3 Sites every teacher should try this year

Newsela is a site that offers a wide variety of current events articles for students to read. Users can browse for articles by searching one of their eight categories and many articles come with ready made quizzes. What separates Newsela from other sites is the ability to set the articles to varying reading levels. Any article can be set for lexile levels ranging from a low of 530 up to 960 which is an invaluable feature in today's heterogeneous classrooms. The site is free to use but they do offer additional features for a fee.

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Kahoot is a great tool for creating formative assessments and review games for students of any age and it will be an instant hit as soon as you use it with your students. Creating Kahoots is very simple and intuitive and it allows you to add text, images and even  videos. Kahoot doesn't require any student information and kids simply use a special code to join your game. Kahoot also allows you to add YouTube videos to play at the beginning and when the game is over you can download your student's results to see how they did.

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Tackk is a great site where students can easily create online posters that can be shared via email, social media or be embedded onto a webpage or blog. As soon as you arrive on the website you can start creating your poster by editing their ready made template. The site is simple to use and users can easily add a title, body text, pictures, videos, and even songs. Content can be added from YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, Sound Cloud, Hulu, and Spotify. Tackk is free to join and it is one of those great websites that anyone can use and students should enjoy.

4 more (free) websites to create cool student projects online

Fodey
Fodey is very useful a website that allows you to write your own newspaper story and headline. The site also allows you to change the name of the newspaper as well as the publishing date which makes it a perfect tool for social studies projects. Once the story is completed you can download it to your computer or use a screen capture tool to save the image. While this is a perfect tool for history projects, this website is great for any subject area.

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Newspaper Generator
This newspaper generator by Homemade Gifts Made Easy is very similar to Fodey but it has several features that make it more a powerful tool. First, it allows you to add a picture to your story which helps to make the finished product more interesting to students. Second, there seems to be no limit to how much text you can write. The finished product can be saved as a pdf by right clicking on the image. However, the story you write will be accompanied by several "nonsense" stories that come with the site.

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Paste to Grid

This website (currently in beta) allows you to easily create a photo collage which can be used on a website or as part of a student project. Choose one of the 14 grids and then add pictures and the final product can be saved to your computer as a jpg file. This tool can be used along with the Newspaper Generator above by Homemade Gifts Made Easy to create a nice newspaper project. 

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Brother Creative Center
This powerful site by Brother allows you to generate posters, newsletters (mailers), calendars and brochures. Each type of document comes with a collection of dynamic templates which a simple to edit. Projects can be saved for later editing and then be printed or saved to your computer when they are done. This site is a great online alternative to Microsoft Publisher and it is free to use.

8 (free) websites to create cool student projects online

Creating an online project is a great way to help students to demonstrate that they have learned something. Below you will find 8 websites that offer great options for any teacher and all are free to use. The first five have screenshots of examples that I created.

Fake Movie Poster
Creating a movie poster is a great school project. With this simple website, the task is that much easier. Students simply upload an image, add a few details for the text and then share their completed poster with the teacher. This project works is a great for history, science, or as a final project after reading a novel.

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Photovisi
Here is another website to create great poster projects. With this site you can add many photos to create a collage or other types of posters. The site features many templates as well as a wide selection of other enhancements to make stunning posters.

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Be Funky
This site is better known for its photo editing but it also allows users to create photo collages. You select your layout, add your photos and then add text and your project is done. Final products can be saved to your computer, shared to Flickr or other social media sites.

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Poster My Wall
Yet another terrific site for creating poster projects for the classroom. The site is easy to use and navigate. Just select a template and change or add content as you desire. Every aspect of a poster template can be changed and you can add more pictures or text if you need. Once done there are a variety of ways in which the final poster can be shared including email.

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Mural.ly

Mural.ly is a fantastic online tool that appears to be intended for business but would work really well in the classroom. The site allows you to create online poster like presentations by adding pictures, text, websites, documents, and a host of other bells and whistles. The site also allows others to collaborate on the poster with you by a simple email invite and then they can join in. Mural.ly is a great resource for group projects and it is free to join and free to use.

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Word Draw

Word Draw is a site that offers free professional looking templates for newsletters, flyers, labels, and resumes. The sites newsletter templates are categorized for education, business, family, holidays, and by month. The templates must be downloaded and are compatible for all versions of Microsoft Word.

