Are you interested in getting smarter? Well, you've come to the right place. Here are some great resources broken down by topic. There's even educational games you can play. Make sure get permission from your teacher to play games in class.

Do you have a favorite educational site that isn't listed here? Contact the Zachry / Taft CIT with your favorite student sites.

Remember... the more you know, the more you grow. Knowledge is power!!

Make safe online decisions by going through the NS Teens videos and games. Browse videos on Internet safety, cyberbullying, e-mail and chat rooms, gaming, predators, how much info. to post and social networking. All the videos are relevant, up-to-date and informative. For middle and high school students, check out the real-life videos. They'll make you think!

How do you protect yourself from hackers who would love to steal your personal information, account information. This site provides useful information for you in the form of documents, videos and games. Give hackers the boot!

What is cyberbullying? How do you protect yourself or someone who is being cyberbullied? Learn how to prevent it and what to do if you are a victim of cyberbullying. Check out this cyberbullying video from Channel One News.

infotopia

Created by Google, this is a safe search engine, where all irrelevant links are filtered out. This is a time saver for students and gives them "peace of mind" that searches are more focused.

NetTrekker

NetTrekker is a trusted search engine for K-12 schools. As an all-in-one site, it saves valuable time when searching for info., pictures and more! See the librarian for login to use at home.

Questia School

Exclusively for 8th Graders and grade 6-8 teachers at Zachry Middle School and high school students and teachers, Questia School offers over 67,000 books and 1.5 million newspaper and journal articles, available for full-text searching and reading. A great video tutorial is available on the web site.

Google Earth Tutorials

Google Earth is a free program you can download at home (with your parent's permission). Here's the site you can download it from.

Are you new to Google Earth or just want to learn something new about the program? Check out these tutorials for beginners all the way through the most advanced features.

This visual dictionary from Miriam-Webster allows users to associate words with pictures. This is especially useful for visual learners.

Do you have a cool school technology project from school this year? If so, entering it in the Kelly Smith Digital Media Fair may be for you! If your project is good enough, you'll compete against other NISD middle school or high school students, depending on which school level you are at. The deadline for entries is March 26, 2013. Please contact to your technology teacher or the C.I.T. at your campus for more information.

Life is coming at you full throttle. Someday, you'll be out on your own. What will it cost to support yourself? Find out what careers are available and how much money you can expect to make. This is a great site to get a reality check and help you create a road map to your future!

Copyright and Fair Use Policy for Students

What is Copyright? Why is it important to cite your sources, such as text, pictures, sound or video? Learn how much you can legally use in your projects and assignments. This PowerPoint slide show will help you make good decisions. Also, here's a video on what and how much you can use.

Royalty Free Music

Through an agreement with Northside ISD, Royalty Free Music provides some of their most popular full length music for academic purposes only. Included is music for backgrounds, PowerPoint, documentary, meditation and hypnosis, classical, sports, children's, hip-hop, sound effects, acoustic, piano, specialty and jazz. Username and Password are available in S:/Templates folder. Enter the Username and Password in the Music Promo area half way down on the right of their web page. Username and Password are available in S:/Templates folder.

Soundzabound

Do you know how to use music for presentations and still stay within the copyright and Fair Use Policy? Soundzabound is the solution! Soundzabound gives Zachry Middle School students, faculty and staff full rights to use their music as per our subscription. Soundzabound has educationally safe content and includes a variety of music and sound effects. Soundzabound is now online and can be accessed at school or at home! Username and Password are available in S:/Templates folder.

BrainPop*

BrainPop en español

BrainPop GameUp (free)

BrainPop makes learning fun and is the leading producer of standards-based animated educational movies for grades K-8. It is used to introduce topics, review fundamentals and explain current events. BrainPop creates an interactive learning experience that is both rewarding and unique.

*Zachry MS and Taft HS have paid subscriptions for staff and students. See CIT or librarian for username and password.

iCue

Created by NBC News, iCue is a new way to learn. iCue has hundreds of videos that include historic and current events. Users may view videos, collaborate with others, do research, play games based on events, take quizzes and compete with other users. The user is in control of what and how to learn!

National Geographic Video

Get the best of National Geographic with videos on topics around the world. Make sure to check out the tabs at the top, including Video Home, Nat Geo TV, Nat Geo Wild, Animals, Kids (NG Kids Videos), News and More!

