Resources for K-12 Teachers
Resources for K-12 Teachers
Wide Web
OVERVIEW
The resources below were compiled by graduate students, to assist teachers in implementing technology in their classrooms. Directly below are some content area headings followed by specific sites in that area. Each site has been linked to a brief description and ultimately to the site itself. Sites related to social studies were focused on more than some of the other content areas.
FOCUS SITES
National Science Teachers Association / Busy Teachers Web Site
Classroom Connect and Educational Launch Pad / Social Studies Resource Site for K-12 Teachers
ASSESSMENT
The sites above provide to any educator information on content areas that can rarely be found in a school library or book room, along with activities and units that could be implemented into many classrooms. The web sites also provide the on-line assistance teachers often need, but don't receive when trying to implement something new into their teaching. These sites also allow for collaboration and professional development, by offering chat rooms, add a link, and e-mail updates. Above only a few subject areas have been searched and listed, but any educational topic can be found on the web, and searching is only half the fun.
AASG
Earth Science Education Resources -
Earth Science Education Sourcebook for Teachers and Students
This is a text book and source guide for geology in all 50 states. It has information separated by broad grade levels. For example, the categories of K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12 exist. The site also has a few advanced level categories, but the site itself is primarily geared at K-12. Three major indices are simple yet very effective for net navigation. They are the Content Index, which contains information listings separated by geology discipline, the Grade Index where one can choose the grade level of information, and the Media Index which offers choices such as field trips, audio-visual, and computer.
National Science Teachers Association
This page includes a variety of links focused around the NSTA. The links include: 1) Legislative Update, 2) Awards and Competitions, 30 Membership, 4) Programs and Projects, 5) Search, 6) Online Resources, 7) News and Information, 8) Journals and Publications, 9) Conventions, and 10) What's Hot. My favorite link is Online Resources. It is set up to be used as a messge board, with questions and comments about everything from eighth grade lab projects to job postings to graduate level research projects.
Science Education Associations Home Page
This page has more information and sites that would be appropriate for secondary and post-secondary education. There were links to science journals, resources and html resources. One terrific resource found here was Frank Potter's Science Gem's (UC-Irvine). This link would be excellent for secondary science teachers, and it is even broken down into subcategories to make navigation easier.
The Ontario Science Center Home Page
The Ontario Science Center Home Page includes, links for science professional development and fieldtrip information. These links would be great for teachers who live in close proximity to Toronto, Canada. For teachers and students who can't get to the museum easily a great link would be the Interactive Zone. A plug-in is needed for this link, but it can easily be downloaded. Mixing Colours and Heart Beats were two very exciting sites that could be used in a k-12 classroom.
This electronic science magazine focused on the environment. It does include an educators idea area. This page is broken into two groups, 1) Classroom Innovations, and 2) How to use voyage in your classroom. The stories and articles are available for photocopying. The plans and units are explicit.
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This forum is an electronic center for anyone who has an interest in mathematics education. This site has info on good math teaching, establishing an on-line community of mathematics teachers to discuss a variety of topics, and contains directories of other sites related to mathematics education.
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This page contains a variety of online partner programs between the United States and Russia. It is definitely the next best thing to being an exchange student.
Web66: A K12 World Wide Web Project
This site is funded by a grant from 3M. It is chock full of great information for educators. There is an International Registry of K12 Schools on the Web, as well as a Web66 What's New Page, which is modeled after the What's New page for Netscape. What's New has several links, such as sports, government, history, and current new events. Apparently these links have been hand picked for their compatibility with elementary aged children. There is also a search engine called Mustang which has been designed especially for teachers so they can surf the Internet effectively. The primary goals of the web site, as they are stated, are to
a) to help K12 educators learn how to set up their own Internet servers
b) to link K12 WWW servers and the educators and their students at those schools
c) to help K12 educators find and use K12 appropriate resources on the WWW
A project funded by the NSFto demonstrate the potential of high speed Internet connectivity in the public school classroom. This page provides links to numerous sites pertaining to issues, challenges, and the potential electronic classroom.
