Create puzzles and other word games using this resource. Puzzle types include Word Search, Crossword, Word Scramble, Bagels (Interactive Logic Game,) and Math worksheets among others. There are also quotes, illusions, and more. Creating a log in is not required. Puzzles created remain for two months and can be saved as a pdf file on your computer. Many puzzles are already permanently archived and can be found by looking through the categories. Don’t miss many holiday and calendar-event puzzles! Search puzzles of the day to find new and interesting puzzles to use. Printable puzzle versions from this site require Adobe Reader. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 10223
In the Classroom: Need a puzzle to reinforce the words in a particular unit? You may find one already created. If not, it is simple to create and save to your computer or share by URL (remember the online version is saved for two months). Use the "Quotes" page for great quotes of the day, the "Illusions" page for optical illusions, or the "Fresh Words" page to see what words can be made from a word, phrase, or collection of letters. Have cooperative learning groups create their own puzzle pages for a topic that they are researching or learning about in class and use them to challenge their classmates or another section of the course. Have students create puzzles as a cost-free, printable gift for families on special occasions such as Mother’s Day.
Put your assignment calendar online and enhance teacher, student, and parent communication! Assign-A-Day is a free web-based calendar tool that provides an easy way to create monthly calendars for each subject area or grade level. Registration is free and takes you to your calendar manager page after you log on. Customize the calendar colors, font style, and size to make a unique look for your class. Create or edit assignments from any computer that is connected to the Internet. Add links to websites or your TeachersFirst favorites as part of an assignment. Invite colleagues to share the calendar and work collaboratively with you. Students and parents can see the calendar by visiting the web site (no log-on required) and entering the teacher name in the search box. The calendar can be printed out as a grid or a list for student and parent use at home. This website requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.. 9229
In the Classroom: Consider creating a shared calendar for a grade level or subject area with your colleagues! Be sure to give your students and parents the web address to the Assign-A-Day web site. They can find your calendar using your name or calendar ID number. If you have a teacher web page, add a link to Assign-A-Day or ask your web master to add a link on the school web page. Besides assignments, use the online calendar to remind students and parents about other class-related items such as field trip forms, materials for science projects, great weekend family events, and the birthdays of historical figures. Since this is a public calendar, remember to protect your students’ safety by not including student names. Check with your Information Technology department to make sure the web site is not blocked at school so that you can add assignments during prep time.
TeachersFirst Edge entry: For slightly adventurous technology users. This site is useful to create an interactive video (hypervideo) through the use of hyperlinking. Just like hyperlinks in a document, create hot links to notes, websites, and other material you link to from parts of the video. The links appear as little circles (hotspot markers) that are clicked to reveal the information you "attach." Add more information to your video for students to access during the playback. Easy-to-follow directions and quick tours to get you started. When the video is done, you can generate and embed a code in your blog or website. Video can also be emailed. Quicktime and FLASH are required. Get them from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..
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In the Classroom: Skills needed: Site is free, but you must join to create your own videos. Videos must originate from YouTube or TeacherTube (see editorial comment below). You can always upload your own originals to one of these sites, if you wish to annotate a video you shot for use in class, such as a science demo. Paste the YouTube url into the search function, click on a part of the video you want to label, and add notes to, or link to a website. No special skills needed. A teenager or techno-comfortable teacher will figure this one out in one minute. The only challenge is determining what notes and links to use. Keep a second window open to copy and paste website addresses quickly. Watch the demos for quick learning of how to use this application.
Safety concern: some featured videos available on the site's home page, especially those under "Entertainment," may not be appropriate for school viewing. If your school does not have an actively-enforced student acceptable use policy with specific consequences for accessing inappropriate content, you may want to avoid this page or generate such an agreement for student and parent signatures before allowing students open access to Asterpix. You can always create products of your own and share them directly by URL or by embedding them in your blog.
Does your school block YouTube? Try creating a video using an original from TeacherTube instead. Or follow your school's technology policy to request unblocking of specific YouTube video URLs that are directly related to curriculum.
