Do you ever think you are the only veteran teacher who is tired of doing the same thing in your classroom? Do you wonder how to take on a massive change and learn new technology tools to implement the change? This article in Edutopia magazine (online and print) features Louise Maine, one of TeachersFirst's review team members, and tells the story of the changes she made to her teaching style after 20 years in the classroom. The companion article , also in this Edutopia issue, provides specific how-to-do-this advice on making a class wiki the center of your class. Louise used the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through and our Wiki Warranty template at the start of her journey, and look where the path has lead!
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This collection of lesson plans features multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. All plans focus on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner.

Lesson content includes letter-sound relationships, parts of speech, paragraph writing, sequencing, earth science, animals, egg-laying animals, volcanoes, addition, and more. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plans to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subjects and concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. All lessons include national standards. Experienced and new teachers alike will find these examples helpful in designing multi-sensory, technology-infused lessons.
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This lesson for early literacy skills and creating a book is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.
Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on letter-sound relationships is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on simple addition is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This site focuses on those important people: grandparents. Learn about the history of the holiday, when the holiday is celebrated, and find numerous classroom ideas to celebrate these important people in our students' lives. There is a link For Teachers with a WebQuest (designed for middle to upper level elementary or middle school students). Under the link The Task you will find several individual activities that students of any age could do with their grandparent. Another link Activities and Resources offers a lot of information for teachers and parents. There are video clips, songs, printable pages, and more. This site requires Flash, Media Player, and Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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This lesson on parts of speech (noun, adjective) is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on parts of speech (noun, adjective) is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on egg hatching and sequencing is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on egg-laying animals and research is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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This lesson on volcanoes and paragraph writing is part of a collection of lesson plans featuring multi-sensory approaches to help all learners, including special needs students who benefit from multiple experiences with concepts. The plans focuses on consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs. The original lesson plans were written by award-winning teacher Nora Coyle of Colorado, a KOAA-TV "Teachers First" Award winner. The staff of TeachersFirst has incorporated technology options, tips, and templates appropriate for younger students into the lesson plan to add yet another way for your students to experience and interact with new concepts.

Many of these ideas and templates can be adapted for use with almost any subject or concepts, to differentiate for different learning styles. The lesson includes national standards.
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The next time a research project comes along, send students to this site to help them get organized. Think Tank is designed to assist in the development of topics and subtopics for reports and projects. After defining their subject or perusing a list of suggestions, students are asked to narrow the scope of their project by choosing from a collection of subtopics. Results may be printed.
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Use this terrific online tool for your students to create posters or short reports in a poster format. Create lessons, worksheets, or class pages and instantly publish them online using this free Web Poster Wizard. The teacher sets up an account (for free), and follows simple directions so students can upload images and write about their project or pictures. The site even includes management tools so you can keep separate classes of students and see their work by class.

Plan to spend some time reading through the directions and trying out this tool before you assign it to students. Teachers and students must register and login each time they use this tool. Students can share the URL for their posters with grandparents or parents to show off their good work!

Students will need to know how to locate and upload a file for an image (such as a digital picture) to place it in their poster. If you allow them to use images from the web, the tool asks them to give information on their image source, as well (hooray for ethical use of the Internet!). If you use digital pictures of students, be SURE that you do NOT use full names on the site. You should get parent permission for uploading any student images, even if anonymous.
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Pandas and dolphins and deer - oh my! This website, created by National Geographic, offers an eclectic mix of reference information about numerous animals: fish, invertebrates, bugs, birds, reptiles, and others. The site truly has something for everyone. There are video clips, interactive challenges, research information, music clips, photos, and current event news stories. There is a link for kids (designed for the elementary grades) with some age-appropriate interactives, news stories, and videos. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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Found a math problem that is difficult to solve? Use Mathway to solve basic math problems such as long arithmetic, unit conversions, variables, expressions, and integers, and much more. Mathway also helps in the solving of other math problems in Pre-algebra, Algebra, Trigonometry, Pre-calculus, and Calculus. Sample problems are displayed in order to show manner of entering the problems. Click on symbols and shapes to enter the information easily. Solution to the problem is shown step by step. Solve problems, create graphs, or view the glossary.

Note: Ads do run along the top of the site as well as a link to live Math help. This link leads to tutor.com which is a fee-based service. Students should be cautioned about the fee-based site.
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This is the syllabus and unit outline of a course taught at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. It has pertinent links to materials to be used and includes such authors as Twain and Cather through Cormac McCarthy. There is a Humanities approach to the course as it includes philosophy and art as well as literature. Because of the links included, the material is easily adaptable to your needs.
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This site provides links to lesson plans on using visual (and audio) prompts to get students thinking and writing. While many ideas in the literature section are geared for middle school, most of them are adaptable to younger or older students. One of the advantages to these lesson plan outlines is the variety of ways suggested to get students working with computers. In particular "Interpreting Lyrics with Pictures" suggests students using CD music and pictures to create videos with Photo Editor, Media Blender, or PowerPoint. You can navigate through the "100 Most Popular Images" or search by keyword or photographer for the pictures. Some of the lesson plans require Flash, Adobe Acrobat, or Quicktime. You can get them from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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Web filtering is a common topic of frustration and mystification for teachers. Do you wonder why it’s there, how it works, and what other schools do? Are there sites you read about but cannot access? Are you worried that your students may access “bad” things under your supervision? Learn the basics of Internet filters, consider key questions, and take a quick poll in Sifting Through the Filters, another teacher-friendly interactive module. In just a few minutes, you will gain a new perspective on filtering and some ideas to advocate for positive change (for best viewing, turn off your pop-up blocker).
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This website (originally created for the 2004 Olympics, and updated in 2008) offers a great deal of information on the Olympics. Specific highlights include "In the News," "In my Backyard," "History of the Games," "More to Explore," and "Get in the Game." There are also links to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a Teachers Guide (with lesson plans for grades K-10 and standards), related booklists, and more. This site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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If you are teaching your students about Picasso, visit this website for some new ideas. This site focuses on the years of 1892-1906. There are links to learn more about point of view, reflection, focus, and more. The site includes a timeline of Picasso's life. Teachers, be sure to visit the "for educators" link to find math, social studies, and language arts activities to coincide with teaching about this amazing artist. Several of the paintings allow you to zoom in on certain features of the painting. Be aware, at the time of this review, the forums were closed to additional comments.
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