Useful websites
Asia Map:
http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/mideastquiz.html
World Religions Map:
http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Map_of_World_Religions&video_id=188560
Trueflix:
http://auth.grolier.com/login/tfx/login.php
username:oakview
password:trueflix
Voice Thread:
https://voicethread.com/about/features/
A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
Kerpoof:
http://www.kerpoof.com/
What is Kerpoof? The answer to that is not so simple. Kerpoof is all about having fun, discovering things, and being creative. Here are just a few ways that you can use Kerpoof:
Chatzy Chat Room:
http://www.chatzy.com/
Time Rime:
http://timerime.com/
TimeRime allows users to create timelines that include text, images,
audio, and video. One of the better features of TimeRime is that you can
have more than one type of media for each event on your timeline.
TimeRime users can also select which media type they want as the
feature piece of each event. As we've come to expect with any web 2.0
tool of this type, you can embed the timeline in a blog or share it via
email. TimeRime can be used in English or Spanish.
History Pin:
http://www.historypin.com/
Historypin is a service developed by We Are What We Do in
partnership with Google. Historypin allows anyone with a
Google account to place images within the setting of current
Google Maps Streetview imagery. If you don't have images
to add, you can simply explore the imagery added by others.
To explore the imagery on Historypin, zoom in on a location then select a range of dates on the
Historypin timeline. Learn more about Historypin in this video.
If economics, particularly personal finance, is a part of your
curriculum then you should check out some of Common Craft's
work.
Common Craft:
http://www.commoncraft.com/
Common Craft has three videos that could be used in a
business class, economics class, or in any setting that requires
students to have an understanding of banking practices. Here are
direct links to each of the three videos: Investing in Plain English, Borrowing in Plain English,
Saving in Plain English.
European Virtual Museum:
http://www.europeahttp://scribblemaps.com/nvirtualmuseum.it/
The European Virtual Museum is the product of collaboration between twenty-seven European
museums. The European Virtual Museum makes artifacts of European history available in
interactive 3D form. Through the use of QuickTime technology the artifacts in the European
Virtual Museum can be rotated for optimum viewing. Visitors to the European Virtual Museum
can browse through the collections by chronology, geographic area, object type, contributing
museum, routes, and tour itineraries.
Scribble Maps:
http://scribblemaps.com/
Scribble Maps is a fun and useful application for drawing and typing on Google Maps. Using
Scribble Maps anyone can draw and type on a map. All of the zoom options and most of the
search options available on Google Maps are available when using Scribble Maps. You can
zoom in on an area and then type text, draw a circle or a box around an area, you can even
doodle stick figures or whatever you like on your map. Scribble Maps Pro allows you to import
KML files, import spreadsheets, and import SHP files. Importing KML files allows you to add free
hand drawing on top of files that you may have already created for Google Maps or Google
Earth. Importing spreadsheets makes it easy to quickly add placemarks to a large number of
places. SHP file importation allows you to add custom shapes to your maps. Watch this video to see these options in action.
Google Earth:
http://www.google.com/earth/index.html
Google Earth. The possibilities for using Google Earth in a social
studies classroom are almost limitless. In Google Earth students
can tour ancient Rome, explore WWI and WWII battle sites, learn
about contemporary news stories such as events in Afghanistan,
or use Google Earth as an almanac of facts. Students, of course,
can use Google Earth to create digital stories. Students can create tours of military campaigns,
trace the lives of famous people, or map the expansions and contractions of political borders. If
you're looking for some directions to get started with Google Earth, please see Google Earth
Across the Curriculum and or the official Google Earth help pages.
The Center on Congress at Indiana University has a good
collection of interactive, role-playing activities for learning about
how the United States' government functions. Each activity
allows students to experience the roles and functions of
different members of Congress. One of the activities that my
Civics students have really enjoyed in the past is the "How a
Member Decides to Vote" activity. In "How a Member Decides to Vote" students take on the role
of a Congressman or Congresswoman for a week. During the simulated week, students receive
phone calls from constituents, read newspaper headlines, meet with constituents, meet with
lobbyists, and attend meetings with other Congressmen and Congresswomen. The "How a
Member Decides to Vote" activity makes students account for their personal feelings as well as
the influence of constituents and lobbyists.
