Group items tagged

Great for incorporating History and Technology in the classroom

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: thwt.org is intended for the use of History and Social Studies Educators. It is a great resource for finding ways to incorporate technology and the various content areas in the classroom. There are various links to other sites as well as links to other pages within the site that would help Social Studies Teachers to devise lesson plans that incorporate technology. This site can also be used to help brainstorm for project assignments to use in the classroom. There are explanations as to why it is important to include certain aspects of technology in the classroom and what ways we as educators can utilize the resources we have. Content: The content on this site ranges from external sites for historical information to internal resources within the site to help in teaching with technology in the content area of history. There are videos, podcast, articles, chats, and many different ideas about how we can bring all the technology around us into a content area that many student find boring. Design: thwt.org has a very "sleek" design. It is very simple as far as design goes, but so easy to navigate. It was easy to find the tabs that I wanted. Also, the color scheme used wasn't overwhelming and made it even easier to travel around the site. The contacts page was so easy to find and very accessible with questions.

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: The purpose of the BBC Learning School Beta website is to promote and provide educational materials for students, parents, and teachers. This website would be great for k-12 education and teachers and parents of those children. The site offers educational games and learning tools, resources for teachers, tips for parents to help improve their children's education, and education related news articles. The content and design are very visually attractive and extensive. Content: There is a lot of content available on this site, but it is easily accessible. There are interactive games, video clips, news articles, and other activities and information. The website has extensive information for all of the intended audiences. There does not seem to be any reliable contact information available besides a "feedback form" to send criticism or praise and "frequently asked questions" are also available. Design: The website downloads correctly and quickly and looks very interesting and organized. The site is easy to navigate, even without directions. The site could be used by a primary aged school child fairly effectively because of the clear labels and ease of navigation.

This is a great site! I'm definitely using it in my WebQuest.

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: The purpose of the Poetry Foundation website is to be a learning resource for anyone interested and to promote poetry in our culture. This site would be great for high school or college students, teachers, or other interested adults. The site offers full poems, biographical information on poets, articles and news relating to poetry, and a "learning lab" that allows you to access annotated poems, poem guides, writing ideas, discussion questions, and tips for teachers. The content and design are very appealing. Content: There is a great amount of information readily available on this site. It is very interactive with everything from places to listen to the poems to places that will direct you to downloadable poetry mobile "apps". The information is very extensive and reliable. If you have questions and comments, the foundation provides various ways to contact them. Design: The website downloads quickly and looks very appealing and organized. The bar across the top makes navigating easy. There are no directions for using or navigating the site, but it is so easy that instructions are really not necessary.

No longer is Agriculture Education just about Cows, Sows and Plows! We as Ag educators have a duty to our students to educate them about basic real world principles. One of the most important things we can teach that many of those kids are not getting is money management; How to make good financial decisions and how to keep from collecting millions of dollars in dept. We as a world are still in the recession, and it is important that as the new generation of teachers we take our experiences and teach those kids to that their world can be better as they get older. One of the most important lessons I ever learned in ag was how credit cards work kiplinger.com offers basic information about how finances work, we can base a section for our class to focus on how to be financially sound, and that is what is going to benefit those kids the most. They need to realize that Ag education is about real world application and what is more real than understanding how to take care of yourself without having a gloomy cloud of debt over your head.

Overview: TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Simple devoted to spreading ideas. That mission continues to make the brilliant ideas of today easily accessible. Content: This website is a media based outlet to share riveting "talks" from remarkable people, free to the world. What I love the most about this website that it includes so many different subjects from pure education, design, sciences. The speeches are sometimes complex and take some critical thinking, but this is an accurate source to be sending student of upper school to really challenge them, and create a different perspective not only by using media, but through connecting us to speakers that are normally incredibly riveting to get to hear. This is a breeding place for the newest ideas and inventions that will that expands people's capacity to understand what is possible. Design: This is an incredibly put together website. With simple colors that refocus you to what you are looking for, as well as genres of interest located in plain view including listing of new topics. This website is very accessible and readily available for any edger learner.