Social Studies Resource Site for K-12 Teachers
The Resource Site for K-12 Teachers was primarily focused around PBS, and their services. This site included a listing of PBS's upcoming programming.
This site includes Current Events/Issues and how they are interconnected to different issues in science. One feature of this site is an open forum for student discussion on-line. The site is funded by the National Science Foundation. Two current issues that were highlighted were smoking and spinal injuries. The spinal injuries update included Christopher Reeve's current work with the federal government in trying to increase research funding.
This site offers lots of on-line assistance to students at a variety of levels in a variety of disciplines. Some of the categories within this page are : Mystery Novella with Vocab (SAT), Test Taking Tip of the Week, Individual Programs Onsite and Online. High School Programs, Products, Links, Student Email Directory, Homorous Examples of the Importance of Education, and Academic Improvement Tips. Study Hall had a lot of great features and links. The following are just a few: Search Engines, School Resources, Colleges, Great Links Pages, News Sources, Shareware, and Freeware, Fun and Games.
This site is great for teachers of World Geography. This site is as good as any atlas software program, when it comes to maps and country stats. Its last update was in July.
The page includes links to several content area topics : General History, Geography and Culture, Government and Politics, World History, News Sources, Culture and Diversity, Peace and Conflict and United States History. Other links go to new sites, classroom based Internet instruction and professional development, and general education on the Internet.
The Electronic Field Trip to the UN
This site offers not only an opportunity for students throughout the world to experience the United Nations, but also includes links to other related sites and resources, classroom activities and last of all general information about the UN and how it works.
Computers in the Social Studies Journal
The Journal is a great resource for any social studies teacher interested in using primary source documents. The historical documents site here is wonderful for a teacher or student.
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Provides students with opportunities to be creative with Crayons. It contains an Art Educator's Bulletin Board where people can exhcange ideas, and lesson plans. In addition, there are extra neat programs such as The Crayola Dream Makers Online program which displays children's art online, Crayola Model Magic and Liquitex Products as special classroom kits.
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AcademyOne is an international online educational resource for students, educators, parents and administrators of grades kindergarten through twelve. It is one of NPTN's three main interactive cybercasting services.
The Discovery Leaning Community is a pilot effort to encourage new ways for teachers, learners and their educational partners to use the programs that air on The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel.
Classroom Connect and Educational Launch Pad
These networks are filled with informaton on educational resources for students and teachers. It offers connectivity to other schools on the web. Classroom Connect has a virtual auditorium feature where teachers can participate in interactive conferences.
The site structure resembles the structure of a school. it has three broad categories: classrooms, offices and library. Within each category there are subcategories on educational topics, themes, curriculum resources, nurse, counselor, teachers and principal.
This site is one of the few sites on the web that concerns its self with girls and women's issues.
The web site is broken down by the broad headings of grades K-2, grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5 (a total of four major headings). Each grade has several available sites to click on. The web site focuses on American History. This is an excellent web site. I clicked on unit VI under the broad grade heading of K-2. The unit is titled "Now We Are Engaged In A Great Civil War," 1848-1880. Once there the site lays out educational outcomes for the lessons that are to be presented from this web page. After the educational outcomes, several lesson plans are presented. The equality of these lessons appears to be excellent. Two lessons are presented for each grade kindergarten through 2nd, for a total of six lesson plans. Each broad grade category has at least six pages to visit, and each web page has multiple offerings of lesson plans.
This has an excellent tutorial much like better software packages come pre-loaded with. The colors and graphics are eye catching. This is a great web site for teachers who have been provided with multi-media work stations, which many school districts are now doing. In my estimation, a teacher with some (fair) Internet skills could spend their prep hour at this site and gain enough knowledge to teach one class immediately following. Additional research time spent at this site would yield many more lesson plans.
