File Share: Four pages of online resources

Pulse of the Planet (pulseword. pulseplanet.com) offers daily, twominute narrated explanations of natural, cultural and scientific sounds. Each recording comes with a transcript and can be downloaded. Browse by date or search by keyword for specific topics and sounds.

Where is the International Space Station right now? You can pinpoint its location at Current Position of the ISS (astroviewer.net/iss/en/index.php). The site shows what the astronauts can see, as well as the equivalent ground point on a world map. You can also follow the Chinese space station Tiangong.

Can you identify a location from a video of a street scene? Test your visual and geographical knowledge at City Guesser (virtualvacation.us/guess). There are several games to choose from and you can play as an individual or a group. Simply make your guess on the map, then click to see how close you are. OneZoom (onezoom.org) is an interactive map of the evolutionary links between all living things. Each leaf represents a different species. Explore the branches to see how these evolved from common ancestors over billions of years. Also, check out the teaching resources under ‘For Education’.

Interested in chemicals? CAS Common Chemistry (commonchemistry.cas.org) is an open community resource for accessing information and properties on elements and compounds. Search nearly 500,000 substances, including common and frequently regulated chemicals relevant to school study. Teaching about how New Zealand’s political system works? Parliament’s Education Services (parliament.nz/en/ visit-and-learn/educators-and-students) has activities, videos and information for learning how government operates, including creating your own Parliament, debating roleplay and taking a VR tour.

Search a fascinating collection of US presidential documents at The

American Presidency Project

(presidency.ucsb.edu/index.php). With more than 145,000 records added, learn about Presidents, explore archives, videos and articles, read messages and papers, and analyse statistics.

From Frostbite Theater to Science Vocabulary Hangman to Element Bingo, J Lab Science Education (education. jlab.org) has a wide range of fun online activities, videos, games, quizzes, worksheets, and more. Check out the teachers’ section for advice, information and easy access to resources. From The United Nations Association of the UK, The United Nations Matters (bit.ly/unmatters) is a teaching resource for developing students’ awareness and understanding of the UN and the global issues it tackles. There’s a downloadable Teacher’s Handbook, as well as lesson plans and student worksheets.

From Leonardo da Vinci to Banksy, Impressionism to Collage, The Art Story (theartstory.org) is your guide to understanding and enjoying the best of the visual arts. Whether you’re interested in artists, art movements, or artistic directions, search and explore information, analysis, ideas and timelines of the art world.

In addition to scientific value, many satellite images are intriguing to look at. Explore the beauty of river deltas, mountains, and other sandy, salty, and icy landscapes at Earth as Art (eros. usgs.gov/image-gallery/earth-as-art). Each image comes with a description and can be downloaded. From Google Arts & Culture, Visual Crosswords (experiments.withgoogle. com/visual-crosswords) enables students to learn through pairing. The game provides two columns and players are asked to drag artworks to matching boxes. If they’re not familiar with an artwork, they can click on it to read more.

The mission of Art21 (art21.org) is to “inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.” It has an educators’ section offering everything from strategies, guides and resources to discussion questions, documentary videos and hands-on activities in its learning library. Which One Doesn’t Belong? (wodb.ca) challenges students to explain exactly that. Using maths vocabulary, they have to describe the odd one out in sets of shapes, numbers and graphs. There are no answers provided as there may be different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn’t belong.

Need maths worksheets? Math-Drills (math-drills.com) has more than 58,000 free ones to pick from. They cover a broad range of topics, including number sense, arithmetic, pre-algebra, geometry, measurement, and money concepts. Plus, there are interactive flash cards and dots math games.

INTERFACEONLINE.CO.NZ

You know all the white marble statues of the ancient Greeks, guess what? They’ve not always been white. Originally, statues were brightly coloured but 2,000+ years of weather has scrubbed off the paint. In the video GREECE – ancient art wasn’t black & white (bit. ly/greekwhite) see what they may have looked like. Cartoon Movement (cartoonmovement. com) is an online platform hosting more than 70,000 cartoons and 500 editorial cartoonists from more than 80 countries, offering daily perspectives on what is happening in the world. Browse the cartoons, cartoonists and collections categories, or search by keyword. Foster creative thinking around fractions with Fraction Talks (fractiontalks.com). The site is packed with images of complex patterns of shapes. The idea is to ask students to explain what they see and, in so doing, start to understand and explore the mathematical relationships between fractions.