These templates can also be utilized for a class newspaper, projects or even reports. 

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Tackk

Tackk allows you to create online posters that can be shared via email, social media or be embedded onto a webpage or blog. As soon as you arrive on the website you can start creating your poster by editing their ready made template. You can easily add a title, body text, pictures, videos, and even songs. You can add content from You Tube, Instagram, Vimeo, Sound Cloud, Hulu, and Spotify. Creating an online poster with Tackk is so easy to do. 

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Picovico

With Picovico, you can turn simple photographs into cool videos. Once you sign up (it's free) you begin by choosing a video template and then adding your pictures from Facebook, Flickr, or your computer. You can set the order of your pictures, add captions to them and add text slides if you wish. Next you add music, either from their library or add your own from your computer. Your last step is to add a video title and any additional text and you're done. Completed videos can be uploaded to You Tube or Facebook and can even be embedded into a website or blog. The site does have a 30 picture maximum but that is long enough for most people.

17 online sources with extensive propaganda collections

First World War
First World War is a website that provides a thorough history of World War I. This site provides a nice collection of useful resources including a detailed timeline, an encyclopedia, and articles on details that are widely known (Zimmerman Telegram) as well as more obscure people and events. You can also find a large selection of propaganda posters, maps, and vintage videos, audio and photographs from the war.

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Wake Up America
Learn NC World War I Propaganda Posters is produced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and it provides 23 high quality images and informational captions that provide a unique glimpse into WWI.

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Authentic History
Authentic History is a great history site that tells the story of World War I in four different categories. The Great War Overview, the Home Front, Woodrow Wilson, and the Bolshevik Revolution. Each section contains a wealth of information including examples of propaganda.

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All World Wars
All World Wars has a nice selection of propaganda that are displayed with large high quality images. There currently are 56 images of posters from many of the different Allied nations.

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WSU Propaganda Collection
Washington State University has one of the largest collections of propaganda posters with over 500 digital images from 1914 to 1945. The posters and pamphlets come from nations on both sides of the conflict. Each image is accompanied by detailed explanations and can be downloaded or printed.

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Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South is another great source from the University of North Carolina. This collection has over 100 propaganda images categorized by type which includes finance, military, and industry.

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German Propaganda
Calvin College has a massive collection of German propaganda from pre-1933 up to 1945. This collection includes pamphlets, speeches, essays, art, cartoons and posters. Plan on spending a great deal of time here because there is so much to see and read.

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Virtual Library
Check out this  collection of historic World War II posters from the Cincinnati Digital Library. This collection of over 85 World War II propaganda posters are from both the U.S. and other nations. Since they are digital they can be downloaded and printed for use in the classroom. History teachers should race on over to this site ASAP.

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Psywar
Psywar is a website with a amazing collection of propaganda leaflets that were dropped by the participants of both WWI and WWII. The site is searchable by name, type of message, and even by nation. This is another website with an overwhelming amount of propaganda related materials.

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World War II Posters
Northwestern University has a collection of over 350 digital images of various propaganda from WWII. The resources can be searched by topic or by scrolling down the page to see the various posters. Each selection is accompanied by information including the government agency responsible for the publication and the year.

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Vintage Ad Browser
The Vintage Ad Browser is a website that features a huge collection of over 100,000 old posters and advertisements from as far back as the 1700's. The website has a large selection of propaganda posters from the 1800's up to the 2000's but note that most of the posters after the 1940's are from Communist China.

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World War II Museum
The World War II Museum has a great section dedicated to the various types of propaganda. The real advantage to this site is their built in educational resources. From the home front to the soldiers overseas, this site has posters and lesson ideas to accompany the various topics.

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Flickr
This Flickr account (Heavyovmetal) has 128 great images of World War II propaganda. This page lacks the important information that accompany the images in the other websites listed but if you want a quick and simple way to see the various posters, then this is the place to go.

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The Digital Comic Museum 

The Digital Comics Museum is a collection of comics from the "Golden Age of Comics" (1930's-1950's) that are now "public domain and have been put up on the net. Finally, the Digital Comic Museum has educational value because it provides a snapshot into American culture of the time. These comics were published during World War II as well as the earliest days of the Cold War so there is plenty of propaganda to be found for the social studies teachers out there.

