English
The Writing Process- Great online resource for teachers on starting the writing process, prewriting, outlines, etc. Created by teachers at Purdue University.
Bartleby.com- Unlimited access to books and information online, completely free of charge.
Thesaurus.com- Thesaurus, Dictionary, Translator all in one place!
A+- Research & Writing- Offers help in researching & writing a variety of papers.
Bibliographies
Guide to Works Cited (printable)
History
Colonial Williamsburg: Programs for grades 4 – 8 with live broadcasts on public-television stations and archived video presentations on the Web highlighting people, places, and events throughout history.
National Geographic Expeditions Online: Features a database of lesson plans, online activities, and maps tied to the national geography standards.
The Virtual Smithsonian: Includes onlime tours of exhibits in the museums of natural history, American history, and art in Washington.
Life Photo Archive- Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google. These are pretty high resolution images and can be used for print or the web.
Multidisciplinary
Simple K12- FREE tools to help teachers develop skills to lead students in 21st century classrooms, FREE assessment to test the technology proficiency of students, A FREE, quick, easy and entertaining way to stay up-to-date with technology, FREE training to protect educators and students from bloodborne pathogens and MRSA
Ball State University Electronic Field Trips: Offers live and archived video tours of a variety of topics and destinations, including the Florida Everglades, gray whle migrations from Southern California to Mexico, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Includes low-cost Web resources for each lesson.
Intel Education: Designing Effective Projects: Unit Plan Index – By Grade (Age) This was the first site shown and had Project Based Learning Units. No registration required. This site has K-12 level units with many language arts plans as well as interdisciplinary units. Highly recommended, detailed, easy to get around, authentic, includes exemplars, differentiated, gifted student, and English Language Learner adaptations.
Teachers Domain Second site shown. Videos, flash animation, unit plans. Free registration unlocks additional productivity tools including the ability to download videos, create and organize folders as well as attaching National and state grade level standards to all included site content. Very easy to use, no ads, heavy PBS, Nova, National Geographic, and USGS content. Experiments from the ZOOM TV show.
Lesson Plans – Xpeditions @ nationalgeographic.com Free blank and detailed printable global maps. Hands on cheap activities, lesson plans. Geography heavy, but also includes SS, LA multidisciplinary units.
Curriki – WebHome Free registration allows organizational tools. This includes post secondary content, a global community and a unique variety of content. However, I find I waste too much time on this site because search terms display many useless returns. It can get cumbersome, but there are many gems. This also has a strong community of worldwide educators and great discussions.
SMART – Home Great K-12 all subject area content for smart boards. Great tips and instructional videos, generous teacher cooperation. There are also links to lessons that can be adapted if you do not have a smart board.
Exploratorium Digital Library: Browse by Topic Great site, although heavy science, sponsored by the NSDL. Detailed links bring you to incredible HTML documents that have entire independent study lessons. This is from a lesson on Solar Eclipses: “This Web site has invaluable resources–from live footage of six total solar eclipses to explanations of why eclipses happen–to help people understand this mesmerizing celestial phenomenon. Besides Webcasts of recent eclipses (including the March 2006 total eclipse from Side, Turkey) and a list of eclipses to come, the site also features cultural and historical interpretations of eclipses.” This site is very valuable.
The Learning Page… Getting Started This is the homepage of the Library of Congress website. Great lesson plans for history and language arts. Follow the link on the left for lesson plans or activities. Interesting professional development opportunities. Great site to explore for fun, too! Huge database of primary source materials. No registration.
Lesson Plans by Grade This is the lesson plan page of Educational Oasis. Further exploration of this site will reveal worksheets, rubrics, awards and certificates, suggested grade level reading materials, professional development, and resources.
OLogy Unique lessons for around 4th-5th grade. Mostly science content but includes multidisciplinary activities. Take home stuff, interviews with scientists, quizzes, and experiments. The kids really like this site, it is very easy for them to navigate and it is most engaging. Great for smart boards too.
Science
Virtual Dissections, Labs and Field Trips- Cell visualization, Boston Museum of science, Frog Dissections and The Human Heart are just a few of the resources you will find on this site.
Jet Propulsion Lab at NASA: Allows participants to choose a virtual character and take a trip through an animated museum, mission control, and a robotics lab.
NSDL Middle School Portal: Science Pathway: Browse National Science Digital Library. The links here take you to external sites that provide web-based lessons for students. Unique applications of scientific principles.
Smithsonian Institution Go to the teachers link on the left for a searchable database of lesson plans (Art and Design, Sci/Tech, History and Culture, Language Arts). This site also ties in state standards and their content is researched based and designed by teachers. Flash based interactive quizzes provide great links if an incorrect response is recorded. Museum content including incredible images of art and other items from their collection. Very contemporary and easy to navigate. Great for anyone. Highly recommended.
Teacher Resources to Develop or Enhance Classroom Lessons
Internet4Classrooms- Many different internet resources to enhance classroom activities.
DigitalVaults.org Find a treasure trove of reproducible primary sources, lesson plans correlated to national standards, and cross-curricular connections.
US NSF – Multimedia Gallery US National Science Foundation searchable multimedia gallery including high resolution images, video, audio. Has speeches and lectures and are networked with Palmer and McMurdo Stations. Updated multiple times a day sometimes, which can get overwhelming. Good background and links included with multimedia files. Free publications and the opportunity to “peak in” on current scientific research. Check out the Special Reports link and you’ll see what I mean.