Editorial comment: Be sure to SHARE the completed examples (and student-made products) with administrators and school decision-makers to demonstrate why school policies should permit such powerful opportunities for teaching and learning. Perhaps you can advocate, at the least, quicker unblocking of specific videos (24 hours or less?) for classroom use or permission for teachers to unblock on a per-computer basis. Your efforts to respect policies while pro-actively advocating for appropriate change will benefit all teachers and students.
Possible uses for annotated videos: Use a video and have students add information to check their understanding, such as to label the actions they observe during a chemistry demo and add links to web pages that explain the underlying concepts. Create teacher-made videos to share individually or on a projector with students of ALL ages to illustrate and annotate concepts that are especially challenging or simply to help students visualize the connections between the words they read or hear and the real world examples. Shoot on-site video at the zoo or at a pond study site, then add annotations later. Use videos already available, but add the explanations using the terminology from your curriculum and allow student so access then for review or extra help. Secondary students will love using Asterpix themselves and will give a new dimension to presentations they create. Teachers can use the interactive video for extra tutorial work, explanations of topics, etc. The possibilities are endless!
BibMe is a one-stop source for all kinds of bibliography needs. It is a great online tool for bibliographies--and more. It even has a function for those students who don’t remember all the information for the source you cited. BibMe allows you to search from a database of millions of entries to find your source and autofill in the information. If you have the source in front of you, you can enter your entries manually. BibMe also offers resources to help you cite your work properly in the ‘Citation Guide’ section. It offers examples in MLA, APA, and Chicago formatting, making it useful for a wide variety of schools. 8408
In the Classroom: This is a great tool for students who are both learning to cite correctly and as a helpful tool for those who forget some of the "little" things that count when writing a bibliography. It offers a great example, too, of the difference between what is in a "Works Cited" page and what actually appears in the text as a citation. Teachers can use this on a Smartboard or simply through a computer lab or projector to demonstrate the correct way to cite as well as mistakes to avoid. Be sure to include the link on your teacher web page for students finishing reports in the wee hours of the morning on the due date.
There is a free membership available (requests an email address but allows you in without using it--try a bogus one?). Set up a free account for yourself so you can "save" example bibliographies. Your school policies may not allow individual student accounts, though it is worth asking your administration, since the tools are quite useful and definitely education-oriented. Be sure to keep a receord of student usernames (NOT their real names, please) and passwords in your TEACHER plan or grade book for those who "forget."
TeachersFirst Edge Entry: for moderately adventurous technology users. Blabberize is a photo editing tool that creates talking animations from a photo or other image. Search ready-made blabbers or create new ones. There are some real treasures among the ready-mades, some of which you can use as examples for your students. Here is an example created by the TeachersFirst Edge team:
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In the Classroom: Skills needed: You need a microphone in or on your computer for easiest recording. We recommend watching (and showing the entire class?) the introduction blab on the home page. It is a riot! To create blabs, you will need to be able to upload photographs or save then upload images from safe and legal sources. Once you know which pictures you are going to use, the rest is as easy as following the onscreen instructions. You will need to “allow” access to your computer’s microphone and/or a microphone you attach to the computer. Recording by phone also works. Browse a few examples first to get ideas on how to make a mouth on your photo to move and “talk.” Get started right away by choosing a photo and following prompts (arrows) below telling you what to do next. You have 30 seconds to narrate your photo. When you complete the blab, click SAVE. You will be prompted to create an account on the spot. You will also have the options to mark your blab “mature” or “private” (not shown on the “latest” pages and other public areas). Completed Blabs can be shared via email or embedded in another web page, blog, or wiki. See an embedded example below. Users unfamiliar with copy/pasting embed code can simple share by the URL of the blab's page.
Safety/security concerns: Registration requires email, You may want to use a single, whole-class account you create with your “extra” email account or establish student accounts using your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. This will make it easier to monitor student activity. Here is a blog post that tells how. No email confirmation is required for this Blabberize membership to work. Be sure to spell out consequences of inappropriate use/content of blabs. Since Blabberize is a public site, avoid allowing students to “browse” blabs. They may discover blabs not appropriate for the classroom. Blab creators are asked to mark their creations “mature” if they could be objectionable, but the only enforcement of this is by users clicking “I object!” Have students enter the site through the “Make” page link provided in this review to steer clear of the “latest” blabs. You may want your students to make their blabs “private” so they do not show on the public areas, depending on school policies.
