Michael's 
Links for Teachers
Quick Links
Introduction
Your time as a teacher is precious (I know, I'm married to a teacher!). I am very interested in the potential of the Internet as an educational tool. The hyperlinking concept encourages a natural curiosity, which I enjoy following. There are many times I spend 30 minutes or more 'off on a tangent', but it is usually time well spent.
Since many teachers are just beginning to incorporate the Internet into their activities, I thought I'd pass along a list of sites that I consider excellent.
Education topics on the Web
Netsurfer Education
format: e-mail, Web site
Netsurfer Education is a FREE e-mail delivered e-zine bringing neat education related sites directly to your mailbox.
Netsurfer Education is your guide to interesting scientific and technical news, places, and resources online. Each issue it brings you short, crisp news bites, notices, and reviews designed to provide an informative and entertaining snapshot of the vast wired world of science and technology. Periodically, you may also see a Letters to the Editor section, book reviews, and possibly special bulletins about significant breaking stories (e.g. imminent death of the Internet).
Web site: http://www.netsurf.com/nse/
subscribe: http://www.netsurf.com/nse/subscribe.html
Lesson plans
Check out the lesson plan technology notes.
PBS Teacher source
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/
A wealth of quality informaton. Link to 1400+ lesson and activities, complementary information for PBS specials, special section of teaching with technology.
teachervision.com
http://teachervision.com/tv_index/
Links to lesson plans and other periodic updates.
Site also features a "Great Stuff for Teachers Newsletter" newsletter.
Curriculum
Effective Uses of the Internet in the Primary Classroom
http://www.microsoft.com/education/instruction/articles/internetresource.asp
Basic information for getting started.
The Internet as Curriculum (journal article)
http://fno.org/jan97/curriculum.html
An article which appeared in From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal, discusses what the best ways are to employ the Internet in support of the curriculum. Also check the From Now On index page for a list of other articles.
Tools
Hot Potatoes free software
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/
The freeware Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Supported on both Windows or Mac. Tutorial available on-line with examples of exercise formats.
Resource sites
The Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus
http://www.wordsmyth.net/
The Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus (WEDT) contains 50,000 headwords, and very precisely defined and hyperlinked synonyms. And the search engine allows for very flexible searching. The dictionary-thesaurus itself has been designed to emphasize full, supportive usage information in entries, including example sentences and phrases, and indicators of context and grammar. It offers extensive crossreferencing, too; for each meaning of a word, lists of synonyms and similar words are provided, each hyperlinked to its own, precise definition.
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
S.O.S. -- Site of the School Day
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/sos.html
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators is a categorized list of sites on the Internet found to be useful for enhancing curriculum
and teacher professional growth. It is updated daily to include the best new sites to support teaching and learning. Free daily newsletter S.O.S. -- Site of the School Day is available via e-mail.
Yahooligans! Teachers' Guide
http://www.yahooligans.com/tg/
Teaching resources, grade level tutorials, and subject links on educational material from the main Yahooligans (Yahoo for Kids) site. Also features teacher guide newsletters.
webTeacher
http://www.webteacher.org/winnet/
Welcome to webTeacher, a self-paced Internet Tutorial that puts both basic
and in-depth information about the World Wide Web at your fingertips. Developed jointly by the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and TECH CORPS as the original source.
New and Great Ideas for School Web Sites
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/jacobsen.htm
An article from Technology & Learning Magazine. The title pretty much describes it.
Classroom Connect
http://cu.classroom.com/logon.asp
Although this is a commercial site, it is still worth the visit for the free stuff they have available. There are several featured sections including 'Connected Teacher' which offers PDF format lessons plans and 'Connected University' which offers a free 30-day trial in which to take their self-paced "Getting Started on the Internet" course.
ThinkQuest Library of Entries
http://library.thinkquest.org/library/index.html
Student developed web pages/sites for the famous ThinkQuest challenge.
EduHound
http://www.eduhound.com/
Searchable site containing lesson plans, education news, Internet tutorials, and more. One section features "One Computer Classroom Links". And the pooch is kinda cute!
Worksheet Library
http://www.worksheetlibrary.com/
A site developed and run by a group of K-6 teachers. This is a subscription site, but does offer many free worksheets as well as an extensive free library of teaching tip articles from their staff.
Lesson plan technology
In Spring 2000, I provided some technical assistance to my wife in using the capabilities of the Web to create several web-based lessons. As in many cases with Web technology, it is not so much the individual pieces, but how you put them together. These lessons attempt to make the learning experience interactive.
Sonia's Lessons: eelgrass habitat, hydrothermal vents, Antarctic ecosystems
- move your mouse over a vocabulary word anywhere on the page and the definition pops-up
- click on any picture to enlarged it
- take the quiz, then click on 'score it' to get immediate feedback
- see dynamic highlighting of student answers, the correct answers, and links to the exact place in the lesson where the question is answered on the text review page
