Mind Maps

Text2Mindmaps is a long dead website but it has sort of been brought back to life by Tobias Lofgren's blog.  I posted about this site and you might want to look at it to see an example from Algebraic Geometry to see  how the mapping can work out.  To see that post click here. I have also previously posted about other mind mapping sites click here. 


  If you go to Tobias's site you can just type over the left hand side with your own ideas that will be placed in the mind map.  It is a fairly straight forward process.  Type over the example on the left hand side and your sentence appears on the mind map.  If you indent your next sentence your new subtopic will appear in a different rectangle attached by a line to the main topic (first sentence).  If you indent again your next line will show attached to the your subtopic, if you do not indent this sentence will attach back to the main topic.  See my picture below.  To see the website click here

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Next Vista - Career Videos

If you are teaching the Careers course you might want to use this website as part of the course.  It includes a section that has videos of 110 different people talking about their jobs.  To see the website click here.

Why Geography Matters

According to Chris Heffernen, "Geography matters now more than ever because of global crises that range from migration to climate change to pandemics."  To see his article click here.

MyBib

I have blogged about many other citation sites such as bibme and citation machine.  Here is another promising site that has premium features for free.  To see the site click here.

NRICH

NRICH has a plethora of lesson plans and activities for math teachers as well as posters with challenge activities.  To see the website click here.

Magnify the Universe

I am helping with a PD session to co-create a lesson within a subject area that includes math.  I have the science department.  I am doing a few topics but one I thought would be cool is to use the site below to compare two different objects using numbersleuth.org.  Numbersleuth.org has a great interactive infographic that is great for show the scale of the universe.  This would be great to show in Science class or could be used in math/science class for scientific notation.   Below I have made a video of the interactive infographic because I could not get it to embed.  They also have a nice poster that I have posted below too.

Click here to see the interactive infographic.

Source: Number Sleuth

Drawing Lessons

Nikkie Milner, an art teacher, has 13 drawing lesson videos on the showme website.  The topics include: Shading in pen, Drawing hands, Cubism, Basics of a good composition, Shading in pencil, Using a pencil to find correct angles, Sighting and proportion in drawing, Positive and negative space, Portrait proportions, Color schemes, The color wheel,  Two point perspective exterior and finally, One point perspective.  To see her videos click here.

Resources from the Royal Geographic Society

If you teach Geography there are plenty of teacher resources available here.  From their website, "Environmental and natural resources security has changed in the 21st century. Take a look at these resources exploring challenges for the human and physical geography of energy, food and water. Please use the 'Find a resource' menu to search for other resources."  To see the website click here.

15 Ways to add culture to your Spanish class

If you would like to add some culture to your Spanish class you might want to read the article by clicking here.    You might also want to click on the "Home" link on this website to see all the other articles on Secondary Spanish Space.

The Chemistry of Cookies

Last week I had a post on Reaction - A Food and Chemistry Channel.  To see that click here.  Today I am posting about a TED Ed  on The Chemistry of Cookies.  I have embedded the video below but you will want to go the the Ted Ed page as it has many resources for teachers.  To see the webpage click here.

Kahoot

Do you use Kahoot?  If so making questions and answers up can be a pain sometimes especially if you have the questions and answers already in a spreadsheet.  Well a couple of weeks ago Kahoot has added spreadsheet imports.  Read below what their site said.

"Being able to import kahoot questions from a spreadsheet has been one of our top feature requests of all time. Tada! Your wish comes true as we introduce our new spreadsheet import feature. Use our template and save your kahoot questions in .xlsx format – then it takes just seconds to add them to a new kahoot you’re creating.  This will dramatically cut the time needed to create kahoots, as well as help you combine questions and answers from several spreadsheets into one kahoot!"

Details on how to use the spreadsheet option can be found by clicking here.

Reaction - A Food and Chemistry Channel

PBS Digital Studios has produced this Youtube channel called Reaction.  This channel is geared to Science/Chemistry/Biology teachers but they have a section on Food Chemistry that might work for Food teachers.  Other sections are: Chemistry Questions, Speaking of Chemistry, Chemistry and Biology - A Match Made in Nature, Tech Topics, Chemistry Life Hacks, and Drugs & Medicine, To see the Youtube channel click here.

World Digital Library

If you teach Cultural Studies or History this site hosted by the  US Library of Congress is a great searchable source of primary documents and fabulous images.  You can use the search box or the tools in the top left part of the header.  To see the site click here.

Poetry 180

This site is from Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate 2001-03.  It is designed with high school students in mind.  It is basically a different poem to be read or listened to for every school day.  To see the website click here.

Microsoft's Hacking Stem

If you are teaching STEM on a tight budget, Microsoft's Hacking STEM might be for you.  They have several projects available.    They have projects divided into ones that take a week or more and ones that are "Bite Sized" and take 1 hour or less.  To see the website click here.

Purpose Games

I first blogged about Purpose Games in 2016, but this is a new school year and I thought you might want to see this to start the first week back at school.  Many of you use Kahoot.  Kahoot is great.  However Purpose Games might give you some other options.  There are many premade games that can be used in Math, Science and Geography to name a few.  To see a basic Algebra game that is timed and would be great for a review click here.   A game to label the main bones of the skeleton can be found by clicking here.  To see a plant cell game click here.  To see a Fruits in Spanish game click here.  To see a Great Gatsby vocab game click here.  The search box in the top right hand corner is your friend to find games that are already made.  You can also make up your own games and be a hero.

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

According to their site, "Through the Scholastic Awards, teens in grades 7–12 from public, private, or home schools can apply in 29 categories of art and writing for their chance to earn scholarships and have their works exhibited and published. Beyond the Awards, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers produces a number of programs to support creative students and their educators, including the Art.Write.Now.Tour, the National Student Poets Program, the Scholastic Awards Summer Workshops and Scholastic Awards Summer Scholarships programs, the Golden Educators Residency, and much more." 

Even better these awards are available to grade 7-12 US, Canadian and American schools abroad.  Yes I said Canadian.  To see the website click here.  To see the categories, look below. 

Timeline JS

In your Social Studies class (or others), you might want to make a timeline.  Timeline JS is an excellent tool that you might want to use.  See the  embedded video below.   To see the website click here.

How to Use TimelineJS from Northwestern U. Knight Lab on Vimeo.

Guide to Common Fallacies

If you teach fallacies in your English class or Critical Thinking class you might want to show the following videos produced by the PBS Idea Channel.  The videos are all just a couple minutes long (except the last one) and can be found by clicking here.  There are 9 of them:  Moving the Goal Posts Fallacy, The Strawman Fallacy, The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy, The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, The Ad Hominem Fallacy, The Black and White Fallacy, The Authority Fallacy, The Fallacy Fallacy and lastly 3 Fallacies For Election Season.  You may want to see my other post on Fallacies from last February  by clicking here.