Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

G'Day Math offers a series of seven online video math courses primarily dealing with quadratics and the quadratic formula. Choose the explore button to view any course, videos, and lessons within each course. Most videos run approximately 10 minutes or less and include printed examples of work under the video link. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
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tag(s): factoring (38), quadratics (42), galileo (9), sequences (20),

As school district budgets continue to be cut, field trips are more and more difficult. Enter the online panoramic virtual tour. The Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History can now be "visited" using a computer or a handheld device like a smart phone or tablet. Choose to tour several featured areas such as Permanent Exhibits, Current Exhibits, Past Exhibits, Narrated Tours, and a couple of others. Click on a featured exhibit and view a map of the exhibit area. Hover over one of the hotspots to see what is included in that exhibit. Choose to view the Hope Diamond, for example, and access panoramic views of the artifact or the exhibit hall. Follow the arrows to travel through the museum. Maybe a virtual tour of a museum isn't quite as good as the real thing, but you won't have to deal with crowds, noise, and that really tall person who always seems to be standing between you and the exhibit you want to see. Click the Education tab at the top, to find Teaching Resources with 300 options, that includes activities, videos, and science literacy resources for Grades K to 12.

tag(s): museums (72), natural resources (71), virtual field trips (129),

Cappex is a well established commercial college and scholarship search site. Simply create an account, enter information about yourself, and the Cappex site uses that information to suggest potential colleges and scholarships to consider. Establishing an account is free, and you can do that with either your email address or Facebook account. If Facebook is blocked at your school, it is probably best to log-in using an email address instead. It is possible to look at individual college profiles without an account, but the whole purpose of the site is to match colleges and scholarships to an individual student based on demographic information. There are better sites out there for doing simple research on individual colleges. Cappex has a utility that is designed to let you know what your "chances" are for admission to a particular college based upon the demographic information entered, although students should recognize that this is only a rough estimate.

Because this is a commercial site, Cappex reserves the right to send you marketing information from their own site and from their "partners." The privacy statement indicates they will not sell student information, except in the aggregate, but joining the Cappex site is likely to increase the amount of advertising email received. Finally, with respect to the scholarship search portion of the website, the single most effective way to receive financial aid for college expenses is through applying for Federal assistance using the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Assistance). This site may provide leads to private and other scholarships, but should not be seen as a substitute for using the established FAFSA system.
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tag(s): college (77), financial aid (18),

Manifest Destiny is an excellent interactive map site demonstrating the growth of the United States from March 1789 through the present. Click on each of the maps to view and highlight changes. Click on highlighted words to view areas on the map. Use the legend on the right side of the page to help interpret what each color represents on the map. Jump ahead to the Civil War (or a few other notable US History events), by clicking the links on the main page. Read "about" to learn about the Swiss information scientist who created this page from information available on Wikipedia.

tag(s): 20th century (85), 1900s (90), 1800s (94), colonization (30), maps (415), civil war (215),

Draft is a collaborative writing tool similar to Google Docs with one notable exception: the ability to view and accept changes before they are actually made to the document. The site also features the ability to mark/label major versions of your work as it is produced, allowing the ability to go back and easily view previous versions. Be sure to check out "Hemingway Mode" (explained in Features) which prevents any editing as you write, forcing you to get ideas down to rethink, revise, and edit LATER. This is a great way to prevent the perfectionist in you from paralyzing your writing process! But the BEST part of this site: it is easy to use! Sign up using your email and password and immediately begin creating your document. When ready to share, choose the home icon and copy your document's link to send via email or text (or copy and paste as desired). When changes are made, you will receive an email. You may then view the document to see color coded changes and accept or deny changes as desired.

tag(s): writing (569), proofreading (32), editing (140),

Convert the content of any webpage into an e-book format to read on your tablet, phone, or other e-reader device using dotEPUB-- even offline! Install the browser bookmarklet in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Mozilla, or Chrome to begin. In Chrome and Mozilla use the dotEPUB browser extension to create documents. Once installed, click on the bookmarklet or browser extension while on any page to convert the page and send to your e-reader. Choose from either epub or mobi (Kindle) format for use in e-readers. View the instructional videos for complete directions on how to use the bookmarklet or extension. This site is also available in Spanish. The instructional videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube and you wish to share the videos in class, they may not be viewable.

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