Snag Films:
http://learning.snagfilms.com/film/category/history
Snag Learning offers free access to high quality documentary
films from notable producers like National Geographic and
NOVA. Snag Learning categorizes documentaries by grade level
and content area. Additionally, Snag Learning offers a series of
guiding questions for each film. You can embed previews of each
video into your blog, but you have to watch the full-length versions on Snag Learning.
Ten by Ten:
http://tenbyten.org/10x10.html
Ten by Ten is a unique program that links images with news stories. Every hour the top 100
news stories from around the world are linked to images on a ten by ten grid. The stories are
ranked according to current popularity and importance. Clicking on an image in the grid will
provide you with more information including links to more articles about the story. (You must
allow pop-ups for the article links to work).
60 Second Civics:
http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=60_second_civics_podcast
60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic
Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US
Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's
episode. Playing 60 Second Civics could be a good "starter activity" at the
beginning of a US History or Civics class. You might consider combining and
or alternating the use of 60 Second Civics with a resource like CNN Student
News or The Week in Rap.
CNN Student News:
http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/
CNN Student News is a daily web show highlighting a handful of
stories. The stories covered by CNN Student News range from
traditional serious news topics to how-to stories appealing mostly
to students to light and fun stories. As a social studies teacher
every week I find at least a couple of stories from CNN Student
News that I can work into my curriculum. CNN Student News provides printable maps and a
daily news quiz to go along with each episode.
The Week in Rap:
http://theweekinrap.com/
The Week in Rap produced by Flocabulary is a free weekly rap
video recapping the week's biggest news stories. The videos are
generally less than three minutes in length. The videos can be
found on Vimeo as well at theweekinrap.com.
Google Lit Trips:
http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Getting_Started.html
Maps are obviously useful for Social Studies teachers, but
did you know that you can also use multimedia maps to tell a
story? Google Maps and Google Earth can both be used to
create a multimedia story. Try having your students write the
biography of a famous person by plotting points on a map
and adding text, images, and videos about that person to each placemark.
Electronic Posters
http://jmowens.edu.glogster.com/dashboard/
Early Humans
http://www.wilton.k12.ct.us/mb/library/projects/6/earlyhumans/earlyhumans.htm
Geography:
http://geographyworldonline.com/geo/tests.html#16
http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/mideastquiz.html
World Religions Map:
http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Map_of_World_Religions&video_id=188560
Trueflix:
http://auth.grolier.com/login/tfx/login.php
username:oakview
password:trueflix
Voice Thread:
https://voicethread.com/about/features/
A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
Kerpoof:
http://www.kerpoof.com/
What is Kerpoof? The answer to that is not so simple. Kerpoof is all about having fun, discovering things, and being creative. Here are just a few ways that you can use Kerpoof:
- Make artwork (even if you aren't good at drawing!)
- Make an animated movie (really! it's easy!)
- Earn Koins which you can trade for fun things in the Kerpoof Store
- Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug
- Tell a story
- Make a drawing
- Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made
Chatzy Chat Room:
http://www.chatzy.com/
Time Rime:
http://timerime.com/
TimeRime allows users to create timelines that include text, images,
audio, and video. One of the better features of TimeRime is that you can
have more than one type of media for each event on your timeline.
TimeRime users can also select which media type they want as the
feature piece of each event. As we've come to expect with any web 2.0
tool of this type, you can embed the timeline in a blog or share it via
email. TimeRime can be used in English or Spanish.
History Pin:
http://www.historypin.com/
Historypin is a service developed by We Are What We Do in
partnership with Google. Historypin allows anyone with a
Google account to place images within the setting of current
Google Maps Streetview imagery. If you don't have images
to add, you can simply explore the imagery added by others.
To explore the imagery on Historypin, zoom in on a location then select a range of dates on the
Historypin timeline. Learn more about Historypin in this video.
If economics, particularly personal finance, is a part of your
curriculum then you should check out some of Common Craft's
work.
Common Craft:
http://www.commoncraft.com/
Common Craft has three videos that could be used in a
business class, economics class, or in any setting that requires
students to have an understanding of banking practices. Here are
direct links to each of the three videos: Investing in Plain English, Borrowing in Plain English,
Saving in Plain English.
European Virtual Museum:
http://www.europeahttp://scribblemaps.com/nvirtualmuseum.it/
The European Virtual Museum is the product of collaboration between twenty-seven European
museums. The European Virtual Museum makes artifacts of European history available in
interactive 3D form. Through the use of QuickTime technology the artifacts in the European
Virtual Museum can be rotated for optimum viewing. Visitors to the European Virtual Museum
can browse through the collections by chronology, geographic area, object type, contributing
museum, routes, and tour itineraries.
