Learning Resources (Thank you LACOE!!)

Sharing Resources How do you engage your students? What technology and resources help you do that?  Add to the list below to share your best practices and get ideas from your peers. If you are sharing a technology  resource, be sure to include a link to the resource and a title and/or short description.  Most are free.  $ – indicates a cost. 

Content Based Web Resources 

Classroom Management 

ESL

  • great resources for English Language learners, awesome visuals http://www.eslflow.com  
  • free, interactive (with voice), bilingual website for beginning and intermediate adult Spanish-speaking ESL students.  http://www.pumarosa.com 
  • Universal Design for Learning – UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone–not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs. http://www.udlcenter.org 
  • English for Everyone: great grammar here 
  • www.SpellingCity.com- Great for Spelling practices, app based games and lessons to work on spelling, vocabulary, ELA

HEALTH

LANGUAGE ARTS K-12

LANGUAGE ARTS – Elementary

  • YouTube 

– Kids 123

– havefunteaching

– beansandfranktv (rhyming words)

-alphablocks

-numberblocks 

– ELF Kids Videos (100 sight words)

-Preschool Prep Company (Meet the Sight words)

  • NewsELA: Current events website that connects articles to standards and allows kids to highlight text and change lexile level.
  • TedED Videos: Great talks geared towards education
  • Flocabulary- teaches part of speech with songs. www.flocabulary.com 
  • Ducksters.com : Great resource for animal research projects (k-3)
  • For primary grades Language Arts activities, games –  www.starfall.com
  • Storylineonline.net 
  • Freckle- an adaptive and engaging online program that encourage learning through interactive games. It provides video explanations for questions answered incorrectly and even connects students to peers in the classroom who did answer the questions correctly so they can ask for help.
  • Newsela.com – great resource for finding informational text of all levels.

LANGUAGE ARTS, History, and Math 

  • JIgsaw strategy for Reading: Example, in “Of Mice and Men” I divided the students into pairs. The pair groups were assigned one 1 page of the chapter that the class was currently reading. Then the students in their pair groups read their one page and filled out a graphic organizer. The graphic organizer had three sections: best quote from this page, a paragraph summary of what happened on this one page, and then an illustration of the main thing that happened on this one page. The students spend 30 minutes working on their graphic organizer. Then the last 20 minutes of class the teacher presents each group’s graphic organizer in chronological order and the rest of the class takes notes on what happened on each page of the chapter via the information given by the group’s graphic organizers. This is a great way for the students to deeply comprehend the content of the chapter, while chunking the text for students who may not be strong readers. 
  • I use a lot GIFs and Memes as part of the daily warms ups that connect to the material. For example, in connecting what the students are learning in George Orwell’s 1984, I may show a meme about Donald Trump and the Executive Orders that have been officiated.
  • When I did J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, as the culminating project, I had the students create their own playlist of songs that connected back to the protagonist, Holden Caulfield. 
  • Poll Everywhere – Take a poll of students’ opinions in order to engage prior learning and begin a discussion on reading and themes 
  • Center for Critical Media Literacy http://www.medialit.org/
  • 25 lessons in critical media literacy – PDF file: https://medialiteracyweekus.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/cml25lessons.pdf 
  • http://www.nsrfharmony.org/free-resources/protocols/a-z
  • National Council of Teachers of English – Committee Against Racism and Bias 
  • Read Works – improve a student’s reading ability by selecting from thousands of k-12 articles and create online assessments to test reading comprehension.

WORLD LANGUAGES K-12

  • Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn a language. It’s 100% free, fun and science-based. Practice online on duolingo.com or on the apps!  https://www.duolingo.com 
  • Language learning tool, shows music video with lyrics and students fill in the blank in lyrics – several levels of difficulty available and MANY MANY languages – http://lyricstraining.com 
  • Kahoot: fun way to review vocabulary and grammar concepts.
  • QR Codes: students record their voices, save it on their drives, and get shareable link. They then use the shareable link to create a QR code. They then walk around the classroom and scan codes using QR code reader to listen to each other speak in the target language.

MATH K-12

MATH 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION K-12

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY K-12

-Ready to go science lessons. Great hands on models

  • Brain Games

– https://code.org 

–  learntomod.com

– https://scratch.mit.edu/ 

–http://appinventor.mit.edu/

https://www.cs-first.com/en/home

Order materials FREE to teach coding to groups of students 8 week lessons Grades 4-8.

  • Crash Course – Tons of awesome courses in one awesome channel: Hank Green teaches you Anatomy & Physiology; Phil Plait teaches you Astronomy; Check out the playlists for past courses in Biology, Ecology, and Chemistry.   https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse 
  • Online simulations – https://www.explorelearning.com 
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy on YouTube and Netflix
  • Plickers  https://plickers.com/
  • BRAIN POP: https://www.brainpop.com/
  • Radio Lab podcasts – http://www.radiolab.org 
  • Scholastic.com – Provides various cartoon-like science videos, read by children, that are informative and interesting to watch. All you have to do is find the topic you’re studying. studyjams.scholastic.com
  • Science Raps

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY – Secondary

SOCIAL STUDIES K-12

SOCIAL STUDIES – Secondary

  • Horrible Histories
  • School of Life
  • Epic rap battles of history (pre watch)
  • World History 

– http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/

– http://worldhistorymatters.org/ 

  • ExtraCredit a youtube channel that focuses on gaming and history. Their Extra History content are cartoony videos are well researched, informative and very entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz
  • BrainPop videos 
  • SHEG.com
  • http://sheg.stanford.edu
  • Geography- Daily Journal Question on projector.  Students use their chromebooks (laptop) to investigate daily prompt
  • Crash Course curriculum for World History Series 1 videos (downloaded for free, content has since been removed–I believe in favor of a paid service)
  • ReadWorks.org reading passages and paired texts 