Royalty Free Music

Through an agreement with Northside ISD, Royalty Free Music provides some of their most popular full length music for academic purposes only. Included is music for backgrounds, PowerPoint, documentary, meditation and hypnosis, classical, sports, children's, hip-hop, sound effects, acoustic, piano, specialty and jazz. Username and Password are available in S:/Templates folder. Enter the Username and Password in the Music Promo area half way down on the right of their web page.

Soundzabound

Do you know how to use music for presentations and still stay within the copyright and Fair Use Policy? Soundzabound is the solution! Soundzabound gives Zachry MS, Taft and Comm Arts HS faculty and staff full rights to use their music as per our subscriptions. Soundzabound has educationally safe content and includes a variety of music and sound effects. Soundzabound can be accessed at school or at home! Username and Password are available in S: / Templates folder.

WatchKnowLearn

Created by the co-founder of Wikipedia, this is a great one-stop resource that provides free videos for teachers, students and parents. Like a 24-7 tutor, this site provides additional resources for any topic students learn in school that are reliable and relevant. You can filter by age and / or topic.

Want to learn more? This video explains more about the site.

*YouTube videos are blocked by NISD at school.

Big Huge Labs

Create your own motivational, inspirational or humorous posters and print out for your classroom. Include digital pictures that you upload from your computer. Think of the possibilities!

Discovery Education for Students

This link is not the one to Discovery Streaming Videos. Here you will find great resources, including interactive games, videos, contests, virtual labs and lots of activities for learning. Come explore!

Indezine

Awesome PowerPoint templates for you to use and they're free! Each category has more templates, once you click on the category or search for a specific type of theme. On Indezine's home page there are tutorials and free add-ons for PowerPoint.

Puzzlemaker

Need a puzzle? Then this is the site for you! Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, crisscross, math puzzles, and more using your own word lists.

Wordle

Create word clouds with or for your students. Include topic words to summarize units or see how many times a word is used in a passage, magazine article or poem. Change the font, color or layout easily. It's lots of fun!

ChannelOne.com

Find out what's going on in the world and how it affects young people in America.

CNN - Student News

CNN Student News is a daily news program for middle and high school students. Produced by journalists and educators, this 10 minute newscast reports the daily news, commercial-free.

Discovery Game Central

At Game Central, you can check out games, quizzes, puzzles and interactives to test your knowledge and skills. See what you can discover!

Free Rice

Work on your vocabulary skills and earn rice to fight world hunger at the same time. At the top of the Free Rice web page, you can choose the subject you want to be tested on.

Math-Play.com

These math games are specially designed for middle school students. Choose the topic that interests you from math jeopardy, math millionaire, algebra games, fraction games, money math games and much more!

National Geographic Games

Everyone loves National Geographic. Find cool games and interactives here that deal with science and history. What can you discover??

Sheppard Software

Lots of educational games, activities, quizzes, articles, etc. You'll find everything from Animals to World Geography here!

Smithsonian Games

Want to test your knowledge? Try Smithsonian Games and Puzzles. There are lots to choose from, including the Great American History Puzzle, U.S. Presidents, Toy Hall of Fame, Crossword Puzzles, Sudoku and tons more.

the Beehive - MS English Help

This site has links to help students in English for grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing. These sites are interesting, fun and easy to understand

Internet4Classrooms - Lang. Arts

No matter whether you need help with grammar, diagramming sentences, writing a book report, or improving your vocabulary, you'll find tons of useful links here to improve your skills.

Vocabulary.com

This is a free site for K - 12 students, teachers and virtually anyone who would like to learn new vocabulary words. Each session has 3 levels x 12 words each = 36 new words. There are also lots of activities and puzzles.

WordPlay

This whole site is dedicated to poetry. Even if you have never written a poem before, here you will find some great ideas to help you to give your words power or just have fun with writing.

ARKive

This site provides information about the preservation of the world's species. Included are photos, videos and fact files with lots of biology topics. All resources may be used by students and teachers in lessons and presentations.

NASA for Kids

Geared towards middle school students, this site has activities, homework help, dictionary of space terms, career corner and lots of pictures and videos. You can even create your own podcast with NASA video and audio clips!

