having social tools interact with each other. Some examples are:...more
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IFTTT is a service that connects and consolidates social media tools. With this service, you can browse "recipes" for having social tools interact with each other. Some examples are: text the morning weather, send free nook books from Barnes and Noble to your Gmail account, send the iTunes app of the week to your email, or download videos you like to your Dropbox. Create your own recipes to help you make life easier by having one social media communicate with another.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): communication (136), DAT device agnostic tool (143), organizational skills (90), social media (53)

In the Classroom

IFTTT can make recipes for students and teachers alike. Teachers can drop photos into Dropbox and automatically send them to a place they have chosen. This will help save time with classroom photos, field trips, and other events. Be reminded of birthdays for students and friends. Send amazing professional website bookmarks to your Gmail. Older students can receive emails or text messages about classes, tests, quizzes. Students can receive immediate feedback when they turn in assignments. Add tweeting to students' own personal learning networks. Have technology classes find unique and creative ways to create recipes to save time and improve productivity. What kind of recipes can you create? Hold an IFTTT "potluck" where you and your savvy colleagues (and students) swap "recipes" to save time and effort. Invite more savvy students to share a recipe a week with fellow students. The better-organized ones can perhaps teach others how to become more organized!

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Digg.com - Digg Inc.

Grades
7 to 12
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Digg is a social news network similar in some qualities to Facebook and other such social media. You can post stories you find interesting and browse "Top Stories" which are ...more
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Digg is a social news network similar in some qualities to Facebook and other such social media. You can post stories you find interesting and browse "Top Stories" which are more or less the most popular stories shared by others on the Internet. It is meant to share a snapshot of the most interesting, relevant, quirky, and fun content on the web! Once you sign up, you can start to Digg your own favorites. This site also features "Digg Dialogg" where members submit questions to notable leaders and community members decide on which questions will be asked and interviews are shared on the site. Be sure to preview items that you wish to share. Noted were a few "violent" warnings at the time of this review, but the other 99% of the shared items were excellent for use in the classroom.

tag(s): debate (37), news (229), social networking (68)

In the Classroom

Try using Digg as a warm up Internet activity in the beginning of the school year by having older students sign up for their own account. Have them scan and read as part of current events teaching. The articles can be controversial which provides a great place to start debates. Are you beginning to integrate technology into your classroom? Use a tool such as WeJIT, reviewed here, or if you are a more experienced technology user try Virtual Debate, reviewed here, which has online examples and resources for conducting virtual debates, to formalize a debate topic. Digg also provides an excellent resource for research. Have students make a multimedia presentation using Genial.ly, reviewed here. Genial.ly allows you to add polls, videos, embeds, web links, PowerPoint, PDFs, and you can create a variety of formats like interactive posters, images, infographics, charts, presentations, and more.

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Video: Social Media - Common Craft

Grades
K to 12
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What is social media? This video takes you on a journey to "Scoopville," a fictitious town used to demonstrate the many "flavors" of social media. The video is short (3:25-minutes)...more
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What is social media? This video takes you on a journey to "Scoopville," a fictitious town used to demonstrate the many "flavors" of social media. The video is short (3:25-minutes) and very easy to follow. Highlighted are blogs, podcasts, and videos. This site requires you to be a paying member to embed or download the video. However, you can still see the transcript for the video. Despite a paid membership model, Common Craft still offers this video for free. If you wish to share this with a group, they will need to view it on individual/partner computers (or IOS devices) or on a projector that has a zoom function to enlarge a selected area of the screen.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): blogs (66), podcasts (72), social media (53), video (256)

In the Classroom

If you are looking to learn more about various social media, check out this short video. Learn more about the "flavors" you could use in your own classoom. For research projects have students create a blog, wiki, or even a podcast and compare the pros/cons of each regarding communication and safety. Create podcasts using a tool such as podOmatic, explained here. If you use "centers" in your classroom, put the video on a "center" computer, do a "right click" on the video, select "save as" and save to the "center" computer.

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