Possible uses: The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Blab the homework directions on your teacher web page. Ask your students to create blabs for all sorts of reasons. Use photos or digital drawings to “blab”! Have students draw in a paint program, save the file, and then make it “speak.” Spice up research projects about historic figures or important scientists. Have literary characters tell about themselves. Create entire conversation sequences of blabs between people in world language or ESL/ELL classes (with students speaking in the language, of course), then embed them in a wiki. Have speech/language students make blabs to practice articulation and document progress over time. Promote oral reading fluency with student-read blabs. Create book “commercials.” Have students blab what the author may have been thinking as he/she wrote a poem or literary selection or as an artist painted. Blab politicians’ major platform planks during campaigns for current events. Blab the steps to math problem solving. Even primary students can make an animal blab about his habitat if you set up the blab as a center. Make visual vocabulary/terminology sentences with an appropriate character using the term in context (a beaker explaining how it is different from a flask?) Students could also take pictures of themselves doing a lab and then blab the pictures to explain the concepts. This would be a great first day project (introducing yourself and breaking the ice). Share the class blabs on your class web page or wiki! Give directions to your class (for when a substitute is there). Use at back to school night to show your humorous side to the parents.
Make a poster in a snap using this easy tool. Just upload your photo, slice it, and your poster size images will be downloaded to your computer--ready for printing. View the site's gallery for poster ideas. The pictures are downloaded into a PDF file. Adobe Acrobat is required. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 9042
In the Classroom: You could actually use this tool in any subject or grade level to create visual displays for your classroom or have students make their own (upper elementary and older). If you allow students to use this site, beware that the images in the Gallery may change frequently. What may be 'art' to some may be questionable to others. For art teachers, the use of this tool offers endless possibilities. Student artwork will take on a different air when blown up to gallery-sized prints. Teachers, think E-A-S-Y bulletin boards!
Teachers First Edge Review: For the slightly adventurous. Use this free web site to create flashcards for teacher or individual student use. There is also a link to “Study Flashcards” that are already ready to go. There are literally HUNDREDS of ready to go flashcard packets: presidents, addition, algebra, music, and more.
If you are creating your own, you can add images, video, or audio. Study flashcards online or share with others in created study groups. Use flashcards to learn new information (question and answer are side by side,) study (shows the question and then the answer,) or quiz themselves by entering answers. Create a game with the flashcards by using a timer and score board on the site. Share flashcard sets with others by sending a URL address or create study groups to share. View public flashcards created by others by using their search feature.
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In the Classroom: Skills needed: You can access the already created flashcards without any account, email, or age requirements. However, if you wish to create flashcards, an email and birth date is required to create an account. Users must be 13 years of age or older. Verifying email is required to create flashcards.
Using Brainflips: Use the Deck panel to enter flashcard deck title and other basic information. Use the Card panel to add, edit, and change the order of the flashcards in the deck. Create text or multiple choice answers for each flashcard and even enter alternative answers. Click "Insert" above the question field to add images, audio, and video to flashcards.
Safety/Security: Since an email and birth date are required, consider creating a class account for teacher use or for groups of students to use. Create teacher flashcards for class use by creating card decks and providing the URL for students to use. The home page of this site includes changing “featured” content contributed by the general public. Check ahead of time to be sure it is suitable for the classroom. You may want to send students to the flashcards via a direct link to the deck. You may want to prohibit or point out the links to advertising located along the top and sides of the site. Students must have individual accounts to create flashcards on their own(email required). Check your school policies about accessing/sharing student email on school computers. You may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how.
Possible uses: Facts, spelling words, vocabulary, definitions, foreign language, root words, historical names -— all can easily be typed into this flashcard format for any subject. Plan a system of tags for sets on related material so they can be grouped. For example: tag all geography terms "geography" and all words from the same science chapter using the chapter number or topic. You can use multiple tags, too! In the computer lab, using a projector or interactive whiteboard, walk your students through making their own sets of flashcards or using teacher created flashcards for student and group use. Students or parents can then access their electronic cards at home or anywhere with a specific URL that can be placed on any teacher blog or website. No email address is needed to use the cards, only to create the cards. Include the link to your sets on your web page for students to study before tests. Collaborate with other teachers to create useful sets for all to use. Rotate responsibility each marking period among student groups in your class to create a set for each chapter/unit/week for the rest of the class to use as review. Give a special award (or bonus points) for the most creative, complete set that marking period. Learning support teachers may want to work together with small student groups to create verbal and visual card sets to accompany the chapters they are studying. Involve the students in the process so they can reinforce new content as they create their own “study materials” with color coding, images, and more.