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Retronaut

Another website that specializes in propaganda comic books can be found at this page from Retronaut which has a nice selection of propaganda related comic books form the WWII era. This site only displays Comic Book propaganda so it give you much quicker access than the Digital Comic Museum which does require a certain amount of searching.

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Propaganda Videos

Below you will find two YouTube channels with various types of propaganda videos in their collections.

Human History Archive 
This You Tube Channel has an nice collection of videos, many which are propaganda related.

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Periscope Films 
This channel has a massive collection of vintage films, many of which are propaganda films.

4 websites for creating student projects

1- Mural.ly
Mural.ly is a fantastic online tool that appears to be intended for business but would work really well in the classroom. The site allows you to create online poster like presentations by adding pictures, text, websites, documents, and a host of other bells and whistles. The site also allows others to collaborate on the poster with you by a simple email invite and then they can join in. Mural.ly is a great resource for group projects and it is free to join and free to use.

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2- Word Draw
Word Draw is a site that offers free professional looking templates for newsletters, flyers, labels, and resumes. The sites newsletter templates are categorized for education, business, family, holidays, and by month. The templates must be downloaded and are compatible for all versions of Microsoft Word.
These templates can also be utilized for a class newspaper, projects or even reports. If you desire professional looking documents and newsletters then head over to Word Draw and their excellent selection of Word based templates.

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3- Tackk
Tackk is a site I wrote about in one of my first blog posts and I thought it was worth mentioning again. Tackk allows you to create online posters that can be shared via email, social media or be embedded onto a webpage or blog. As soon as you arrive on the website you can start creating your poster by editing their ready made template. You can easily add a title, body text, pictures, videos, and even songs. You can add content from You Tube, Instagram, Vimeo, Sound Cloud, Hulu, and Spotify. Creating an online poster with Tackk is so easy to do. Check out their Tackkboard to see what other people have created. Teachers could also use Tackk and have students create online posters as a project. Tackk is free to join and it is one of those great websites that anyone can use and everyone will enjoy.

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4- Picovico
With Picovico, you can turn simple photographs into cool videos. Once you sign up (it's free) you begin by choosing a video template and then adding your pictures from Facebook, Flickr, or your computer. You can set the order of your pictures, add captions to them and add text slides if you wish. Next you add music, either from their library or add your own from your computer. Your last step is to add a video title and any additional text and you're done. Completed videos can be uploaded to You Tube or Facebook and can even be embedded into a website or blog. The site does have a 30 picture maximum but that is long enough for most people. If you like making great videos and sharing them with friends and family then give Picovico a try.

Vintage Propaganda Posters- Two Great Resources

Check out this  collection of historic World War II posters from the Cincinnati Digital Library. This collection of over 85 World War II propaganda posters are from both the U.S. and other nations. Since they are digital they can be downloaded and printed for use in the classroom. History teachers should race on over to this site ASAP.

The Vintage Ad Browser is a website that features a huge collection of over 100,000 old posters and advertisements from as far back as the 1700's. Their home page identifies their 53 categories and when you click on one it automatically takes you to the oldest ads from that collection. Within each category, you can navigate by clicking on the pages or if you want to go to a different date you can choose one of the decades that run along the top of the page. Looking at vintage ads is a good way to learn about a particular era and to compare eras as well. History teachers will be glad to hear that the website has a large selection of propaganda posters from the 1800's up to the 2000's but note that most of the posters after the 1940's are from Communist China. If you teach social studies then do yourself a favor by checking out the Vintage Ad Browser.

First World War - A Multimedia History of World War I

First World War is a website that provides a thorough history of World War I. The site offers a detailed account of the people, places, events, and weapons as well as the causes of the war. This site provides a nice collection of useful resources including a detailed timeline, an encyclopedia, and articles on details that are widely known (Zimmerman Telegram) as well as more obscure people and events. You can also find a large selection of propaganda posters, maps, and vintage videos, audio and photographs from the war. This sites rich collection even includes letters and diaries from people who lived during the period. Whether you are a teacher, student, or history buff, the First World War is a fantastic resource for learning about the Great War.

Mural.ly - Create Stunning Online Posters

Mural.ly is a fantastic online tool (currently in beta) that appears to be intended for business but would work really well in the classroom. The site allows you to create online poster like presentations by adding pictures, text, websites, documents, and a host of other bells and whistles. The site also allows others to collaborate on the poster with you by a simple email invite and then they can join in. Mural.ly is a great resource for group projects and it is free to join and free to use so why not check it out or watch the video below for more information.

