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Based on our core Whiteboard technology, Desmos aims to serve as a web-based, unifying standard for interactive lessons. Professional content developers, publishers, and individual teachers alike can create and distribute vivid, effective content through our community. No longer are teachers limited by the kind of hardware they have in their classroom. They can build lessons on their computer and then use them in class on their Interactive Whiteboards, or at home from your computer, or on the go from a tablet. Accessing Desmos is as simple as opening up a browser. Not only can you build lessons, but you can work together, live, with other members of the community by inviting them to share your Whiteboards.

Most students have the idea that Google will answer their search queries without realising how it works as a search engine i.e. popularity of the site. Digital literacy and the ability to find relevant and reliable resources therefore requires the development of search skills in the classroom. These Search Education lessons were developed by Google Certified Teachers to help you do just that. The lessons are short, modular and not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match to what best fits the needs of your classroom. Additionally, all lessons come with a companion set of slides (and some with additional resources) to help you guide your in-class discussions.

The American Federation of Teachers' new online community Share My Lesson offers teachers free access to the resources and knowledge of their peers across the country. Featured are nearly 260,000 teaching resources, a monthly resource calendar, free games and activities mapped to the Common Core and discussion forums. Teaching resources are divided by grade, subject and rating and include activities, puzzles, games, lesson plans, posters, assessments and more. 

Google Maps is an obvious fit in social studies lessons. But it's not always an obvious fit in science lessons. Last week during one of the New Hampshire Google Apps Bootcamps Alice Barr shared a good collection of Google Maps uses in science. KQED Quest has a collection of six examples of science based Google Maps. The collection includes examples of use in environmental science and geology lessons.

he job of teaching * Join in the discussion reddit this Comments (1) Wendy Berliner Guardian Professional, Monday 3 October 2011 18.30 BST Article history Teacher Daniel Hartley from Chulmleigh Community College, Devon. Photograph: Apex Back in the summer we decided here at GTN HQ that, with our membership rocketing, it was the right time to mark our first six months in operation with a survey to find out what members thought about teaching today. There were questions across a wide spectrum of topics and, at the end, we left a free text box for teachers to add any comments they wanted to share. It was the dying days of the summer holiday - August 25 - when it went out just after lunch. We knew the survey would take ten or 15 minutes to complete so we weren't quite expecting what happened next, but within those first few hours after its release, we realised you had started something big. By 10.30pm that night we'd had several hundred questionnaires back, which in itself was impressive with many teachers perhaps still away on holiday or back but busy preparing for the new term. The most impressive thing of all was the content of those text boxes. There was just so much of it. Some people wrote several hundred words at a time, speaking clearly from the heart and arguing cogently against the things they felt were going wrong in education. A love of teaching and vocational pleasure felt working with children and young people emerged but it was emerging from a fog caused by far less pleasant aspects of the job - disrespect from society and governments, bullying by senior management, other teachers, parents and students, despair at the parenting skills of some homes and despair with government targets and league tables that were funnelling education into an ever thinner tube feeding stuff that improved Sats and exam results rather than nourishing a lifelong love of learning. One former solicitor questioning the sense of the switch into teaching said: " M

"This is a beautiful lesson designed and presented by Rob Miller on Scrib. What I really like about this series of activities is that it allows the students or in Rob's case his teachers to articulate their own learning. It is never about a single app. It is the combination of apps that allow the learners to meet the learning outcomes. It is a great example of building a meaningful lesson around a concept and then providing the students with the tools to create content."

This brand-spanking-new site aims to provide an uncommonly inviting place to teach and be taught. Instructors can upload video on any subject - be it salsa dancing or making glogg - then divvy it into lessons. Unlike YouTube, Curious lets teachers choose to charge for lessons, features an oversized playback window and generally feels friendly and constructive. There are no creepy comments from anonymous YouTubers here, and the site's proprietors currently approve teachers and eyeball content to ensure that these online classes are, well, classy.