TeachersFirst offers this model for elementary (or middle) schools to build skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening systematically in a schoolwide model including students, teachers, and parents. The free web 2.0 tools suggested here are by no means the only tools that might work. These exemplary tools were chosen by the TeachersFirst Editors for ease of use and versatility in classroom and home use, and could easily be implemented at grade levels other than those suggested here. As students and teachers master a new tool at each grade level, they develop rich literacy skills and vital technology skills, all in the context of reading, writing, speaking and listening across the curriculum. 11220
In the Classroom: Explore the tools and project suggestions by grade for your individual use as a teacher or work together with others in your school to build literacy across all subjects and grades by systematically adopting and repeatedly using a fixed collection of tools so students master the tool skills as an aside to reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Try the practical suggestions for implementing this model in your school or grade level team.
TeachersFirst Edge Entry: for slightly adventurous technology users. This is one fabulous way for art or photography students to create a FREE online portfolio to share work in your class, share with each other, or submit as an online collection for competitions or college admissions. The users agreement specifies no "group" accounts or users under 13 years old. The free version is limited to 5 projects and 35 images (no videos in the free version), but this is enough to show your "best of the best." You can even choose the actual URL for the portfolio within Carbonmade. The home page has a Flash demo so you can see how the site works. 7819
In the Classroom: Skills needed: join the site (free), browse for files and upload to site, label with captions, project information, other information, and decide about viewing options. Works best with Internet Explorer 6+ or Safari. No special html skills needed. A teenager will figure this one out in one minute. A techno-comfortable teacher will take no more than four minutes! The only challenge is figuring out how to change settings on a project within your portfolio and have them SAVE. Watch the demo.
Share portfolios among neighboring schools or through art teacher associations to inspire your students and help them develop the critical skills to choose their best work and articulate their reasons (Use the "notes" space on each image to tell about it).
Be sure that you adhere to school policies regarding posting of student work. Have students create their accounts ONLY with written parent permission, especially since there is space for a "profile" (which teachers should require students to leave BLANK for safety reasons. Use your teacher email account so there is no danger of having outsiders contact your students. After graduation students may change the settings and use the site in budding art careers! Avoid including any personally identifiable information in descriptions or images. Personally identifiable information can always be shared with potential colleges, etc. via email or letter, rather than posting it to the web.
TeachersFirst Edge Tool: For more adventurous technology users-- and those who are willing to take the time to learn the tool. This fabulous, FREE online tool allows you to create your own interactive "books" to help young readers learn reading strategies to build comprehension. The tool allows you to enter your own text, images, and hints. The finished product is a very polished-looking book in a form that you can save on your computer or burn to a CD and use over and over and over with students for years to come.
Be sure to try the model books and read the tips for writers and illustrators. Click to see a sample we made for you and placed on our site. 8060
In the Classroom: Skills required: joining the site (free), locating or writing your own copyright-free text, locating or creating images for which you have the rights to make more than one copy (Fair Use does not apply!), copy/paste the text and resize/upload the images--following simple directions to create the pages and accompanying hints. Be sure to learn about the three interactive characters who teach the strategies! Publish and download the files of the finished "books" and save on your computer. Extract the zipped files and save locally, on your network, or burn to CD so your students can access them directly.
The uses of this one are endless. If you take the time to get permission from the publisher to use text from some of your textbooks or reading books, you could create interactive versions to use in your classroom or with special ed students. More simply, use student-written stories and artwork (scanned -- or created in Paint)to create the "book." Imagine creating a class "book" at the end of a unit on Communities or Animals, and including images you take with your digital camera. If you copy the CD's, students could sign out the "book" and read it to relatives using their home computer. You can keep the "library" of past books to help future classes. Or ask your middle/high school or gifted students to create books as writing/service project for struggling readers to use.