Classroom Resources US NSF classroom resource homepage. Beyond NSDL content (included above) other content providers include NOAA, COSEE, NASA, EPA. Great “headline science” collection. “Collaborating partner institutions such as universities, museums, professional organizations, government agencies, research laboratories and publishers create NSDL materials. NSDL’s network of content-rich collections, educational resources, and technology-based information is intended to meet the needs of students and teachers at all levels: K-12, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning. See www.nsdl.org”
Creative Commons Great resources to include in lessons.
“Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.” We’re a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.”
Free Online Course Materials | Courses | MIT OpenCourseWare This link takes you to all available semester length courses dating from Fall 2003. You don’t receive course credit or a $60K bill, but you can use materials for your lessons or to improve your education. “Free Courses, Lecture Notes, Syllabus, Tutorials, Audio & Video from MIT professors. All Free. No registration. | MIT OpenCourseWare | ocw.mit.edu”
Technology
Nortel LearniT Technology teaching, resource and integration page.
One of the best sites out there. Easy to follow short, step by step instructional videos on powerpoint, digital audio and video production, digital ethics, online safety, etc. Browse lesson plans by grade from the “lesson plans and guides tab” to view grade level units. This site also provides valuable resources and links, which I recommend you explore.
5min – Tech/Web “5min’s Web category offers you a variety of free how-to videos on Web, including DIY tips, advice and useful tutorials.” I showed this site. This is the tech category, but please search the links on the left for additional focus. If you really like a video, be sure to see if the provider has posted other videos. The content on this site is far superior and more professional than what you would find on youtube.
5min – IndyMogul – Studio These guys produce DIY filmmaking videos. Learn how to create special effects on limited budgets. They have produced 172 useful videos. Be sure to check out their favorite studios for additional knowledge. I found them on the 5min site.
Soundsnap.com Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops. Literally thousands of effects and loops all organized and searchable. Preview sounds prior to downloading in multiple formats. You can even submit your own! Great for projects. Free and fair use. Best free audio site out there.
Tech-Ease: Video Tutorials “Quick answers to real classroom technology questions.” Software instructional videos for mostly Mac OSX, but videos also include Google Earth Basics, Flickr, Inspiration, Podcasting, etc. They also have .pdf guides for additional software. Site is maintained by USF which provides content to iTunes University. Search for “USF” within iTunes to subscribe to or to search for instructional podcasts. You can also go here and have access to over 20,000 free backgrounds and themes for powerpoint or Keynote presentations!! You can also search over 40,000 (and growing weekly) clipart images. License allows teachers and students to use up to 50 images per project! These folks are very generous.
Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) “Advancing education through videoconferencing and other collaborative technologies.” First place to go if you have videoconferencing capabilities in your school.
Kids
mostly ad free
HowStuffWorks.com Just like it says in the link. Content rich, high quality videos and images, better than youtube. Kids enjoy this easy to navigate site. There is limited corporate advertising to the top and left frame on individual pages. You may want to supervise kids surfing on this site, or just provide links for your students.
HowStuffWorks This is the link to the daily RSS feed that provides direct links to fascinating content.
National Geographic – Kids PBS Kids ads in the top frame of pages. This is a great site for kids that provide edutainment games, cultural explorations through activities and videos. Great videos and images. Book blogs and a great social group for kids where they learn about taking care of the planet and have the ability to create their own blogs and upload photos.
Just Cool
KeepVid Download and save any video from Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and more! Just cut and past the URL into the field at the top of the page and you can download any video. You can also download a “bookmarklet” which when added to your browser increases efficiency.
current work Display page of American artist Chris Jordan. Check out this page and the ideas will flow…
Home – SnagFilms I briefly showed this site at the end. Feature and full length award winning independent films and documentaries. I recommend watching “Paper Clips”. “Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six-million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community.”
You can also “snag” these films to include in a website or embed links in your website that go directly to these films.
MapMachine – National Geographic This is like a Nat. Geo. Version of Google Earth, but not nearly as good. You can get printable directions and different satellite images than the ones that Google provides. Works best with IE. Check out the free desktop wallpaper at the bottom of the page and the other images. WPTZ.com uses this technology for it’s weather page. If you haven’t been here, you must go to see national real time weather data (requires plugin). You have to see to believe. Works best with Safari, IE. Has some ads.
DonorsChoose.org “Teachers Ask. You Choose. Students Learn.” Ask for money for your classroom materials and donors provide you with that money. Click on the “for teachers” tab to learn more. As of November 8th $11,302 has been provided to 672 Vermont students, from donors in 20 states. Our third grade teacher received a DLP projector for her computer and smartboard in less than a year.
TED: Ideas worth spreading “Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers.” Incredible videos from the annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conferences. Searchable by theme, topic or speaker as well as most discussed, most viewed, most emailed, etc. Eclectic and wide variety of speakers including musicians, graphic artists, philosophers, comedians, journalists, scientists and others from a global palette.
The Internet Archive This site has 136,324 movies, 54,558 live concerts, 309,065 audio recordings, and 1,075,022 texts all available for free download. Need I say more? Speeches, rare recordings, public domain books and other media. I know you will find a way to use this site.
The following sites were gathered and prepared by Sean Wallace for a talk on free websites for educators at VTFest, 11/07/08. swallace@ocsu.org