Learning in Motion is a publisher of innovative software for k-12 education. This page highlights the company, their products and other www educational sites.The topics of Learing in Motion are listed below:
- Book Exchange
- Reasearcher
- Measurement in Motion
- Varieties in Life Science Investigations
- Varieties in Life Science Video/Video Disc
- A Student Handbook to the Internet
- Notation
- Monthly Top Ten
I thought this was a great way to advertise educational, technological products. Included in the page were places that one could visit to even have sample copies sent out for previewing. This feature could really speed up the ordering process for interested educators.
This page contained some links to more defined pages. The topics are: Cyber Library, Administrators, Partners, Education Forum, Mentors / Volunteers and Pioneers. Pioneers for example included many schools who have been pioneering the web in their classes.
The page is focused around the tour by web. A virtual tour through one's computer. Soon prepackaged Internet tours will be available throughout many education disciplines including, art, history, and science. A tool bar on the bottom of the page makes for easy navigating.
This is a fabulous page especially for schools just adding Internet access through Netscape. Some sub sections I thought were helpful were Techno Terms Glossary, HTML Crash Course for Educators, and Classroom Internet Server Cookbook. The Cookbook provides the "basic recipe" for setting up a web server in your classroom. This site also has auto e-mail updates, which is great for busy teachers!
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ESSAY
As a social studies teacher, I am always looking for good and easily accessed primary source documents (i.e. maps, speeches and pictures). School districts can't always afford to buy new books every year or sometimes every decade - even though the world changes every minute. The Internet offers a solution to this problem. Although the Internet is not free by any means, it certainly does not depreciate at the same rate a print resource can. The Internet's vast resources are a terrific solution to a social studies teacher's problem, and to every teacher who is always on a desperate search for current information. This new technology also offers teaching professionals who are typically teaching alone or possibly with a small team, the chance to share and gain new ideas. Exchanging ideas and methods on the Internet can also be more affordable than traveling to a conference, and can be fit into any person's busy schedule.
The Internet resources included in this web page, are just a small sample of what has been read and discovered through links and search engines in the last three months. The sites don't just include content information for teachers, but actual plans that could be implemented into a classroom, and even activities ready for a student's quick clicking mouse. The sites chosen for this page, were chosen for many reasons: 1) Clearness of text and information, 2) The quality/usefulness of graphics, 3) The quality of links to other pages, 4) Applicable to many grade levels within a content area, 5) Broad enough to fit into almost any curriculum.
As a social studies teacher, with a geography assignment it has been difficult at times to keep up with the many recent changes that have been occurring throughout the world. Print resources in the school library are not always accurate. I have even had students write letters to every embassy in Europe in hopes of getting the most updated and accurate information possible for a project. An activity such as this, not only assists students when the print resources in the school library are lacking, but also helps students who may not have access to print resources outside of the school. The Internet web site, CIA World Fact Book and other resource sites, solve the problems often incurred when using print resources. These problems range from availability to quality. If my school/ district was on-line and had Internet access, my class could browse through the CIA World Fact Book (or any resource site) for up to date information at school. Not having to worry about how to get to a public library before it closes is also an added bonus of these on-line resources.
On-line resources are great for sharing information. There are many sites that ask for information in message form and also offer a quick e-mail to the browser, whenever it is updated. To share information found on the web, one only needs a short address, not multiple pages of photo-copying. Favorite URLs can even be made into bookmarks and then the bookmark files can be sent on-line to many recipients. This method of information transportation offers busy teaching professionals the opportunity recieve and exchange ideas, URLs and files whenever it is convenient for them. The exchange of information on the web doesn't involve the postal system, lengthy memos, or misplaced phone messages, which the exchange of print resources often requires. The immediacy in which electronic documents can be accessed and sent, typically can not be matched when sharing print resources. Waiting at the copier can sometimes be at least 10 minutes, and don't forget the time the packet of goodies will spend sitting in a mailbox or bag. Which came first June or the information?
As a computer novice, I have not only found a use for this new technology, but have found many uses for it in my teaching already. I have used it to retrieve information for students and also for myself. Its usefulness in professional collaboration is even better, as I've learned this semester. Hopefully, in the near future, Livonia Public Schools will also be known as http://www.lps.k12.mi.us