This handy online tool (Windows only--sorry) makes any computer screen into a "teleprompter" (scrolling screen with the text YOU paste in). No membership or log in is required. Just open the site and copy/paste in the text from a word doc (or type it in, but there is no way to SAVE it on the site). We recommend keeping your text ready-to-copy/paste and saved in another program. Set the font size and screen size to large or small. When you are ready to "speak," click the "start prompter" button. The speed controls are at the top of the screen. Remember that F11 will make any web page full screen without menus and toolbars. If you are fortunate enough to have a rear projection screen, the text can even be reversed. Anyone who wants scrolling text can just paste and go. The maximum text length is 2000 characters, but you could always have a second window ready and switch mid-speech. See System Requirements if you cannot get it to work. 8986
In the Classroom: Why bother with this one? Lots of reasons! Once they see it, your students are sure to come up with more, but here is a start: Try making a sample dialog for students to follow out loud as your project it in a foreign language or ESL/ELL class. Be sure to write in script format so they know who is speaking! Or share this tool with students who need help getting their nose out of their notes in presenting speeches. They can run it on a laptop only they can see and look out at the audience past the prompter. The comfort of having their text right there will ease many butterflies.
An alternate use: build reading fluency by having students read aloud from this tech-tool. They will be FAR more motivated to read up to speed! Speech clinicians may want to try it for articulation practice, as well.
Wondering what Google Docs are? Check out this short video, it is under 3-minutes. Instead of attaching a document to an email, attach an email to a document. Want to learn more? Take a look at this video. There is a link provided to embed the video (perhaps on your class web page when you introduce Google Docs?) . The site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 9997
In the Classroom: View this video for both professional and personal use. Administration could share this video with staff during in-service, a great way to collaborate! See more info on ways to use Google Docs in the TeachersFirst review here.
TeachersFirst Edge entry: for ANY technology user. Dabbleboard (still in beta) allows you to make whiteboard drawings and graphic organizers in an online space you can share with others. Since more than one computer can "work on" the whiteboard at a time, students in multiple locations can add to the board at the same time -- or come back to a saved board to add to it later. The whiteboard includes freehand drawing, basic shapes (some that even pop in when you come close to drawing that shape), text tools, and simple colors. You can also upload images, drag and resize anything you draw or type, etc. If used as a whole-class activity, such as on an interactive whiteboard, you can save it by clicking SHARE, copying the URL so you can put the link on a class wiki, teacher web page, or blog so students or the class can revisit and change it later. The tool requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
In the Classroom: Skills needed: Join the site (free), but only if you wish to be able to SAVE dabbleboards. You can share them in real time without joining, but they are lost once you quit. Joining requires an email address. Use your memberships email or check school policies before allowing students to sign up using email. Another option is to create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
Once you join, watch the quick video tour or play with the tools. Be sure you can locate tools to draw, resize, delete, drag, and group/ungroup items. Try uploading an image (make sure you have the RIGHTS to use it!). Your uploaded items remain in your library for later use. Note that to add text you simply click in the whitespace and start typing. It is easier to change text size and color BEFORE typing. To keep a board, simply click NEW. The old board will become part of your library at the left of the screen.
Safety concerns: Once shared, any dabbleboard can be seen and altered by others who know the URL. You will not have any record of who makes changes, so student-to-student "vandalism" is possible. Do not make student drawings "public" unless this is within school policies. Clicking "Make public" will add that dabble board to the public library. Others can copy any "public" work. Note that sharing by URL does NOT make a board public unless you click "make public."
Ideas for using this tool: Assess prior knowledge as you start a unit by generating a class dabbleboard. Save it under your class/teacher account to re-access throughout the unit, adding new topics and content. Make the URL available from your class web page for students to use as review or for learning support teachers to reinforce what has happened in class. Have student groups map out the content of projects. Encourage visual prewriting for the students who "think in pictures." Have students create review organizers or drag and drop activities to share with classmates. Brainstorm together over time or distance by letting students add ideas from home or collaborating from another school. Save your visual notes from a faculty meeting to reopen next time. Allow students to use a dabbleboard as their visual during speeches. Map the sequence of steps in a chemical reaction. Then share the URL for absent students to "see" what happened in class. Annotate design principles directly on top of an uploaded image or have students submit their own analysis of an image by sending you the URL for their dabbleboard. Have young students use a dabbleboard to draw out ideas before they can even write entire sentences. This one has endless possibilities!
