Media Matters
Clover Middle School Media Center -- August/September 2012
Getting to Know Your New Students
This site offers a "binder" of activities that will be help you get to know your new students. If you've never used LiveBinders, all you do is click on the tabs at the top of the page to open them. Some tabs have additional tabs on the inside. To open a page fullscreen, just click on the URL. You may have to override the filter for a few activities. (http://www.livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=475167)
Gooru: A Search Engine for Math & Science Teachers
Gooru is an education search engine for learning that helps teachers find standards aligned content and study guides. 5th-12th grade math and science topics are covered and include resources like digital textbooks, animations and instructor videos. Gooru is not just for teachers, students can use the study guides and self assessments to guide learning. Based on the topics studied and the performance on self-assessments, Gooru begins to suggest resources and study guides to help gain mastery. You can explore Gooru's many resources, collections, quizzes, a standards library or a search engine. (http://www.goorulearning.org)
iCivics
iCivics is a fun way for students to learn about our government. There are 16 educational games, as well as a free standards-aligned curriculum! Games include topics like: Citizenship and Participation, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Budgeting, Foreign Policy and National Defense, Separation of Powers, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch. The games are fantastic, and put students right in the middle of the action and story. (http://www.icivics.org)
Jackson Pollock Whiteboard
Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a big name in the abstract expressionist movement. This website allows you (or students) to create Jackson Pollock-esque virtual paintings. Students click anywhere on the screen for splatters of paint, drops, and dribbles. As they are “painting”, students can press any key on the keyboard for a different background color, erase using the space bar, press alt+ any key to change the color of the drip, or use numbers 1-0 or left, right, up, or down arrow to change the color of the drip or background. This is also a great stress reliever -- you get to throw paint around without having to clean it up! (http://www.jacksonpollock.org)
Grammaropolis
Grammaropolis features fun character descriptions for nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections. Not all of this content is free, but there is enough free content to be useful in every classroom. This site would be especially useful for ESL students! (http://grammaropolis.com)
Easel.ly
Infographics are quickly becoming "the way" to show information. They're like charts and graphs on steroids! Easel.ly is a website that enables you to build your own infographic by dragging and dropping pre-made design elements. You can use a blank canvas or build upon one of Easel.ly's themes. If Easel.ly doesn't have enough pre-made elements for you, you can upload your own graphics to include in your infographic. Your completed infographic can be exported and saved as PNG, JPG, PDG, and SVG files. It's easy enough for your students to create them, too! (http://www.easel.ly)
Graphic Organizers Galore
Graphic organizers are a great way to help your students classify ideas and communicate more effectively. This website provides many different graphic organizers to structure writing projects, to help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research and brainstorming. (http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/index.jsp)