Vintage Ad Browser - Over 100,000 ads and posters from the 1700's to today

The Vintage Ad Browser is a website that features a huge collection of over 100,000 old posters and advertisements from as far back as the 1700's. Their home page identifies their 53 categories and when you click on one it automatically takes you to the oldest ads from that collection. Within each category, you can navigate by clicking on the pages or if you want to go to a different date you can choose one of the decades that run along the top of the page. Looking at vintage ads is a good way to learn about a particular era and to compare eras as well. History teachers will be glad to hear that the website has a large selection of propaganda posters from the 1800's up to the 2000's but note that most of the posters after the 1940's are from Communist China. If you teach social studies then do yourself a favor by checking out the Vintage Ad Browser.

Tackk - An Easy Way to Create and Share Online Posters

Tackk is a site I wrote about in one of my first blog posts and I thought it was worth mentioning again. Tackk allows you to create online posters that can be shared via email, social media or be embedded onto a webpage or blog. As soon as you arrive on the website you can start creating your poster by editing their ready made template. You can easily add a title, body text, pictures, videos, and even songs. You can add content from You Tube, Instagram, Vimeo, Sound Cloud, Hulu, and Spotify. Creating an online poster with Tackk is so easy to do. Check out their Tackkboard to see what other people have created. Teachers could also use Tackk and have students create online posters as a project. Tackk is free to join and it is one of those great websites that anyone can use and everyone will enjoy.

Bacon Wrapped Media

The internet has its fair share of sites that feature quotes, funny pictures, demotivational posters, and amazing facts. Bacon Wrapped Media is a site that contains all of the above and more. It is a one stop shop for all the entertaining and funny bits of the web all rolled into one greasy internet snack. At Bacon Wrapped Media you can laugh, be inspired, and learn something new in a matter of a few minutes.

World War II Posters and the Statue of Liberty

Another day, another history themed post. Today's post is dedicated to sites with historically themes images and by that I mean photographs and posters. Today's trip through time has us travelling from World War II then back to the late 19th century, and ending up in 2012.

First up on our tour is a collection of historic World War II posters from the Cincinnati Digital Library. These World War II propaganda posters are from both the U.S. and other nations. Since they are digital they can be downloaded and printed for use in the classroom. History teachers should race on over to this site ASAP.

Next on today's tour is the Denver Post's Photo Blog about the Statue of Liberty. This post was published in 2011 for the Statue's 125th anniversary. It features pictures from the creation of the Statue of Liberty as well as many rare pictures of the Statue over its 125+ years of existence.

Last on our tour today is a photo collection titled 46 of the Most Amazing Photographs of 2012 from a site called studentbeans.com. Many of the pictures will be unfamiliar to most people but there are a few images that everyone should recognize like Felix Baumgartner's leap. A few of the pictures are not from 2012 but the site claims they were "discovered" in 2012. It really didn't matter because the images in this collection are pretty cool.

Cool Web Finds

As the teachers in my building can attest, I have been regularly sharing many of the websites that I have recently discovered. In order to simplify matters for anyone who has enjoyed the sites I have shared, I have decided to start using this blog as the new and permanent way to share my discoveries. So without further delay, here is my latest edition of "cool web finds."

We have all had moments where we feel down on humanity or even worse, down on ourselves. Reading the stories at Helpingothers.org will help restore your faith in humanity and perhaps inspire you to "pay it forward."

If you are looking for a website to make you smile go to Waveatthebus and see a real life dad wave goodbye to his son's bus while wearing a different costume each day. 

At Retronaut you can view  memories, pictures, advertisements, and videos from your life or even your grandparents childhood. This site is a great place to reminisce and social studies teachers could  certainly use this site in their instruction at some point.

Speaking of memories, Moment.Me is a place where people can share their pictures and videos from weddings, parties, concerts, or other special days. 

At a site called tackk, users can make amazing online posters using pictures, text and video. Check out their samples page to see some of the possibilities. This site could be used for invitations, advertisements, or school projects.

Finally, I am a sucker for strange and unusual gifts. With the holidays just around the corner why not check out Greenhead. This is a site that offers the latest in unusual gift possibilities with items for just about any taste.