Search Results for: 16 great research websites

Updated 11-28-22

1. Buncee–drag and drop multimedia onto a canvas to tell a story or presentation
2. ChatGPT–AI-generated writing
3. ChatGPT–has developed their own tool to find AI-generated writing
4. Context Clues Millionaire
5. Co:Writer–type a few words and the program predicts what comes next
6. CoWriter–if you can think it, you can write it–browser extension
7. Create Reading Excitement with Book Trailers
8. Formatically — automatically formats docs for MLA and adds citations
9. Main Idea Battleship
10. Newspapers, posters, comics—learn to create
11. TED videos that teach writing
12. Using a table of contents
13. Vocab, prefix/suffix, word lists and more
14. Write your own adventure story–a little like Madlibs but not crazy
15. Writing Classroom–writing strategies for instructional tech in ed
16. Writing games

Blogs

Book Reviews

Brainstorming

Citation Tools

1. BibMe
2. Citation Generator
3. Citation Machine
4. EasyBib
5. WriteCite

Comics

Drawing resources from Eric Curts

1.  Blog Post – “Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings” – Website link
2.  Wintertime Magnetic Poetry Template – Google Drawing link
3.  Blog Post – “Valentine’s Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings” – Website link
4.  Valentine’s Magnetic Poetry Template – Google Drawing link
5.  Compose a Tweet Template – Google Drawing link
6.  Blog Post – “3 Tools for Making Memes in School” – Website link
7.  Blog Post – “Create Your Own Story Cubes with Google Drawings” – Website link

Games–Writing

1. The Writing Process Gameboard

Greeting Cards

Journaling

1. Penzu

Lesson Plans

Letter Writing

1. Friendly Letter Maker

Newsletters

1. Adobe Spark–a suite of tools for publishing; see newsletter directions here
2. Newspaper template–in PowerPoint

Newspaper

1. Newspaper template–in PowerPoint

Notetaking

Outlines

1. The Google Docs app
2. MS Word app
3. OmniOutliner –for iPads and online
4. OneNote
5. Transno–outline-based notetaking app that supports one click to mind map
6. Workflowy – an online list maker that is shared and collaborative

PDF Editors and Annotators

Plagiarism

Publish Writing

Skills

Social Media

1. Fake headline
2. Fakebook–fake FB
3. IFakeText–fake SMS text

Spelling

Stories

Storytelling

1. Adobe Spark Video–digital stories that
2. My Storybook Maker–6-8 year olds with great drawing tools, stamps, voice recording, text and sharing capabilities
3. Sway–storytelling any type of event including text, images, and more. Part of MS Office

Vocabulary

1. Futaba–fantastic multiplayer game AND a fun way to help children learn new words

Word Processing Programs

1. Games
2. WPS–full productivity suite, free, for computers, iOS

Writing

1. Canva Text to Image–write words and Canva changes them to images
2. Google Docs–free app that provides limited access to Google Docs functions
3. MS Word iPad app–free; create new docs and/or edit one downloaded from online storage
4. Read&Write–for Google Chrome, students write their own content and save as PDFs, share, add more than text
5. Write About This–writing prompts for students

Writing Programs

1. 6 Traits
2. Writer’s Workshop
3. Writing City

Write an ebook

1. BookCreator 5

Writing Review Sites

Writing by AI (identify it)

I include lots of links for my readers to places that will help them integrate technology into their 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, I generate on average 810 of these ‘click throughs’. 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. itunes.apple.com–last year the top click-through was a website. This year, teachers are looking for apps for iPads.
2. libraryspot.com–there’s a big uptick in using the Internet for research this year over last year
3. Structuredlearning.net–lots of teachers are finding books/ebooks here for integrating tech into the classroom
4. abcya.com–a popular site with classroom edutainment
5. factmonster.com–more research for class projects
6. kids.nationalgeographic.com–still more research. I’m seeing a trend
7. bigbrownbear.co.uk/keyboard/–One of my favorite sites to teach K/1 how to type
8. brainpop.com–great collection of videos and games on almost every topic

What do I conclude from this? Where last year, the top sites revolved around keyboarding, this year it’s research. Second, you want information on managing the classroom–that’s the wikis and the Internet start pages. I hear you. Check back this new year and see what I come up with.

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got:

I am having my kids create websites that will not be shared publicly. They are “Googling” images and I just want to know what are the copyright rules for such images? Should I limit their images only from certain “free” graphic sites? Just confused by all the rules like creative commons, public domain, copyright etc.. They asked if they can use pictures from Microsoft and I honestly don’t know what the rules are or how to explain them in 4th grade terms.The kids are not trying to sell anything, just creating a site as a way to share their research. They know how to site online resources that contain facts but not sure what to do with images. Is just providing the URL from the website that the image was on acceptable?

Maybe, if those images are copyright-free. If they aren’t, you just can’t use them.

