Simulation History Game

Mission US

This site is still in beta, but it should be up and running by the end of September. It is an amazing site. It has simulation games that teach American history. If you register as a teacher, you can log the progress of your students. It has primary resources in the game and many other teacher resources. The first one takes you to Boston in the 1770s. The game can be downloaded to the computer so it will play quicker than on the web, but it only can be downloaded for Windows or Macs. If you are in a school that uses Linux, you will want to play it on the web. It looks wonderful. I am anxious to see what other areas of history they are going to feature. The site is done by Public Television, Channel 13. It is geared to Grades 5-8.
http://www.mission-us.org/

Using Tech to do fun Book Reports

There is a website called Digital Booktalk. The premise of this site is that teachers and students make trailers for books that they have read. Instead of a book report, maybe this would be a great book project for your students. All ages could use this, but I am visualizing that our fourth through sixth graders would have the most success with this. If you don't want to make the book trailer, but want to use one to increase interest for students to read the book, this is also a good site.
It is certainly worth checking out! Digital Booktalk
http://digitalbooktalk.com/