Middle+School

Add your favorite websites below along with a 3-5 sentence explanation of the website!

[] While this PDF file is simple, it is essential for middle school English teachers! This site provides great writing prompts for at the beginning of class and students need to do a free write to get them focused. There are a variety of genres the prompts address, such as how-to, descriptive, etc! (Amy J) [] This is a fantastic resource for students and teachers! Discovery education provides videos, lesson plans, etc and can contribute greatly to lessons. This website can also be great for student projects. The subscriber login/password should be provided by the school! (Amy J)

[] This link is great for middle school students struggling with an English assignment! This website was developed by two teachers along with their classes and includes a variety of help for assignments regarding literature, poetry, grammar, etc. When students are at home and cannot get in touch with the teacher, this would be a great website for students to use! (Amy J)

This link is awesome! For any teacher that needs a little "backup" when teaching a class. I would think that it would be great for students how are overwhelmed by information...especially with dates, events etc. in social studies. With this webpage, students can search for any event, person or time frame, and get a quick, detailed synopsis of what occured during that time! Great webpage, and I know I'll be using this one!---//Matt McLean//
 * www.xtimeline.com**

If you are a geography, history, or social studies teacher, this is a must! This is a free download from google. This application allows you to download "the world" and zoom in on details including countries, roads, towns, villages, rivers, mountains etc. What better way to assess what the class is learning than to have them show you simply by the click of the mouse. This application also allows you to "zoom in" on an area and get details on events, civil wars, conflicts and world interest (ie. the genocide in Rwanda, civil wars inSyria, Egypt are highlighted and red flagged for easy access).---//Matt McLean//
 * http://www.google.com/earth/index.html**

http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/ Right off the bat this teacher gets his students amped about the wiki and their assignments on it. There are "how-to" pages that discuss how to effectively use all the different pages on the wiki, and constant encouragement flows from the pages. The whole point of this social studies wiki is for collaboration, so the teacher is working hard for his students to do just that. He also gives different links to helpful resources for the students. (Caleb L.)

This one is a no-brainer for educators, or at least I would like to think it should be. This application (even the free one) allows the teacher to set up collaborative classrooms from anywhere in the world! Not only just here in the United States, but places like China, India, even Russia or Germany! Students can develope "pen pals" with students in other countries and learn about other cultures, languages, arts, history through first-person interviews. Then skype also allows the students to "interview" professionals, other students.---//Matt McLean//
 * http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home**

http://ijones.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/ This is an entire middle school that has set up their wiki in place of a school website, and has done it quite effectively i might add. The different links for their schools information are all very easy to access, and it is well laid out. This is a great idea that I hadn't seen done yet, instead of just a teacher setting up one for their class, have an entire school set one up for their cliental! (Caleb L.)

This wiki is awesome. It is nominated for the 2010 best educational wiki and I can see why. This teacher takes her time to give her classes all the possible resources they could want, and also makes it incredibly easy to navigate. Within her wiki she has calendars stating all the important dates and what is due on those days. She has links for practicing the SAT, just a very thorough job done as a teacher. (Caleb L.)
 * http://westwood.wikispaces.com/**

Powerpoint for big kids. This website allows you to download "prezi." You can pay for additional resources, but you should be able to do more than enough on the free version. Prezi is the combination of powerpoint, and the smartboard. It allows the presenter (student or teacher) to zoom in and out on information on the slideshow. You can also move, adjust and rotate the images while presenting in order to go into more detail, or show the smaller picture. (ie. Have a picture of a car engine, then be able to zoom in and see all the working parts, then be able to pull out to show the entire car). Prezi also allows group collaboration and meetings to create this "powerpoint for big kids" online and at the student or teacher's convience.---//Matt McLean//
 * http://prezi.com/**

Want to go on a field trip? Or show the students first hand what it the grand canyon looks like, or what some ancient ruins in the Anasazi era looked like? This site provides teachers with the opprotunity to buy a virtual tour of any of the National Parks. By buying the CDroms from this webpages, teachers can use virtual tour to help illustrate the lessons. Each CDrom comes with the history of the site, a naration of the sites, and a graphic map of the ara. When you cant leave the classroom and go on field trips, this is the next best thing.---//Matt McLean//
 * http://www.360parks.com/**