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Librivox might be my favorite of all open source, copyright free resources for the Language Arts classroom. Started as a non-profit to benefit the blind, Vibrivox has created an amazing database that allows readers to record individual chapters of a novel or story that is in the public domain. These files are then made available to the visually impaired or anyone in need of an audio version of a written work. I use this resource extensively for students who are reading below grade level or have significant processing difficulty. I have also had several students "donate" their readings to the database as a community service project to benefit the overall community. If you are looking for public domain eBooks for your classroom, Project Gutenberg is another great resource.

Project Gutenburg is one of the oldest communities for the spread of the written word on the internet. For its inception, PG has been in the process of digitizing literature in the public domain and continues to update its library of over 45,000 free ebooks daily. This is an amazing resource for the majority of ELA courses, distance learning, and online classroom management systems. It has been truly invaluable in British Literature because almost the entire curriculum has been converted to digital form. It is also amazing for distance learning like Plato and Odysseyware that do not always provide the text with the learning software. If you would like these books in audio form, check out Librivox.

Project Gutenburg is one of the oldest communities for the spread of the written word on the internet. For its inception, PG has been in the process of digitizing literature in the public domain and continues to update its library of over 45,000 free ebooks daily. This is an amazing resource for the majority of ELA courses, distance learning, and online classroom management systems. It has been truly invaluable in British Literature because almost the entire curriculum has been converted to digital form. It is also amazing for distance learning like Plato and Odysseyware that do not always provide the text with the learning software. If you would like these books in audio form, check out Librivox.

MERLOT which stands for "Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching" is repository site that contains images, video, as well as audio. The site contains information suitable for all grade levels k-12, however the resources being looked at or 9-12 Science resources. MERLOT is an established community of resources that offers a variety of resources to its members. User can browse for material across many different subject matters. They can also create a collection of resources to use with learning exercises to practice or teach concepts. MERLOT also provides its user with the opportunity to meet and collaborate with expert's virtually form all over.

In completing a work-related project, I found some great sites that assist educators in locating open educational resources. Merlot is one of those resources. If you have not used it before, it is a community of resources designed to focus on providing learning materials for faculty members in higher education. As a member of Merlot, you not only have access to the free online resources, but you can contribute material as well. There are also opportunities to become a peer reviewer of the posted content. I think this is an excellent way for an educator to be assured that the learning materials obtained from Merlot has a stamp of approval from others in the discipline.

Originally shared by Julia Hollins on 15 Jul 13. The original post was removed and this one shared instead, due to technical issue with the original post. Webtools and resources for online educators. Digital images and video were the first two forms of this communication and have played an integral part of human interaction. The ease of creating and capturing digital imagery has enabled proliferation, making our interactions with online learning sources largely visual. With that being said, the content to express ideas through music, visuals or other forms of art has contributed to the proliferation of online repositories (Chang, Smith, Beigi, & Benitez, 1997). Visual imagery and information is assessed and evaluated according to multiple forms (e.g., still images, video, sequences, computer graphics, animations and stereoscopic images), which extend to multi-view devices and 3D videos. This was one of the reasons why the following websites were selected for this discussion and evaluation (Chang, Smith, Beigi, & Benitez, 1997).

Originally shared by Julia Hollins on 15 Jul 13. The original post was removed and this one shared instead, due to technical issue with the original post. Thumb creator is source for royal free clip art. The first criterion used in selecting this website is that it had open access. The term "open access" is a new technology used with digital repositories. Most universities and libraries use repositories for educational purposes in hopes of becoming more engaged in developing scholarly communication. Second, open access is defined as free availability of scholarly literature on the public Internet, permitting anyone to read, download, copy, distribute, or print in full the text without restrictions (other than to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited Scherlen & Robinson,2008, p. 58 (as cited in Shields, Rangarajan, & Stewart, 2012). The clip art is royalty free and is apart of the open access. I thought it was a good resource for this class assignment.

This is a wonderful social networking site for education. It is for students and teachers. The teacher can set up an online component to their traditional classroom. It allows the teacher to grade work and give instant feedback. Students can hold online discussions about course topics too. Students have backpacks where they can file any resources they would need to complete an assignment. Also teachers are able to create and post assignments that students turn in with the click of a button. A problem that can take place is that the Edmodo site may be down or the school network is not communicating well with the sites network. Edmodo provides a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner

This site is more functional than the other two I posted. One of the unique features is its large collection. There are not only objects (photos or illustrations) but also materials/textures available. Another feature is that they have some pull-down menus to narrow down the search. We can select the images by the topic (animal, architectures, etc), dominant colors of the image we want, the number of items we want to see at once, etc. These functions meet the users' needs. The site also asks for donations of the images. The challenge might be the filter set by the districts. Almost all the time this is the case some teachers are discouraged. It is strongly recommended teachers check this site on a school computer before the intended use. If blocked, requesting unblocking may be the next thing to do. Furthermore, as a school or department it may be a good idea to secure several online repositories that are not blocked; therefore, any teachers can use at any time safely for educational purposes. Lesson Example: 3rd grade and above in Visual Arts Direction: In our life there are many signs. Common features of those signs are simplicity (restricted numbers of colors, shapes, lines, etc.) and clearness of a message (directly represented by an object). Suppose you are a professional illustrator and the city has asked you to create a symbol/sign useful to the community. Make sure to provide good reasons to back up your creation. (Ex. how your creation will promote the welfare of the city, reduce the crimes, or promote business, etc.) Search the needs of the city so that your creation is timely and meets the needs of the city. Save the resources. Image citation: Dario sign no baby carriages warning lift. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b17dario103.jpg

BusSongs is that one location (site) where you can go to find many childhood songs for your classroom. The songs can teach students about behavior, holidays, cultures, and many life skills. FCCLA students could use a song in a PowerPoint presentation to keep the students' attention or add them to a cd to use during instructional time. Some songs can be used for PTA meetings or graduation ceremonies.

The owners of this site acknowledge that some of the songs available on this site may be under a copyright protection (ie, these would be for the newer songs, not the older). Therefore, users are advised to communicate with the site to determine what rights protection there may be for music you intend to use. Read here for specific details: http://bussongs.com/about.php.

The images (photos and graphics) are available for FREE use within this site which is a teacher-designed resource for by teachers and their students; however, other use must gain permission. A slight risk (especially for minors) is the button that reads "Become an EduPic Host click here for more details" is a potential risk, because physical communication is sought by the web creator. This is an opportunity to have someone come stay in your home and possibly a camera man in order to come capture the scenery and have it posted on Edupic (the host receives a blurb/mentioning on the site). There is a section that allows you to quick search using hotlinks in order to quickly access related lists of images. Once you find a desired image, functions allow you to view a larger image, copy/save the image, copy the image URL, or find the image on Google (so you can find primary source information). There are cartoon-like images and real-life images, which can be used over a wide range of grade levels (K-12). The site also offers information on the Contributor's and provides access to the EduPic Blog.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library provides a collection of images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and videos. Unless marked for private use, most of the collection is in the public domain. Instead of providing artifacts entirely based on the variety of fish and wildlife in the U.S., the website mainly focuses on artifacts on the services provided by the department. The artifacts that are based on the fish and wildlife would make excellent items to include in science classes of all ages. The artifacts based on the services provided would be better suited for high school social studies classes or any type of community involvement subject. The collection is huge, with a lot of information that is too "specialized" (documents outlining conservation plans of specific complexes), users of the site should use the search function over the browse function.