General Resources
Sponsored by the High Plains Regional Technology in Education Consortium (HPR*TEC) this site offers some great free tools and resources to help you in the classroom. These include TrackStar which allows you to create and post lessons on the web complete with annotated links. You can also search for thousands of tracks created by other teachers. Other sections include Rubistar for creating customized rubrics for any kind of lesson and QuizStar for constucting online quizzes. The site also contains a wealth of ideas for integrating technology into your teaching. Unfortunately, this wonderful resource may not be around long. The Regional Technology Labs were paid for using federal funding which has now been eliminated. HPR*TEC has other funding to continue their work through the 2005-06 school year. After that, hopefully they can find money to continue. We’ll see.
This site has turned into a major web portal for teachers, although there is still a lot of material centered around the programs on the various Discovery Channel networks. Among other things you can find a large collection of lesson plans and resources for creating quizzes, puzzles and other activities for your students. If you teach science, take a look at the science fair section featuring suggestions for teachers on how to run the fair and a large collection of project ideas for students. Also take a look at the Cybersurfari contest, an internet scavanger hunt designed for students.
Cheezy name for a site but a great resource if you are teaching any topic in the humanities (Literature and Language Arts, Foreign Language, Art and Culture or History and Social Studies ). Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council of Great City Schools, this site features a large collection of lesson plans and links to other resources on the web, all of which have been reviewed by a panel of experts and teachers. Check out the monthly calendar which features new lesson plans, activities and sites related to current events. This site is part of the Thinkfinity partnership.
Although this site is not related to the book How Things Work, it does attempt the same kind of explanations of everyday tools such as engines, television, and even bread. And the site has only gotten better since its introduction. Recently updated with brighter graphics and better organization, they now have a very large collection of resources for teachers including a free magazine (How Stuff Works Express) for grades 4-8 (limit 60 copies per teacher). You will need to register to access the teacher resources (it’s free and doesn’t ask for much information) but this site is well worth the effort.
This is a large and very diverse site with literally something for every teacher, although the major emphasis is on Math and Science. Start by looking at the exhibits section which includes material on life in the middle ages, what’s in our garbage and amusement park physics. There is also a projects section which featured Journey North, a study of wildlife migration using data from students all over North America. Math and Science teachers should look at the Guide to Math and Science Reform. Very well done.
While many people think of the Library as simply the place where we keep all the books, there is much more here for your classroom, even if you don’t teach history or language arts. A good place to start is the Learning Page which offers lesson plans for using primary sources in the classoom and much more to help you use the Library site. Other sections include the fabulous Amercian Memories collection, online versions of many of the Library’s exhibits, the Global Gateway to access international resources, and Thomas, an index of recent and ongoing Congressional legislation. On top of everything else, they’ve recently revised the site to make it easier to navigate.
This large and growing site is more than just an online version of the newspaper. It includes three sections with materials designed for students, teachers and parents. The student section (written for 6th – 12th graders) includes a news quiz and an interactive crossword puzzle, plus links to address questions to the NY Times editors and reporters. The teacher section includes a large collection of lesson plans, with materials written in partnership with the Bank Street College of Education, and is updated daily. The parent section features material related to the other two sections for use with children at home.
A part of the main site for the Public Broadcasting System, the Teacher Source provides a large collection of classroom resources, mostly supporting the programs on PBS. Many of the sections devoted to specific PBS programs are often worthy of note and could stand on their own. Africa, for example, which was developed to support the series of the same name, is an excellent resource for students studying the regions profiled. Free to Dance, part of the Great Performances series, offers some great information about the world dance scene.
Scholastic, of course, is a large publisher of instructional materials for teachers at all levels (and American publisher of the Harry Potter series). Their online materials used to be hidden behind a subscription but now is available for everyone. They have a ton of lesson plans and activities covering almost every curricular area and every grade level, although the high school material is a little thin. The Class Pages section offers a small web site (free) for you to post assignments and other information about your class (with only a couple of small Scholastic ads). In addition to this section for teachers, Scholastic has a companion area with activities for students but almost all the materials have a connection to Scholastic products.
Although this is THE national museum, we here in the Washington, DC area also think of it as our own private learning center. Local or not, at this site you can not only find plenty of photographs and information from current exhibits but schedules of programs and resources for teachers. Check out the Virtual Smithsonian featuring web exhibits of some of the museum’s most popular items. No matter your connection speed, choose the low bandwidth access since it is easier to navigate and avoids the unnecessary flash.