TeachersFirst Edge entry: for slightly adventurous technology users. So you want to meet with other teachers around the globe and your school can’t afford for you and your students to fly there? No problem. Sign up for free video conferencing through DimDim. For the free version of this web conferencing site, up to 20 conference attendees can communicate with each other. No downloads are needed. Power point presentations, graphs, pdf documents, plus more, can be shared via DimDim conferencing.
Warning—this is a commercial site, so upgrades on services are offered prominently. As with most high-tech sites, these upgrades to the premium levels are offered for a cost (DimDim Pro). DimDim Free is free. This site requires Adobe Acrobat and Flash. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 9802
In the Classroom: Skills needed: You should be comfortable exploring this website to see which features are free versus which features are offered for a fee. A fast connection for your computer is advantageous as you watch the various videos to learn about the site. After viewing the tutorials, why not experiment with friends or colleagues before embarking on a prestigious seminar. It is easy to use, however, the more you get acquainted with it, the easier it will be. You will need to impart knowledge of how to use this tool when setting up a conference with parents or colleagues.
To get started, a quick registration is necessary. We suggest that you watch the tutorial videos after signing up to learn how to use the various features. If at any point you need to talk to a DimDim service employee, click on "Talk to Us." Type in your question and you will receive instant feedback. To host a web meeting, simply click on "Host Meeting." Create a name for your “Room” (that’s the place you and your attendees will meet). Next, create a Meeting Name (that’s the name of your seminar or meeting). Type in a description of the agenda so that others will know what information will be shared. Type in the email addresses of your invited attendees and an invitation will be sent to those people. Type in the Room Key (that’s basically the password your attendees will need to enter your web conference. Now, you’re ready to talk to a group of friends or colleagues. At the appointed time, your attendees will click on a link (sent to them via email) that will send them directly into your web conference. The free version lets attendees listen to each other.
Safety/security concerns: While this site may mainly be for teacher usage, there may be occasions when older students will be using this site to conference with peers in other schools or countries. The content shared by others during the conference will need to be monitored closely.
Possible uses: Applications for this site extend through all subject areas, as you connect with classrooms all over the world, exploring a vast array of subjects, languages, and social connections. World language learners will appreciate this site to talk in real-time to other language learners. Professional development is easy when the presenter invites up to 20 attendees to learn more about various educational subjects. Offer web conferencing through DimDim for students’ parents when you need to discuss details of upcoming projects or field trips. Save time and travel expenses, by chatting via DimDim! Have students “host” a DimDim session to “teach” others at another school about local history, news, or a current unit of study. Invite parents to learn from the students, too!
DLTK's Custom Chore Chart provides an easy, quick way to create any type of chart. Charts can be created for chores, homework, behavior, reading, math facts, and any other type of information that can be monitored and displayed as a chart. Creating a chart is so simple that students can create their own and choose a theme that interests them. The site allows you to choose the theme (or create your own), the text color, text size, font, color or black and white for printing, what specifically goes into the columns and rows, and more. Since the themes are more juvenile, you may want to suggest the “create your own” option with older students. This site does not require any registration. Be aware there are minor pop-up ads which are rather annoying, but worth it for this free tool. 10581
In the Classroom: Create charts for a variety of needs. Charts always come in handy for students who struggle to stay on task or to complete assignments. Charts are a fun and tactile way for students to monitor their success and stay on target with responsibilities. Use a chart system to teach organization and self monitoring for things such as homework, chores or daily jobs, morning or end of day tasks and behavior, backpack organization, reading books, math skills, and whatever else you or your students can “chart.” Use this tool in the beginning of a new school year to help with expectations or recording. Special ed and gifted teachers will want to have students create their own charts to take ownership for individual goals. This is also a great tool for students to use to record their success for specific New Year’s resolutions. This is definitely a link you want to list on your class website for parents to use at home.
