Thinkfinity has been one of my “go-to” sites for many years, ever since its infant stage as Marco Polo. It is a wonderful resource for teachers use for finding interesting lesson ideas based on national standards. It has several content partners, including “Read, Write, Think” and “Illuminations“. You can choose certain partners to search, the grade level, the standards, etc…Whenever you are looking for a new idea to add a spark to your lesson, this is definitely one place you should visit.
Stick Pick is an iPhone/iPad app with great potential as a teacher tool. The teacher can add one or more classes within the app. To each class, the teacher adds individual student names, determining the type and level of questioning to use for each student from the following categories: Bloom’s Taxonomy, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, or ESL. Once all students are entered, their sticks appear in a cup from which the teacher can randomly or purposefully choose names. As each student is chosen, a list of question stems from their particular assigned level appears on the screen. This is a wonderful way for teachers to customize impromptu questions based on ability.
Created by Kim Ball, a teacher of Gifted and Talented students in San Antonio’s North East Independent School District, The Producer’s Toolbox is a great resource for anyone, teacher or student, who is interested in creating multimedia presentations. It has links to video, audio, and research sites, as well as other fun extras.
Weebly is a site specifically designed for students to create their own websites. It will host their sites for free, and is extremely user-friendly. Ideas for differentiation with this site?
I haven’t had a chance to try this one with students, yet, but it shows great promise. With videos of different math challenges and supporting resources for K-12, this site has great potential for allowing students to do some independent critical thinking.