A rule of thumb is Google Images is fine if the images themselves don’t show copyright notices. Some do and those must be avoided. Others have easily-identifiable sources like NASA or Hubble. Many are copies of copies with no origination trail.

I use images as an introduction to copyright and privacy instruction. I explain what those are, demonstrate how to use best practices to avoid infringing. Here’s a good list of copyright-free image/clip art websites, but I DON’T limit students to these sites:

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Animals

Art

1. Art—Make a monster
2. National Gallery of Art—for kids
3. Sistine Chapel

1. Egyptians
2. Pygmies
3. Vikings
4. World National Anthems

Ecology

1. Breathing earth–the environment
2. Conservation Game
3. Ecotourism Simulation

Economics

1. Rich Kid Smart Kid
2. Spent–living at minimum wage: the game

Geography

1. Geography quiz—Seterra
2. Geography games–from World Geography Games
3. Google Earth—free download site

Government

1. Civics games
2. Government games
3. School House Rock–USA beginnings
4. SHR–I’m just a bill

Health

History

Holidays

1. Christmas
2. Earth Day
3. St. Patrick’s Day
4. Valentine’s Day

Keyboarding

Landforms

Language Arts

Languages

1. Babbel.com
2. Busuu.com
3. Mango Languages
4. Spanish resources
5. Spanish words and phrases game

Logical Thinking

1. Design Squad Thinking Games
2. Thinking Skills–Riddle

Math

1. Music Games

Miscellaneous

News

1. Kids News – Current Events
2. BBC News for kids

Pictures

1. Google Images—reverse image search
2. Google Life Project—from Life Mag
3. Pictures for Learning
4. Smithsonian Wild—200k animal pics!

Research

Science

1. Breathing earth–the environment
2. Geologic movies–great and fun
3. Redwood Forests video
4. Virtual tours
5. Virtual weather, machines and surgery

Space

Special Needs

1. Disabilities—Microsoft
2. Open OCR
3. Text to audio

Stories

1. Stories to read for youngsters
2. Stories to read from PBS kids
3. Stories to read—International Library

Survival

Technology

USA

1. All About America
2. USA Puzzle

Water Cycle

1. Aquation–the freshwater access game
2. Water Cycle–from the EPA
3. Water Cycle–very visual; good tool for lower grades
4. Water cycle–interactive
5. Water cycle—label diagram

Weather

1. Riding the Wind with Kalani
2. Smithsonian Weather Lab
3. WeatherSTEM
4. Weather Websites
5. Wild Weather Adventure

Word Study

1. Grammar—Adjectives
2. Grammar games
3. Vocabulary-Spelling City
4. Word Games

Writing

1. Context Clues Game
2. Context Clues Millionaire
3. Friendly Letter Maker
4. Main Idea Battleship
5. Using a table of contents

Updated 1-1-23

Be sure to click the heading links for more websites

Geography

Greece-Rome

Math

Miscellaneous

1. Google Life Project—from Life Mag
2. Pictures for Learning
3. Smithsonian Wild—200k animal pics!

Plants

1. Plant games
2. Plant life cycle

Poetry

Programming

Research

Science

Spanish

I  calculate what’s trending on my blog by which of my posts are popular in a

particular time period. Here’s the run-down so far this year:

1. Great Websites
2. 20 Great Research Websites for Kids
3. Lesson Plans
4. 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5
5. 2nd Grade
6. 62 Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
7. 31 Human Body Websites for 2nd-5th Grade
8. 1st Grade
9. Top 13 Web 2.0 Tools for Classrooms
10. 62 First Grade Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
11. 18 Online Keyboard Sites for Kids
12. Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills
13. You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…
14. Kindergarten
15. 29 Steps to Internet Safety for Kids

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A couple of months ago, I posted an article called Should Tech Teachers be in the Classroom or the Lab? I got the question from a reader and wanted to see what the tech ed community thought about what has become a hot topic among technology teacher, coordinators and integration specialists. I summarized the common thoughts on the subject and received quite a few thoughtful responses from readers.

I also cross-posted the article to LinkedIn and wanted to share those responses with my blog readers. You’ll find them an important contribution to your knowledge on this subject, with lots of anecdotal stories and varied viewpoints. Enjoy!

Gail Flanagan • Using technology as a tool in all parts of the school day integrating it into the students and teachers day. We implemented 1:1 iPad for a 6th grade team and mini pilot of iPad carts for the rest of the school. Digital natives use the iPad intuitively for collaboration, organization, creativity, productivity and communication. Keyboarding, word processing, spreadsheets and multimedia presentation tools are still used with laptops and desktop computers.
Lucky to be a teacher of Middle School ~ Allied Arts computer class. We reassess the standards to adapt to essential questions of what to know using technology in everyday lives and 21st century skills,

Dale McManis • Around classroom technology integration and professional development for teachers I really like the work of Dr. Karen Swan-Research Professor, Research Center for Educational Technology / College & Graduate School of Education, Health and Human Services, Kent State University. 

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