Overview: This is a daily blog for all ages; it provides random facts about the world around us with simple illustrations. Content: The information found within this site will baffle you. This is not a source for research or subjects, but gives an opportunity to interact with things you would have no interest in. For example "Kissing causes Tooth Decay" to "George W. Bush was a school cheerleader". With humorous illustration this provides education that I believe would lighten the mood in classrooms and begin to engage students getting them ready to anticipate the random fact they may learn tomorrow. Design: This website is simple to access. The new fact appears daily on the homepage, and archived facts are easily accessible. The design of the site is using simple colors to make it easy to navigate, as well as the illustration are humors depictions of the fact displayed using better understand the information.

Open Source Desktop Publishing much like PageMaker or InDesign

This is a great website for any art teacher K-12. Content: This website provides art teachers of any grade level with lesson plans to use in their classrooms. This website will be particularly handy for begging art teachers. It is easy to navigate the site, lessons for everything from drawing to painting to 3D is provided in detailed lesson plans by clicking on the subject. The lessons are step by step and are great for beginnig artists. This website is nice for teachers that need ideas on how to present the information to their students.

Nathan Wonnacott 9/9/11 Overview: The Creative Spotlight is a site providing tutorials to new artists and supplies to continuing artist. It is clear that the site is more commercial than educational. It's a basic site with links to areas such as drawing, painting, and graphic design. Content: It is obvious that this site is directed toward art; however it doesn't provide helpful information. The tutorials focus on very limited instruction, followed by pictures to assist in "learning". The creator of the site only refers to himself by first name, which is an indicator that it's not a trustworthy source. Also, the copyright regulations are harsh, discouraging copying of any kind. I would not suggest this site for these reasons. Design: The design of this site is extremely basic, and links are slow to other sites. The format is cluttered and lacks revision. By the time one navigate through the site, he or she is probably disappointed by what they find.

From their Website: "NBC Learn is the education arm of NBC News. We are making the global resources of NBC News and the historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities."

Waddie Love 10/13/2014 Overview: K12 Reader is a Reading Instruction Resource from that is designed for teacher as an easy resource for lesson planning or Ideas on how to teach things information from spelling to writing composition, grades 1 through 5. It is updated frequently and has new topics on it daily for teachers to access for free. It is very easy to navigate around the pages. Content: Everything on this website is very straight forward. It is a resource that teachers can use to help teach their classes. It is very easy to navigate through the teaching activities and examples. There is information from student worksheets to lesson planning templates. It is resourceful, giving not only their work but presenting a reader with other recommended sites to gather information and ideas. Design: The site is well structured. It has add icon but they are not distracting from the page. It is very easy to navigate around the pages. It is only supported in English. Visually it is a great page.

Tonya Searles The purpose of citationmachine.net is to aid anybody who is writing a referenced work to properly cite the material they are using. The website is dedicated to preventing plagiarism. The intended audience is high schools, universities, teachers and independent researchers. The website provides easy to see choices for referencing in the major formats used in writing such as APA, MLA, and Chicago. The user would select the format choice they wish to use and fill in the boxes with the appropriate information, and the machine generates a complete reference in the proper format. The site appears easy to use and read. For a student (or author of a paper) who wishes to cite their material this website is definitely relevant, accurate, and purposeful. However, although I can clearly see the website has been updated since my last visit there is no indication of its currency. The citations generated are in line with current standards when putting in an APA reference. There is also a link to an older version of the site which also indicates currency, albeit without a date. The creator of the website is David Warlick, and while there was little information about him on the site, a google search revealed him to be an author and educator, indicating he may be an authority in referencing materials. Strengths of the website include clear step by step instructions on how to use the citation machine. There are also links that will take you to places to evaluate the originality of an essay to further avoid plagiarism. A weakness of the website is the amount of ads on the site, but it is free, and a network, so ads are expected. The design of the website is not overly ostentatious. There are simply colored blocks with text to click on, and the orange and reds are not overly bright and distracting. I prefer websites that do not have a lot going on, and that have only links that serve a related purpose. With the exception of the unavoidable ads, this website fits th

Provides a bulletin board to share with others. Users can post 90 second video commentaries on the board and respond to others posts