Archive for the ‘Web Resources’ Category

Happy Pi Day! (Notebook File)

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

There’s a brand new “Pi Day” lesson in the downloads section of our Educator Resource Center. The file features Teq Learning Objects, songs, videos, and a variety of New York State Assessment questions. For a preview, watch the video below.

Download the lesson here (remember to log-in).

Free Martin Luther King Movie from BrainPOP

Friday, January 15th, 2010

BrainPOP has created a biographical movie of Martin Luther King, Jr. in honor of Martin Luther King Day. View it here. The video is complimented with a quiz and activity.

IXL.com Makes Math Fun!

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Math is fun again with IXL.com. This site allows assessment of child’s understanding as they practice basic math skills. teachers can collect data on grade-level proficiency, and identify trouble spots. As the child masters skills, they collect ribbons and medals that keep them motivated as they practice.

Practice questions and state standards are organized by grade level and easy to find.

IXL features a themed game board for each grade so that students can win prizes as they practice.

Extra Gallery Packs

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

If you use the calendars in the gallery, you have probably realized they end in 2009. To get the 2010 calendar and more visit the SMART Gallery Collections Online. Here you will find standalone gallery packs that can be downloaded separately from the main gallery. Some of the packs include “American States,” “Childhood Stories,” and “Spanish.” Once you download these gallery packs they will be added to your “My Content” Folder.

Google Wonder Wheel

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Searching the internet just got a whole lot better!  The Google Wonder Wheel will bring searching the internet to a whole new level.

2009-12-03_1145To activate the Wonder Wheel, enter a search term into Google (as you normally would) and click “Search.”  When you get to the results page, click on “Show options.”  Under the bold heading of “Standard View,” choose “Wonder Wheel.”  Your results will then be displayed as a concept map.  New search results will be displayed as branches of that map.

Clicking on any of the new branches will break down that subcategory even further.  Listed results will appear next to your Wonder Wheel.

Give it a shot!  We’re sure your students will think this is pretty cool!

Keeping an Eye on Our Blog

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Here are a few quick and easy ways to keep up-to-date on our blog.

If you want to collect our blog feed with a desktop application that will download the latest posts, you can download Feed Reader.

There are plenty of websites out there that will collect blog feeds. We use Bloglines, a free site that gives you quick access to all of your feeds from any computer. You’ll need to create an account, but then it’s easy to add different feeds.

If you use Facebook, you can get all of our updates by becoming a fan.  If you’re already checking for updates from friends and family, this is the easiest way to keep track of new posts, videos, and events.

We send all of our blog posts to Twitter too, and you can subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, where we feature blog posts and lessons from our ERC.

Hope this helps you get our updates even faster!

ePals, the future of student-led global collaboration

Monday, December 21st, 2009

logo_ePALS_hi_resIn the past, many teachers have provided their students the opportunity to become pen-pals with other classrooms across a city, state or even a nation using hand-written letters. But in today’s world where email and media communication are capturing the attention of students, we, as educators, need to look to the future of communication. That is exactly what ePals.com is doing.

ePals boasts itself as a safe learning and collaborating platform for teachers and students to communicate all across the world. With ePals you can connect to many different types of projects and, subsequently, with other classes. Additionally, ePals provides different learning experiences, including; unit specific content, teaching resources, translation services and projects arranged by topic, and all of ePal’s projects include key objectives:

  • Interaction – Students do work geared towards the project and collaborate with others globally.
  • Cross-curriculum – Through mathematics, the sciences, cultures and languages.
  • Inclusion – There are many different aspects of projects to incorporate many different learning styles and abilities.

So check out the ePals website at www.epals.com and get in on the forefront of what is certain to be a global phenomenon.