Capture your thoughts quickly and creatively with Rapidsketch (rapidsketch.co). Choose from a collection of handwritten fonts, handdrawn icons and templates to make fun and effective sketch notes. You can also change the text colour, stroke and background, as well as pick from a 3,500+ collection of emojis.

PixelPaper (pixelpaper.io) is a collaborative, online whiteboard designed specifically for teaching. It’s browser based and all information is stored and easily accessible via a dashboard. Upload and share documents, worksheets and past papers, annotate and draw diagrams, and all in real time.

Create amusing memes in seconds with Meme Maker (meme.town). Choose a template or upload your own image. Add and format textboxes for captions, add stickers, and adjust the ordering of layers across your elements. Once your meme is good to go, save on the app or export as a PNG file. Explain (explain.web.app) lets you make blackboard-style ‘explainer’ videos. Press record and use the drawing tools to record voiced, visual instructions. You can also enable touchdraw and add a background, or wipe and start again. Share videos and viewers can add comments.

Need a temporary email address for a casual sign-up or trial? Try Tempmail (temp-mail.to). There’s no need to register, simply click ‘Open Inbox’ to receive a disposable, anonymous email address. You can read emails but not reply. Extend the life of the address or delete when you’re done.

Organise how you can help students by getting them to digitally queue up with ClassroomQ (classroomq.com). Share a code and, as they work and find they need help, students can post their name and question. This gives you a real-time list in the order of help requested. (And if they find the answer, they can cancel.) At Fanschool (go.fan.school), learners play with real-world data and make predictions about current events. Pick from four categories for your game – politicians, countries, business or animals. Students make their choices, then make adjustments for the game’s duration to achieve the highest score.

What began as a project collecting languages from visitors to a hostel in Prague, Ling Your Language (lingyourlanguage.com) challenges students to identify the language being spoken. Play individually or as a group. Select the difficulty and guess correctly to score. There’s also an option to learn a little about the language.

Improve typing skill and speed with 10 Fast Fingers (10fastfingers.com). Start with a free, one-minute test. The Practice Mode lets you hone your skills on the most common words and punctuation. Customise your own challenges or test yourself against others in the Typing Competition.

For some fascinating videos about physics and astronomy check out Sixty Symbols (youtube.com/user/ sixtysymbols). From ‘Burping Black Holes’ to ‘Untangling the Cosmic Web’, experts from the University of Nottingham explore and explain a range of scientific and spacey topics.

Free School (youtube.com/user/ watchfreeschool) offers engaging videos on many school subjects, including letters, literature, history, animals, health, geography, music, art, and science. Search by topic or browse playlists grouped by subject, like ‘Exploring the Ocean’ or ‘Beethoven and his Music’.

What is nothing? Why are there seven days in a week? Why is glass transparent? You’ll find the answers to these questions – and a whole heap more – at It’s Okay To Be Smart (youtube.com/ user/itsokaytobesmart). Each video breaks down complicated information into easily understandable explanations. Mathantics (youtube.com/user/ mathantics) tackles the basics of learning mathematics. Fractions, percentages, algorithms, probabilities, geometry, algebra, ratios and proportions, and statistics all get the teaching treatment in these entertaining and well-produced videos.

With colourful, fun animations, Peekaboo Kidz (youtube.com/c/PeekabooKids) guides younger students through the world of science. Featuring cartoon character Dr Binocs, find out about things as diverse as dandruff and swallowing fruit seeds, to the causes of radiation and how the Moon was formed.

As the name suggests, MinutePhysics (youtube.com/user/minutephysics) focuses on short explanations of physics topics, things like antimatter, gravity, dark matter, and relativity. Each recording uses a visually engaging, drawing style, to describe and explain each subject area. Formerly Tagul, Word Art (wordart. com) lets you make word clouds with ease. Input your text (either type in or import as a CSV or Excel file) and then customise pretty much everything, from the font, colour and layout, to background, style and shape. Save, share, embed, or download the result.

WordCloud Generator (monkeylearn. com/word-cloud) provides three ways to input text: type it, paste it, or upload a text file – and can handle up to 200,000 characters. You need to sign up to use it. The top toolbar had a range of editing tools. Your final file can be downloaded in SVG or PNG formats.

Combine a word cloud and a poll with Poll Everywhere (polleverywhere.com/ word-cloud). Ask a question of your students and each word of their replies is used to create the word cloud image. Words move and grow with each new response, and the final artwork reflects the shared feelings of the group.