Music 

ALL SUBJECTS K-12

  • Full online curriculum (ages 2-7) – language arts, math, science – $ – https://www.abcmouse.com 
  • Free, ready-to-use classroom resources designed to help educators understand and implement the Common Core and other college and career ready standards – http://achievethecore.org 
  • Amazon Prime members can stream thousands of Prime eligible movies and TV shows at no additional cost – $ – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000663511 
  • BrainPOP engages students through animated movies, learning games, interactive quizzes, primary source activities, concept mapping, and more.  $ and some free.  
https://educators.brainpop.com

https://jr.brainpop.com (K-3)

https://www.brainpop.com (3-8)

https://esl.brainpop.com (ESL)

SPECIAL NEEDS K-12

CLASSROOM TOOLS K-12

  • SnagIt (screenshots)
  • Announcify (translations)
  • Scribble (highlight)
  • Strict Workflow (blocks facebook)
  • Readability (removes ads/extra)
  • Copy and paste written work to see their level of writing, errors, and speech length.  http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ 
  • iPad apps for teachers 

– Classcraft (classroom management)

– EZ Grader

– Sock Puppets (create your own lip-synced videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube. Add Puppets, props, scenery, and backgrounds and start creating. Hit the record button and the puppets automatically lip-sync to your voice.)

– Too noisy lite (visuals of classroom noise levels)

– Decide Now! (random choice generator)

– Show Me (create a lesson with sound, text, graphics, video)

– Tap Roulette (like drawing straws)

– http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/ 

  • Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages.  https://getkahoot.com 
  • Post assignments online for all students; student can have copies to assignments electronically and turn in hw electronically. You can also grade work on this, too.  https://classroom.google.com/ 
  • Meme Generator (a meme is a discrete “package of culture” that now travels quickly via social media and internet)  https://imgflip.com/memegenerator   Create a slideshow using memes about classroom rules and expectations. Replay it and and pause to discuss in detail. It is a great back to school opener.
  • Notability (alternative to Educreations) – Limited free version but $ is well worth it. Virtual Binder. Can import documents so students can write, draw, and type directly on document. App syncs with dropbox, google drive, and other platforms. (only available for iPad…for now) http://gingerlabs.com 
  • Kid-friendly search engine – http://www.kidrex.org 
  • Free gradebook – https://www.learnboost.com 
  • Brain-based, online reading program that uses music – http://www.lyrics2learn.com 
  • Classroom management – Rick Morris – www.newmanagement.com/
  • Padlet is a virtual wall that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can put any content (e.g. images, videos, documents, text) anywhere on the page, together with anyone, from any device.  $5/month https://padlet.com/premium/backpack 
  • An online presentation site that uses Google Slides and students log into to view and interact with your presentations. Students can be asked questions in multiple ways and then shared on the screen with everyone.  https://www.peardeck.com 
  • Plickers – simple tool that lets teachers collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices www.plickers.com 
  • Audience response system that uses mobile phones, twitter, and the web. Responses are displayed in real-time on gorgeous charts – $ – https://www.polleverywhere.com 
  • Ideas for centers – http://www.prekinders.com 
  • Create animated videos and presentations – https://www.powtoon.com/ 
  • Interactive presentations website (like PowerPoint but better) with some lessons already made to share – https://prezi.com 
  • create your own word search/crossword puzzle – http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ 
  • Quizlet: $25 teacher subscription for a year. School site available. Teacher or students can create quiz list. Flashcards are made and then students have different activities to study: flash card, learn, and 2 games.  https://quizlet.com 
  • Create and play multiplayer quiz games – http://quizizz.com 
  • Personalize text messages for all classes, small groups, and individuals.  https://www.remind.com 
  • Schoology – learning management system (LMS) that connects teachers, students, and parents  www.schoology.com
  • Visualize student understanding – http://www.socrative.com 
  • http://www.online-stopwatch.com/
  • Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Speed Match, Random Name Generator, Classroom Timer – https://www.superteachertools.us/# 
  • Rubrics – https://www.themespark.net
  • Teacher Resources, Lesson Plans, Worksheets and Activities – https://www.theteacherscorner.net 
  • Quiz-Quiz-Trade and more cooperative learning strategies – http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/quiz-quiz-trade 
  • Interactive media platform that empowers publishers, educators, brands, and bloggers to create more engaging content – $ – https://www.thinglink.com 
  • Create a temporary room to collect and share ideas and questions.  https://todaysmeet.com 
  • Noise-o-meter – $3.99 –  http://toonoisyapp.com 
  • True Colors Personality Inventory is a self-awareness activity enabling individuals to become aware of their personality styles. 

– https://truecolorsintl.com/

– http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/studentactivities/True_Colors_Exploring_Leadership_Styles.pdf

– https://www.gsgatl.org/for-volunteers/volunteer-leadership-conference/Documents/True%20Colors%20Test.pdf

  • Cloud application; Upload, share and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos. – $ – http://voicethread.com 
  • URL Shorteners:

TEACHER MOTIVATION

EDUCATION NEWS

COULD NOT FIND THESE:

  • I use a game called “grudgeball” that I found on the internet.  I use it to review for tests.   My middle school students love it and get super competitive.  It can be VERY chaotic but ALL my students are engaged and having fun while learning. My students prefer it over Kahoot. I just learned to have controlled chaos.  I do have to give my neighbors a heads up when we play, because it can be very loud.  Grudgeball
  • Music Composition Resources: Annefenell.com 
  • Student Activity Breaks: GO Noodle