Use “Dynamic Paper” to create number lines, grids, tessellations, shapes, spinners, nets, and more. This web resource is an invaluable tool for math educators. The objects that are created can be exported as PDF files to be used in worksheets or as Jpeg images for use in other web applications or programs. The site can certainly save a lot of time if you have been trying to create diagrams using word processing applications! 10441
In the Classroom: This site can be used to create anything from elementary math worksheets to high school geometry worksheets. Science teachers may find good uses for this tool in trying to create professional looking measurement activities. If individual computers are available, challenge students to create their own number lines or tessellations. Share HOW to use this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. And don’t forget to mention this link on your class website, great for at home practice!
This site provides an online FULL SCREEN timer. You can set the online timer to count down from any number. You simply type in the exact amount of time that you want to countdown into the white textbox. You can count by seconds, minutes, hours, days, or even years! This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. 10062
In the Classroom: What a fabulous alternative to a traditional egg timer. Project the time on your interactive whiteboard or projector while students take a test, solve a drag and drop, practice speeches, rotate between learning centers, or during cooperative learning groups. Be sure to turn up the volume! As you teach basic concepts of time in primary grades, use this timer for students to understand the real concepts of one minute or ten seconds. Show the relationships between minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, etc. You can even use it to teach counting backwards from 60!
Use this handy online tool to generate tests using a variety of formats - multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true and false, short answers, and more. Just complete a free registration, then start creating and customizing your assessment. Follow the prompts to select font size and style, choose a format, enter each question and answer, and print the test and answer key. Your tests are saved online and can be easily accessed or edited from anywhere. 5885
Sadly, as of December 4, 2009, Etherpad has announced that it has sold to Google and will fold in early 2010. If you are a loyal Etherpad user, read more here. TeachersFirst Edge review: for even slightly adventurous technology users. Ether pad is a tool for writing and collaborating in real time between up to 16 different contributors-- without erasing or overwriting each other's work! This tool starts up instantly, requiring no log-ins, tricky features or difficult tools. If you can type (and choose your favorite color), you can work on an EtherPad, a "pad" of virtual paper out in space on the Internet. The free version allows you to invite others to join you, either by sending them an email or, even easier, giving them the URL to your "pad." Here is a sample EtherPad, ready for you to add your own ideas for using EtherPad in the classroom! Unlike Google Docs, this tool does not require user accounts or email addresses, so even young students can participate in an EtherPad.
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In the Classroom: Skills needed: Nothing special. No log-in needed Simply click "Create a new pad" or click/paste the link for an existing one, and away you go. Enter a name for yourself in the box at the right of the pad and click the colored square to set a color for the highlighting on your typing. Type away. Delete, add, etc. To Save, click "Save revisions" and SAVE NOW. Be sure to click SHARE and copy the URL (Ctrl+C to copy), so you can keep it in your favorites or recorded somewhere. Or you can email it to yourself. It will be impossible to find your "pad" without it! Up to 16 others can work on the pad at the same time, and their work will show in their own colors. When you and your collaborators are done with your "pad," click "Export" to save it as a word doc or other option. Try looking at the different versions you can "revert" to as your group works, too!
Safety/Security Concerns:
Be sure you are within school policy to have students put work online. Have them use initials or a coded identifier instead of their real names. Each pad is public, if someone knows the URL, so outsiders could possibly add inappropriate content, but there is no display of "recent pads" or other ways someone could discover students' work. Students could also locate another student/group pad by URL and vandalize each other's work. Since changes can be reverted, all will not be lost.
