Notes from Millie D

Teachers have a hard enough time implementing lesson plans that they don’t have a lot of time using the Internet looking for ways to enhance their lessons with technology. I’ve showcased some of my favorite websites/resources out there to help all teachers enhance their lesson plans through technology.

Sites are not ranked in any particular order within a level. I hope you enjoy and let me know if I’ve missed something really good!

Terabyte Level Resources

1. Education World-Education World is a collection of all kinds of different resources out there on the Internet. Readers can find information on lesson plans or technology integration. They have weekly newsletters to help you keep up with the latest information. This site is definitely one to keep coming back to looking at the new content.
2. Jim Moulton’s Educator’s Resources-Jim is a former elementary school teacher in Bowdoinham who had a passion for technology. His passion has led him to leave the classroom and spread his passion across the globe. He still maintains a resource for teachers called Best of the Web. He updates it on a regular basis so you might refer back to it later in the year to see what new resources you can bring back to your classroom.
3. Kathy Schrock’s Guide-Kathy is an administrator of technology on the Cape. She was one of the first ones to collect Internet resources and then share them through her website but it is still one of the best out there. Her site is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning.
4. Ohio Treasure Chest-North Canton Schools in Ohio might be maintaining this site for teachers in Ohio but teachers around the world can benefit from their knowledge. Sites here are broken down by content
5. Thinkfinity (formerly known as Marco Polo)-A unique partnership between different educational organizations providing teachers a one stop experience for lesson plans, worksheets, websites, interactive sites, etc.
6. Internet4Classrooms-If you needed a comprehensive collection of websites based on grade levels and subject matter you’ve found it here. The site also contains websites on a variety of other topics outside of subject matter to include things like differentiated instruction, virtual field trips, clip art, etc.
7. Jim Burke’s Teacher Resources-Jim Burke is an educator from the Oxford Hills region of Maine who is involved with the eMints program.  The eMints program looks at integrating teaching and technology to improve classroom achievement.  I’m not sure if Jim actually sleeps going through this extensive list of resources broken down by category but we are the beneficiaries of his hard work.

Gigabyte Level Resources

1. Busy Teachers’ Website K-12-Some teachers connected with Georgia Tech brings us this resource. The initial page contains categories to help you wade through the content.
2. Elementary Education Resources-Bernie Poole from the University of Pittsburgh has put together a wealth of information for teachers. The links are based on categories making a little easier to find topics.
3. My Portaportal Page-Here I’ve outlined some of my favorite web resources specific to content at our school plus some useful Web 2.0 tools.
4. National Library Virtual Manipulatives-If you need a math manipulative you do not need to look any further. The different manipulatives are referenced by grade level and math strand.
5. abcteach-This site provides printables for teachers. There is a free section but also a section for subscribers. Printables are broken down by category.
6. Library of Congress-The Library of Congress not only documents a lot of American history for Congress but provides teachers a lot of primary resources to use in their classroom.
7. Smithsonian Education-Here lies a lot of material for teachers. Okay that is a slight understatement. They aligned their materials with state standards, broke it down by grade level, or by content.
8. Scholastic.com Teachers-The folks who give us book fairs and monthly book orders gives us a pretty good web resource as well.
9. Blue Web’N-Blue Web’n is an online library of 2066 outstanding Internet sites categorized by subject, grade level, and format (tools, references, lessons, hotlists, resources, tutorials, activities, projects). You can also browse by broad subject area (Content Areas) or specific sub-categories (Subject Area). Each month 5-10 new sites are added.
10. John Thurlow-John is a teacher from South Portland who has collected a lot of resources for teachers (he has also mixed in some games in there too). It didn’t hurt to have pictures of my nieces either.
11. Longfellow Links-The teachers from the Longfellow School in Brunswick, Maine have provided a cornucopia of websites. Sites are broken down into grade level and content categories.
12. LD Online Resources for Teachers-My wife has hammered home the idea that what is good for students with special needs is good for all students. This resource is good for all of the students you work with on a daily basis.
13. King’s Park Elementary School-The staff at King’s Park Elementary School in Virginia give us this resource. Content is broken down by grade level categories.
14. The Best of the Web for Teachers-Teach-nology provides a lot of links for teachers. I like the fact that each category breaks down what it contains as well as the number of sites within that category.
15. Walter McKenzie’s Innovative Teaching-Walter has taken his vast knowledge of websites and has set up this site so that teachers can navigate through a drop down menu to find websites based on categories.
16. My del.icio.us page-Here is a page which contains a lot of rich websites. You need to have an understanding about del.icio.us to effectively use this page as a resource.
17. Reading Rockets-If you are looking for a comprehensive resource around reading you can stop after checking out this site. This site contains a lot of resources for teachers as well as podcasts and reference materials.

Megabyte Level Resources

1. Read, Write, Think-This site comes courtesy of NCTE and the International Reading Association. The site seeks to provide teachers and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in language arts and reading instruction.
2. TeacherTube-This site is relatively new but could climb up the list quickly. This site is based on YouTube but the videos must have an educational purpose to it. Users can mark videos as inappropriate to help keep the site educationally based.
3. Enchanted Learning-Enchanted learning contains a lot of good useful information on a variety of topics. There are games, coloring pages, and printables covering many different topics. The only drawback is the advertisements all over the website.
4. Top 101 Sites for Educators-This site contains a lot (okay 101) of sites on the Internet for educators. With each site there is a detailed description that let you know more about the site before you check it out.