Five Friday Finds

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Finding good web resources can be the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others!


General-
 Text Mechanic
“A collection of free, online, browser-based, text manipulation tools. NOTE: All tools require javascript to be enabled.”  Some of the tools include: word scrambler, word/line count, add/remove line breaks, letter case converter, remove duplicate lines.  Very handy little tool to shorten some tedious jobs!

Language-

Can You Trust the News?
Teacher guides and interactive lesson plans to help teach students the difference between good and bad journalism.  Both printed and Internet guides are available

Math-
 Get the Math
“[A] convergent media project designed to help middle and high school students develop algebraic thinking skills for solving real world problems.  Drawing on conventions of popular reality TV shows, video segments begin with profiles of young professionals, who then pose challenges connected to their jobs”

Science-
 3D Solar System Simulations
“Immersive Learning Simulation Software. Students are able to explore our solar system in real-time 3D. Examining the sun, planets, asteroids, Kuiper belt, and Oort cloud.”  It gives a good idea of the length of days & years on each planet as you see the real time spin and movement, making it easy to compare between planets.  Also has some general information about each.  (Requires Shockwave to view)

Social Studies-
 Explore our U.S. Presidents on a Map
Go on a Google Earth trip to explore details about our US Presidents, such as birthplace, states that voted during that president’s election, etc. (Requires the Google Earth Plugin)

Have a great weekend!

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