Scribble Maps:
http://scribblemaps.com/
Scribble Maps is a fun and useful application for drawing and typing on Google Maps. Using
Scribble Maps anyone can draw and type on a map. All of the zoom options and most of the
search options available on Google Maps are available when using Scribble Maps. You can
zoom in on an area and then type text, draw a circle or a box around an area, you can even
doodle stick figures or whatever you like on your map. Scribble Maps Pro allows you to import
KML files, import spreadsheets, and import SHP files. Importing KML files allows you to add free
hand drawing on top of files that you may have already created for Google Maps or Google
Earth. Importing spreadsheets makes it easy to quickly add placemarks to a large number of
places. SHP file importation allows you to add custom shapes to your maps. Watch this video to see these options in action.
Google Earth:
http://www.google.com/earth/index.html
Google Earth. The possibilities for using Google Earth in a social
studies classroom are almost limitless. In Google Earth students
can tour ancient Rome, explore WWI and WWII battle sites, learn
about contemporary news stories such as events in Afghanistan,
or use Google Earth as an almanac of facts. Students, of course,
can use Google Earth to create digital stories. Students can create tours of military campaigns,
trace the lives of famous people, or map the expansions and contractions of political borders. If
you're looking for some directions to get started with Google Earth, please see Google Earth
Across the Curriculum and or the official Google Earth help pages.
The Center on Congress at Indiana University has a good
collection of interactive, role-playing activities for learning about
how the United States' government functions. Each activity
allows students to experience the roles and functions of
different members of Congress. One of the activities that my
Civics students have really enjoyed in the past is the "How a
Member Decides to Vote" activity. In "How a Member Decides to Vote" students take on the role
of a Congressman or Congresswoman for a week. During the simulated week, students receive
phone calls from constituents, read newspaper headlines, meet with constituents, meet with
lobbyists, and attend meetings with other Congressmen and Congresswomen. The "How a
Member Decides to Vote" activity makes students account for their personal feelings as well as
the influence of constituents and lobbyists.
Snag Films:
http://learning.snagfilms.com/film/category/history
Snag Learning offers free access to high quality documentary
films from notable producers like National Geographic and
NOVA. Snag Learning categorizes documentaries by grade level
and content area. Additionally, Snag Learning offers a series of
guiding questions for each film. You can embed previews of each
video into your blog, but you have to watch the full-length versions on Snag Learning.
Ten by Ten:
http://tenbyten.org/10x10.html
Ten by Ten is a unique program that links images with news stories. Every hour the top 100
news stories from around the world are linked to images on a ten by ten grid. The stories are
ranked according to current popularity and importance. Clicking on an image in the grid will
provide you with more information including links to more articles about the story. (You must
allow pop-ups for the article links to work).
60 Second Civics:
http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=60_second_civics_podcast
60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic
Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US
Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's
episode. Playing 60 Second Civics could be a good "starter activity" at the
beginning of a US History or Civics class. You might consider combining and
or alternating the use of 60 Second Civics with a resource like CNN Student
News or The Week in Rap.
CNN Student News:
http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/
CNN Student News is a daily web show highlighting a handful of
stories. The stories covered by CNN Student News range from
traditional serious news topics to how-to stories appealing mostly
to students to light and fun stories. As a social studies teacher
every week I find at least a couple of stories from CNN Student
News that I can work into my curriculum. CNN Student News provides printable maps and a
daily news quiz to go along with each episode.
The Week in Rap:
http://theweekinrap.com/
The Week in Rap produced by Flocabulary is a free weekly rap
video recapping the week's biggest news stories. The videos are
generally less than three minutes in length. The videos can be
found on Vimeo as well at theweekinrap.com.
Google Lit Trips:
http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Getting_Started.html
Maps are obviously useful for Social Studies teachers, but
did you know that you can also use multimedia maps to tell a
story? Google Maps and Google Earth can both be used to
create a multimedia story. Try having your students write the
biography of a famous person by plotting points on a map
and adding text, images, and videos about that person to each placemark.
Electronic Posters
http://jmowens.edu.glogster.com/dashboard/
Early Humans
http://www.wilton.k12.ct.us/mb/library/projects/6/earlyhumans/earlyhumans.htm
Geography:
http://geographyworldonline.com/geo/tests.html#16