"Since I started this Experiment to use Evernote in every aspect of my classroom, I wasn't really sure what I was going to discover. I was sure there would be some way that Evernote was not going to meet my needs and I would be forced to add another tool to my chest while I continue the experiment for the school year. One way I was weary of was lesson planning. I have used the the traditional planner book for years and it has always been very good to me. I could easily flip back and see what I what I did the year before as I planned the upcoming school year. I'm not a big fan of trying to fix things that are not broken, but I figured I needed to give it a try in the name of the Experiment. Needless to say, I was not disappointed."

"It doesn't seem to matter what age group or demographic that I talk to, kids (and adults) everywhere are fans of Angry Birds. As I was playing around with Angry Birds (yep I'm a fan too), I started thinking about all of the learning that could be happening. I have watched a two year old tell an older sister that "you have to pull down to go up higher". I have watched as kids master this game through trial and error. Being the teacher that I am, I started dreaming up a transdisciplinary lesson with Angry Birds as the base. I happened to be writing an inquiry lesson that has students look at inventions throughout time and thought: the catapult-that is an invention that has technology and concepts that are used even today. This is one of those inspirational moments that comes when you are drifting off to sleep and has you frantically searching for paper and pen to record as fast as the ideas come. So what did I do? I got myself out of bed and went to work sketching out a super awesome plan. Here is the embedded learning that I came up with"

Learn to draw! Drawspace has hundreds of free, professional drawing lessons that can be easily downloaded by your students (no log-in or registration is required). You can simply assign specific projects to your students, or download, print, and use the lessons to supplement your own curriculum.

Teachers are taking advantage of mobile devices for "m-learning," putting those mini computers in kids' backpacks and pockets to use. Here are 10 lesson ideas for BYOD and m-learning in the classroom.

"Modern Lessons is a skill-building platform designed for you. It features courses for beginners, experts, and everyone in between. Courses are taught by just a handful of carefully chosen experts and are available free of charge. Create your account to start learning."

Oolone is a search engine like Google, but it uses visual technology to help you find results. Instead of text results, we bring up pictures of results. You can download a sample lesson plan from the site and more ideas and lesson plans are available on Edmodo.

Lisa Johnson is curating this very useful Pinterest of lessons using iPads

Looking for something to jazz up your literacy lesson? Check out Domo by goannimate. A free animation tool that allows you to create funky looking animations. A great tool for any literacy lesson especially if wanting to emphasise dialog, setting and characterisation for creative writing. 

Teachers should be spending their precious lesson planning time designing lessons to engage kids mentally and push them to higher levels, not creating flashy Powerpoints .. Instead of thinking about how to get your students to interact with a $2,000 electronic whiteboard, think about how you can get your students to interact with each other using a $2 whiteboard.

"We've been getting a lot of questions ever since our GMAT Choose Your Own Adventure video went up. Well, one question, really: How can I make one for my students? Answer: It's easy! Youtube has a great tool called Spotlight that lets you make any video interactive. It's really handy for lessons and quizzes. Essentially, you can ask students a question - or a series of questions - and when they answer show them a personalized video response according to how they did."

"I remixed this awesome scavenger hunt originally created by Joyce Valenza and added a QR Code Twist! I re-worked some of the questions for a lesson with my adorable ESOL kids (we have 35 right now in our ESOL program & one cute be-freckled girl just came yesterday & speaks no English at all but she LOVED scanning the codes when I handed her my Droid Fascinate!) The rest of the kids have varying degrees of English proficiency but still will benefit from a few visual clues. So the scavenger hunt questions are intentionally simply & clearly worded combined with pics I created as QR Code Hints. You can also use this lesson for special needs classes, Library Media orientation, or even re-mix the questions, QR Codes, & hints for just about ANY subject area! To create the hints I used a combination of Photoshop, Flickr, bit.ly and my favourite QR Code generator, Kaywa."

"Every teacher is taught that back up plans are a must. Things change constantly in education and there are a variety of factors that can make plans change - computer breaks, internet goes out, file is corrupted, forgot your flash drive at home, you finish a lesson early with a class, your class has very low attendance due to a school activity or event (like AP testing, prom, etc), lesson runs long, students don't understand the material, class is interrupted by a fire drill. To deal with these issues, teachers must have back up plans ready to go and be flexible and organized. Here are some tips and resources for backup plans."

"Advice on how to share lesson plan outlines in the events on a Google Calendar."