Category: Websites

I include lots of links for my readers to sites that will help them integrate technology into education. They cover websites on lesson plans, math, keyboarding, classroom management, cloud computer, digital books, teacher resources, free tech resources, and more. On any given day, a third of visitors to Ask a Tech Teacher click through to one of these resources. Which links my readers select tells me a lot about the type of information they’re looking for.

Here’s a list of the top ten sites visitors selected from my blog:

1. Structuredlearning.net–lots of teachers are finding books/ebooks here for integrating tech into the classroom. This is where I make mine available.
2. abcya.com–a popular site with classroom edutainment
3. itunes.apple.com–last year the top click-through was a website. This year, teachers are looking for apps for iPads.
4. libraryspot.com–there’s a big uptick in using the internet for research this year over last year
5. kids.nationalgeographic.com–still more research. I’m seeing a trend
6. bigbrownbear.co.uk/keyboard/–One of my favorite sites to teach K/1 how to type
7. DanceMat Typing
8. Fact Monster–for research
9. Typing Web
10. World Almanac for Kids

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Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days of Christmas
2. Christmas—history—fun video
3. Gift Hunt–updated version of 12 Days of Christmas–just as much fun
4. Holiday collection
5. Holiday Crossword
6. Holiday Elf Games
7. Holiday hangman
8. Holiday Hangman II
9. Holiday music
10. Holiday music II–sing along with the music–the site provides the words
11. Holiday—Design Gingerbread House
12. Holiday—find the word
13. Holiday—match game
14. Holiday—Math Facts
15. Holiday—North Pole Academy
16. Holidays around the world
17. Holidays–various
18. NORAD Santa
19. Penguin Show
20. Reindeer Orchestra
21. Santa Tracker

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Every week, I share a website that inspired my students. This one is perfect for Hour of Code. Make yourself a hero for an hour:

Age:

Grades 3-8 (or younger, or older)

Topic:

Problem-solving, critical thinking, building

Address:

Minecraft

Review:

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These cover elementary school through high school (sites like Open Library and Gutenberg Press where students can get free copies of books they need for class):

Read Stories

1. Aesop Fables—no ads
2. Aesop’s Fables
3. Audio stories
4. Childhood Stories
5. Classic Fairy Tales
6. Edutainment games and stories
7. Fables—Aesop—nicely done
8. Fairy Tales and Fables
9. Project Gutenberg
10. Listen/read–Free non-fic audio books
11. Magic Keys–stories for youngers
12. Mighty Book
13. Open Library
14. RAZ Kids–wide variety of reading levels, age groups, with teacher dashboards
15. Starfall
16. Stories read by actors
17. Stories to read–II
18. Stories to read—International Library
19. Story time–visual
20. Teach your monster to read (free)
21. Tumblebooks (fee)
22. Ziggity Zoom Stories

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Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving sites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

1. Canadian Thanksgiving
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
3. Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
4. Starfall–Silly Turkey
5. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
6. Thanksgiving Games
7. Thanksgiving games–Quia
8. Thanksgiving information–history, more
9. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
10. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
11. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
12. Thanksgiving puzzle–by Digipuzzle
13. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
14. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
15. Thanksgiving Wordsearch

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

updated 12-23-18

Here’s a wide variety of visual learning options for your students, from graphs to infographics,

Charts

1. AmCharts
2. Barchart
3. ChartGizmo
4. ChartGo
5. Chartle
6. Creately
7. Highcharts
8. Hohli Online Chart Builder
9. JS Charts
10. LovelyCharts
11. LucidCharts–for desktop and GAFE app
12. Online Chart Generator
13. OnlineChartTool
14. Pie Color

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Here’s a short list of fun Halloween websites for your students. Enjoy!

Websites:

1. Carving Pumpkins
2. Enchanted Learning
3. Funschool
4. Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
5. Halloween ghost stories
6. Meddybemps Spooky
7. Pumpkin Toss
8. Signing Halloween–a video
9. Skelton Park
10. The Kidz Page

Apps:

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One thing we can all agree on is that there are tons of free tech tools available that enrich learning.  I can’t keep up with them. I belong to several Tech Teacher forums, FB groups, G+ Communities, and every day I find more great tools I can’t wait to use in my classroom.  Like many of you, this summer I attended several professional development conferences (ISTE, Teachers Pay Teachers, WordPress, Summer PD)–that bumped my total up to about a gazillion.

With school just around the corner, I needed to figure out which tools should be immediately integrated into my teaching. This was difficult, but I sorted, shook, noodled, experimented, sifted, and whittled my list down based on tools that differentiate for student needs, simplify the teacher’s job, and entice students to use technology in learning. Here are my top five:

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The first day of class can be daunting. Students are curious about the new faces around them, intimidated–even frightened by the prospect of so many people they know nothing about. As a teacher, you might feel the same way. You knew everything about last year’s students, got excited when their baseball team won the playoffs, cried with them when a favorite pet passed away, cheered when they got an A  in math. Those details–that intimate knowledge–helped you understand what motivated them so you could differentiate  instruction to reach each of them where they were.

Now, you’re starting over. It would be easy to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves, but you want the first-day ice-breaker to be more–enriching but fun, to set the tone for the rest of the year. You want students to quickly get comfortable with each other, bond as a group, without turning the classroom into a party room. And, you want an activity they haven’t done so many times in the past it’s boring.

One truth never changes: Students love using ‘I’. There’s no better ice breaker than one where students share about themselves. There’s no better way to discover new friends than have a classmate understand perfectly what you’re saying about a tough soccer game because s/he too plays soccer.

Another truth: Kids love technology. This year, try a get-to-know-you that uses one of the many free online tech tools. How about these ideas:

• Have students upload a favorite picture of themselves into Thinglink, then add hotlinks (the yellow and red ‘dots’ on the image below) that take visitors to websites, videos, more pictures, or text that share details about the student.

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Economics is an authentic topic that can be intimidating if not presented correctly. Here are 4 websites that do a good job of addressing this topic in 3rd grade terms.

1. Coffeeshop Game–students learn the economic ins and outs of running a coffee shop
2. Moneyville–Students learn how to thrive in a community as they make and spend money.

You can scale this up or down, depending upon the scaffolding your student group has for understanding this topic.

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