EDIT 7500 @ UGA

This is the hub for all educators interested in using the vast resources of the Smithsonian Institute for education. There is something for every subject represented here.

This lesson was done in cojunction with the Smithsonian Institute and Jamestown. Students podcasted their experiences with the Jamestown site, demonstrating that new technology could be used to learn about historical sites. This lesson could be modified for any number of historical sites.

This interdisciplinary lesson plan (civics, health, and science are covered) helps students pick apart myths about science that arise on the campaign trail. Obviously, it's time-sensitive, but it's important for kids to know that what candidates say is not always, well, the truth, particularly when it comes to science.

This webquest deals with the Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. According to the creator: "First, learners will research the context categories for this novel. Next,the learners will synthesize their research by creating five-question interviews between a category expert and an interviewer. Finally, the learners will present their research to the rest of the class as they conduct the interview." I like WebQuests that go outside of the computer.

This lesson uses the CIA WorldFactBook to help students compare economic systems of different countries to the United States.

The New York Times has a nice Learning Network behind the scenes for educators and students with daily lesson plans, a lesson plan archive, and more, all leading back to the content of the New York Times. A variety of subjects are covered.

This lesson plan from the Smithsonian uses primary documents, in this case letters from people in Japanese-American interment camps, to discuss a particular era in history. It offers insight into different views of history and the power of primary documents. It also uses lots of great material from the Smithsonian archives.

This site helps teachers and students get the most out of the National Park Service, particularly in the planning of Field Trips. It could work with multiple subject matters.

EconEdLink is run by the National Council on Economics Education and is a clearinghouse for Economics lesson plans, which are usually surprisingly good, given that Economics teachers have to try twice as hard for engagement! Haha!

Georgia State Parks have a site that lists all of the Performance Standards that can be met by visiting one of their parks. You can even view the Historic Sites or State Parks by subject. There are also educational guides here for each state park.

Inspiration, InspireData, and Kidspiration are graphic organizing software that is powerful in helping students organize thoughts and data in a visual way. These use mindmapping, visualization, and brainstorming to help students diagram concepts.

This Day in Georgia History is a fun site that could be used at the beginning of the day in any Georgia History class to get students thinking and discussing history.

This lesson plan--sure to be popular!--asks students to participate in a debate on whether video games help with literacy, based on a NYTimes article by Motoko Rich. This lesson allows kids to be reflective and analyze the differences between media beyond the debate question itself.

Arcademic Skill Builders: Online Educational Video Games for Students and Teachers. Great tools where student can even play each other for competition.

Lots of simple, but fun, educational games are available here. Some are even playable on the Nintendo Wii, believe it or not!

Garageband is Mac only, but it's a powerful recording program that comes preloaded on all new Mac computers. It's really easy to get podcasting with it because it has integrated iTunes support and easy internal mic recording.

This 2002 Pew study might be slightly outdated, but it talks about a serious problem in education, which is that students are actually outpacing schools in terms of internet savviness. They are bringing along with them different expectations and skills than before and schools need to address this.

Great program to use when putting together stories for a class project. Use this after video taping or pictures taking to create a movie instead of a slide show of your ideas. I really like how you can edit and also put in music.

iMovie is Mac-only, but it is a powerful movie-making tool that comes pre-loaded onto new Mac computers. It's easy and intuitive and can output in HD.

From the website: "This 2008 ethnographic study for Consumer Reports WebWatch reveals that very young children are using online games and Web sites to play and learn, yet many of the games and sites are designed to manipulate children for the sake of commerce and promote the idea of commercialism. The online games observed in the study were found to vary widely in terms of quality, educational value, and their developmental match with children's abilities."

Educators employ project learning to explore science and history together. Curriculum is designed to meet ISTE standards.

This article talks about tips in integrating technology according to NETS-S/ISTE standards and how some projects went about achieving a high level of technology integration.

From the people that brought us Hot Potatoes comes Quandary, an application used to make web-based acion mazes that allow users to progress based on choices they make.