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"It is imperative to teach our students beginning with their first experience online to "read" the web discriminately. Students need to understand that just because something is posted on the Internet, it isn't necessarily true. Teachers should practice the skill of web site evaluation before instructing students. The Yahooligans Teacher's Guide: Evaluating Web Sites gives a good overall synopsis of web evaluation while the Cyber Bee's WWW.CyberGuides rubrics clarify the issues of both content and design. Tammy Barcalow has somegreat suggestions to consider when first introducing website evaluation. Check them out! There are also many alternatives for teaching students how to critically evaluate websites and several links are included below. Kathy Shrock's Criteria Evaluation Survey: Elementary Level is an excellent choice to use with upper primary students. The Schrock criteria are simply stated and appropriate for students starting in about fourth grade. However, the form is bit long and may overwhelm some kids. Since we need to consider the reading level of lower primary students, I have created two checklists specifically for younger children. These alternatives require minimum reading and writing while introducing website evaluation. There is one version for kindergarten and first graders and another for second and third graders . Another good option for our students is this Web Evaluation for Primary Grades. Regardless of the specific tool you use, site evaluation should include judgement about the following areas: navigation and usability, authorship and content validity."

Beyond the Bubble unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create a new generation of history assessments. Developed by the Stanford History Education Group (http://sheg.stanford.edu), Beyond the Bubble is the cornerstone of SHEG's membership in the Library of Congress's Teaching with Primary Sources Educational Consortium. We "go beyond the bubble" by offering easy-to-use assessments that capture students' knowledge in action - rather than their recall of discrete facts.

We've created the Digital ID wiki with a two-fold purpose: Provide students, teachers, and administrators with a toolkit of reliable information, resources, and guidelines to help all of us learn how to be upstanding Digital Citizens who maintain a healthy Digital Identity (ID) in the 21st Century. Build a collaborative platform for teachers and students the world over to contribute to our ever-growing curriculum collaborations and student-created content. Our goal is to help our students answer these three Essential Questions: What does it mean to be a (digital) citizen? What are my rights as a citizen? What are my responsibilities as a citizen? Students Objectives and Learning Outcomes: Stepping Up ~ Cyberbullying: By examining bullying within their own lives and across historical events and time periods, students will consider the importance of empathy as a 21st century skill, equally as important as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and skilled communication. Building Identities ~ Digital Footprint: By examining the importance of maintaining a positive digital identity, students will learn how to employ self-regulation to manage their own digital footprint. Respecting Boundaries ~ Intellectual Property: By employing critical thinking, students will learn the ethical use of intellectual property. Protecting Online Security and Privacy: By studying common threats to electronic security and equipment, students will learn to protect themselves and sensitive information."

"The Problems of the Month are designed to be used schoolwide to promote a problem-solving theme at your school. The problem is divided into five levels, Level A through Level E, to allow access and scaffolding for the students into different aspects of the problem and to stretch students to go deeper into mathematical complexity."

A simple to use online writing environment for the high-production, creative writer. Write the way you want to write, using any approach you like in a simple, distraction-free environment. It's novel writing in the cloud. All In The Cloud No save button needed. Yarny constantly saves your work to the cloud. Stay Organized Stay organized with separate sections for people, places & things. Write character descriptions, capture research about a location, track to-dos, or use them any way you want to. Distraction Free Start typing, and the distractions disappear. Snippets Write your story in snippets and organize snippets into groups. Auto Versioning

Keep track of the noise level in your classroom using the calmCounter "Calmness Counter." This colorful tool is simple to set up and use. Uses the built-in microphone on your laptop or connect an external mic and watch the calm counter respond to the noise level in your classroom. This is a concrete way to quantify noise level needed for goal setting and behavior (sound) management. Even the young can understand this tool's "thermometer."

"WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky. A web-based version of WorldWide Telescope is also now available. This version enables seamless, guided explorations of the universe from within a web browser on PC and Intel Mac OS X by using the power of Microsoft Silverlight 3.0. Install WorldWide Telescope Windows® System Requirements (For Mac OS X use the Web Client) Web Client Mac & PC - Compare Client Versions "

"The goal of the Artful Thinking program is to help students develop thinking dispositions that support thoughtful learning - in the arts, and across school subjects.The program is one of several programs at Project Zero linked by the theme "Visible Thinking." "

"NBC Learn and NBC Sports, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, explore the engineering and technology helping athletes maximize their performance at the 2012 London Games. Includes lesson plans by the NSTA"

Mathematics Enhanced Scope and Sequence (ESS) Sample Lesson Plans help teachers align instruction with the 2009 Mathematics Standards of Learning (SOL) by providing examples of how the knowledge and skills found in the SOL and curriculum framework can be presented to students in the classroom. The lesson plans are accessible using a keyword search, or by selecting specific SOL objectives organized by grade level and reporting category. 

This site from England is the first resource of its kind designed specifically for the students and teachers of Math and Science. It leverages the expertise of top teachers in their fields for the development of its content.

Creative Book Builder is a fantastic app that allows students to create books in epub format, which can then be exported to iBooks and shared with others. There are a variety of instructional uses for this app, from using it as a publishing tool for project-based learning to a summative assessment at the end of a unit. Students can embed images, audio files, video files, and write text. The advantage of an epub document over a PDF document is that all of the media will be preserved and available for readers to interact with when the final product is published.

"This post provides an overview of design thinking, the problems with design thinking, and suggestions to hacking the world to go beyond design thinking."

"This post provides an overview of design thinking, the problems with design thinking, and suggestions to hacking the world to go beyond design thinking."

Learn about the Revolution through the congregation of the Old North Church and the dilemmas faced specific congregants.

"The Reading and Writing Project LLC provides literacy professional development to schools across the United States and the world, and generates ideas that are foundational to literacy instruction worldwide."

This Seattle-based organization is so dedicated to helping students achieve in math that they've created a free web program for students, teachers and parents. We learned about it from Martha Leslie who says, "It is just for math facts, and it allows you to set it up so that the next student's name comes up automatically so the kids can go get the next learner. Plus, it allows the student to look and see if the next student is absent or busy, click a button to get the next student. I hope that made some sense. Anyway, I've used it now for two months, and it works really well for the independent math facts."

a third grade teacher is loving this math site!

The Maker-infused Curriculum - Making as essential to all learning "Making in education and the community is already underway in many different forms. Educators have found that students and people who have not developed confidence and identity in STEAM subjects through traditional courses have a different relationship to STEAM learning when embraced through the process of Making. Making encourages experimentation - students can make mistakes and still have confidence and a strong sense of identity to pursue their interests."- New York Hall of Science.

"Thinking Blocks is a suite of learning tools designed to help students solve math word problems accurately and efficiently. Using brightly colored blocks, students model mathematical relationships and identify known and unknown quantities. The model provides students with a powerful image that organizes information and simplifies the problem solving process. By modeling increasingly complex word problems, students develop strong reasoning skills which will facilitate the transition from arithmetic to algebra."