Teachers are always looking for tools to make their lives
easier. And so are we. That?s why the Global Digital
Citizen Foundation created this ebook series called ?Free
Tools for Teachers.?
In this volume, we feature free tools for doing digital
media production. You?ll find some of the best free
resources on the Web for video editing, photo editing, and
also podcasting.
Explore these great free online tools we?ve picked just for
you, and have fun learning!

Teachers are always looking for tools to make their lives easier. And so are we.
That?s why the Global Digital Citizen Foundation created this ebook series called
?Free Tools for Teachers.?
In this volume, we feature free tools for writing, blogging, and websites. Check out
some of the best free resources on the Web for digital storytelling, creative writing,
blogging, and also great tools for building free websites.
Explore these great free online tools we?ve picked just for you, and most of all,
have fun learning!

This task helps students understand the relationship between digit placement and the value of a number.

This task gives students the opportunity to verify that a dilation takes a line that does not pass through the center to a line parallel to the original line, and to verify that a dilation of a line segment (whether it passes through the center or not) is longer or shorter by the scale factor.

This task requires students to think of dimes and pennies as fractions of dollars.

This task does not actually require that the student solve the system but that they recognize the pairs of linear equations in two variables that would be used to solve the system. This is an important step in the process of solving systems.

The purpose of this task is to illustrate through an absurd example the fact that in real life quantities are reported to a certain level of accuracy, and it does not make sense to treat them as having greater accuracy.

Through discussion and hands-on experimentation, students learn about the geological (ancient) carbon cycle. They investigate the role of dinosaurs in the carbon cycle and the eventual storage of carbon in the form of chalk. Students discover how the carbon cycle has been occurring for millions of years and is necessary for life on Earth. Finally, they may extend their knowledge to the concept of global warming and how engineers are working to understand the carbon cycle and reduce harmful CO2 emissions.

In this activity, students investigate different methods (aeration and filtering) for removing pollutants from water. They will design and build their own water filters.

This purpose of this task is to help students see two different ways to look at percentages both as a decrease and an increase of an original amount. In addition, students have to turn a verbal description of several operations into mathematical symbols.

With a simple demonstration activity, students are introduced to the concept of friction as a force that impedes motion when two surfaces are in contact. Then, in the Associated Activity (Sliding and Stuttering), they work in teams to use a spring scale to drag an object such as a ceramic coffee cup along a table top or the floor. The spring scale allows them to measure the frictional force that exists between the moving cup and the surface it slides on. By modifying the bottom surface of the cup, students can find out what kinds of surfaces generate more or less friction. They also discover that both static and kinetic friction are involved when an object initially at rest is caused to slide across a surface.

This task asks students to find a linear function that models something in the real world. After finding the equation of the linear relationship between the depth of the water and the distance across the channel, students have to verbalize the meaning of the slope and intercept of the line in the context of this situation.

The purpose of this task is meant to reinforce students' understanding of rational numbers as points on the number line and to provide them with a visual way of understanding that the sum of a number and its additive inverse (usually called its "opposite") is zero.

This task asks students to find equivalent expressions by visualizing a familiar activity involving distance. The given solution shows some possible equivalent expressions, but there are many variations possible.

This task requires students to recognize both "number of groups unknown" and "group size unknown" division problems in the context of a whole number divided by a unit fraction.

The purpose of this task is to introduce the idea of exponential growth and then connect that growth to expressions involving exponents. It illustrates well how fast exponential expressions grow.

Students learn about the amazing adaptations of the ptarmigan to the alpine tundra. They focus one adaptation, the feathered feet of the ptarmigan, and ask whether the feathers serve to only keep the feet warm or to also provide the bird with floatation capability. They create model ptarmigan feet, with and without feathers, and test the hypothesis on the function of the feathers. Ultimately, students make a claim about whether the feathers provide floatation and support this claim with their testing evidence.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

This problem allows the student to think geometrically about lines and then relate this geometry to linear functions. Or the student can work algebraically with equations in order to find the explicit equation of the line through two points (when that line is not vertical).