Possible Uses:
Have students make multiple "pads" to comment and write on several class topics. Ex. students add responses to questions, evaluations of web links, or critiques of passages assigned for in-class perusal and discussion... create an Etherpad collaborative "study guide" for the passages. A social studies teacher could provide links to seven articles on Iran today and students respond, explaining what they think is important about each article (a "pad" for each). Use Etherpads to evaluate web site/blog authority or bias. Younger kids could write cooperative stories on the pad(s) to use vocabulary, grammar skills, practice punctuating dialog, etc. World language teachers could have students compose dialog or scenes to act out on video. In Reading class, have students collaborate to compose a "main idea" statement or summary of a written passage, including in higher level content area reading. Pass-the-pad: use the pads to "jigsaw" summaries or explanations of new content knowledge between expert groups. Keep a master list of the pad URLs so groups can access and change as they learn. Eventually publish the "final" version by exporting it. Cooperative writing groups can revise on drafts (copy/paste in from other docs) - then export the version the writer likes best. BRAINSTORM in real time or across times and places. Write cooperative lab reports. "Meet" with another class (or screenpal) using Skype to talk and Etherpad to write, making notes together of your plans for an upcoming event or working together to compose a story, letter, or script. Write cooperative stories or poems. Keep student council or club "minutes' and plans. Be sure to add your own ideas on the sample EtherPad made by our review team.
Teachers First Edge review: for ANY user able to COPY and PASTE a URL. Add annotations to ANY image and share the combined image and notes by URL using this simple online tool. Imagine being able to comment on an advertisement image, critique a work of art, or even explain propaganda techniques found in online images or sales sites. You can upload an image (such as a shot from a digital camera) or use one already on the web. Help develop students' critical eye by using this tool and sharing the annotated images by email or by URL. Here is a sample annotated web image created by the TeachersFirst editors. Recipients of shared images can reply and add comments of their own. Students can also use this on their own to make comments or reminders on images, useful for studying on their own! 10415
In the Classroom: No membership required. No special skills needed except knowing how to find an image on your computer for upload or how to find the URL of a web image. Just RIGHT-click the web image to find its direct URL ("Properties,""Get info," or "copy image location," depending on your computer). COPY (CTRL+C) the URL, and you are ready to paste it (CTRL+V) into Fine Tuna to add your commentary. Be sure to SAVE each addition, whether note, insert, or drawing element, then click "Send for review" to email or copy the exact URL. Tip: Be SURE to save completed URLs for finished work into a document or mark them in favorites for later access. It may be wise to also email them to yourself (or the teacher). Once you share and close the image, the only way to "find" that URL is in the web browser history on the computer where you viewed it (IF you can find it!).
Safety:
The only safety concern is that you should NOT label photos with identifiable information. The site does not require a membership, and the URLs of images you have annotated are not publicly available.
Possible uses: Use this site as an extension activity after performing class critiques of images on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students find examples of different propaganda techniques in images, annotate them, and share the "fine tuna-ed" images on a class wiki or submit them as homework via email. Isolate design elements or techniques in works of fine art, discuss composition of your own photos, or even annotate digital pictures of local historic sites. Imagine labeling the architecture of your courthouse or the parts of your school garden photos. With younger students, annotate an image together a few times until they are ready to use the tool in small groups. Your younger students will also want to use the "notes" as voice bubbles for the people in images to "talk." What a great way to teach punctuation of quotations! Art classes can also use Fine Tuna for collaborative critiques of art works in progress. Shoot a quick digital picture for upload and share for classmates to offer commentary and suggestions from any computer. Make "critique day" an ongoing experience!
Create puzzles and other word games using this resource. Puzzle types include Word Search, Crossword, Word Scramble, Bagels (Interactive Logic Game,) and Math worksheets among others. There are also quotes, illusions, and more. Creating a log in is not required. Puzzles created remain for two months and can be saved as a pdf file on your computer. Many puzzles are already permanently archived and can be found by looking through the categories. Don’t miss many holiday and calendar-event puzzles! Search puzzles of the day to find new and interesting puzzles to use. Printable puzzle versions from this site require Adobe Reader. Get it from the 
Put your assignment calendar online and enhance teacher, student, and parent communication! Assign-A-Day is a free web-based calendar tool that provides an easy way to create monthly calendars for each subject area or grade level. Registration is free and takes you to your calendar manager page after you log on. Customize the calendar colors, font style, and size to make a unique look for your class. Create or edit assignments from any computer that is connected to the Internet. Add links to websites or your TeachersFirst favorites as part of an assignment. Invite colleagues to share the calendar and work collaboratively with you. Students and parents can see the calendar by visiting the web site (no log-on required) and entering the teacher name in the search box. The calendar can be printed out as a grid or a list for student and parent use at home. This website requires Flash. You can get it from the 