National Geographic - Kids

Awesome articles from National Geographic, written for kids. These include historical events, lots of Science, homework help, activities and games, maps, photos, videos and more.

Science Buddies

Find free science project ideas and help in all areas of science. Whether you are doing a Science Fair project, just wanting to do a science experiment or looking into a career in Science, this site has it for you!

Science News for Kids

Check out the latest science news stories and features. There's also suggestions for hands-on activities, books, articles and web resources. Interested in some science competition. See what's out there for you to enter.

Smithsonian Kids

Smithsonian Kids is a great place to find out information about museums, zoos, research and cultural centers, exhibitions, events, collections and news. You could spend hours learning cool stuff here!

Brain Teasers

Here you will find links to many brain teasers to challenge your skills, mostly in math.

Coolmath

Who said math can't be fun?? Here are plenty of lessons and games to help you love math. Note... at school avoid playing non-math games through this web site.

Fact Monster

As part of the web site Information Please, this site has useful links on Math. You'll find information on numbers and formulas, factors and fractions, measurement and money. Check out the Just for Fun area and play some math games.

Math Playground

Lots of math games, logic games, practice and word problems for you to exercise your brain with. There are even math videos to check out.

Manga High

Your teachers can set up an account for you and track your progress at Manga High. The cool thing is that you are having fun and learning at the same time.

Scholastic

Scholastic provides great reading resources. There are interactive online learning activities, podcasts and more!

Historical Newspapers

As part of ProQuest, you can find articles from major newspapers dating back as far as 1851. These include the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor and many more. See what life was like during the Civil War, World War I and II. For more information, here's a video on how to use this great resource.

The History Channel

Brush up on history with the History Channel web site. You'll find text articles, related video and audio clips, photos and TV listings related to historical topics. Click here for a list of videos by topic.

Maps 101

Maps 101 has over 6000 maps in a variety of formats. You'll find current event information for countries around the globe, educational games and puzzles, and reference atlases. For teachers, there are hundreds of imbedded lesson plans. Whether you are planning a lesson or just looking for a place to visit, you'll find lots of great geographic information at Maps101.com! This is a paid subscription at Zachry / Comm Arts / Taft. Please see the librarian for username and password.

CNET

CNET reports on the latest and greatest trends in technology, including news, reviews, videos, podcasts, downloads (not available at school - check with your parents) and more.

Digital Photography Review

Looking to buy a great digital camera? Dare to compare. Catch all the latest news on digital cameras, including reviews, a buying guide, sample images, camera specs, lenses, printers, software, forums, galleries and challenges.

Graphics Software

Do you need a graphics program to help you create or edit pictures? Here's a list of raster and vector graphics programs available. Look at the features and find one that's right for you. Some are freeware and some you have to pay for.

Freeware you may find useful includes Picasa, Pixia, Gimp, Dia, SketchUp and Inkscape, among others.

Note: at school we use Adobe Fireworks CS4 or CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 or CS5. You can use a search engine and find tutorials for each of these programs.

Kodak

Would you like to learn how to take better pictures? Kodak has numerous tips and tricks for you, including the top 10 tips, photographing animals and people,nature, holidays and events, and much more. There's something for everyone from beginners to advanced photographers.

Microsoft Office 2010

As a student, you can buy Microsoft Office 2010 much cheaper than you can at an electronics or office supply store. It is sold as a single license or you can buy a 3-install license.

Microsoft Office How-to Guides

Are you frustrated because Office 2007 and 2010 looks and works completely different than Office 2003? Try this link. You will be taken to a web site that lets you use the old way to do a Word Command and then shows you the new 2007 ribbons and exactly where to go to do the same thing! When using, click on Run rom here.

Microsoft Office Images

There are literally thousands of pieces of clip art, photos, animations and even sounds for you to use at this site. It is constantly being updated with new images. There's a search box where you can type in what you're looking for and then simply copy and paste it into your Office document.

Open Office Software

This is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. What's more, you can read and write files from Microsoft Office.

PC Magazine

PC Magazine offers reviews, how tos and tips, an encyclopedia, downloads (not available at school - check with your parents), editor's choice, shop and compare prices, news and opinions. This is a great place to keep up with technology trends.