SEN Teacher is a web site that provides free teaching and learning resources for students with special needs and learning disabilities. Resources for K-12 and college-level students are available, as well as at-home activities and free downloads. The site's Printables Page has customizable handouts and teaching aids. SEN Teacher links to other web sites that are carefully chosen and that provide additional free resources and helpful links. The Files Page lists free educational software, and custom Google search engines make it easier to locate resources for special needs students.
Pre-Grade Your Paper: Free Online Grammar Checker, Proofreader, and More
"PaperRater.com is a Free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing.
PaperRater.com combines the power of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, information retrieval (IR), computational linguistics, data mining, and advanced pattern matching (APM). We offer the most powerful writing tool available on the internet today."
which bills itself as a "free online grammar checker, proofreader, and more." It really is free, though on their "pricing" tab, they reserve the right to start a premium service at some point in the future. I haven't actually used it, but would be curious what folks on this list who try it think of its features.
Shape Collage is a nifty free utility available for PCs, Macs, and Linux. There are limitations to the free version - most notably, you can't save save & reopen projects (click here for the list of features available in the $25 Pro flavor) - but it's super easy to use and the results are fantastic. Highly intuitive, the menus are simple to navigate, featuring clear options incorporated into a well laid-out workspace. It just feels natural, encouraging you to try different settings to see the result. This YouTube video does a terrific job explaining the program and its features. It's absolutely worth the download to explore for yourself.
Check out this FREE, open-source Minecraft clone (currently available only for PC and Linux): http://minetest.net/ - I am playing it right now. It's NOT Minecraft, but, it's pretty slick. And yes, it's totally FREE.
a free Android app for learning and practicing the pronunciations words and phrases in English, Spanish, and French. With Listen & Speak installed on your Android phone or on your Android tablet you can hear the proper pronunciations of hundreds of words and phrases. After hearing a word or phrase read to you, you can speak it back into your device and have your pronunciations graded for you. If you're not happy with your grade, you can repeat the word or phrase as many times as you like until you get it right.
Listen & Speak could be a good, free Android app for students learning English, Spanish, or French to use for independent practice. The feedback feature will help students recognize errors in their pronunciations and correct them before moving on to more difficult words and phrases.
Constitution Day (September 17) is less than a month away now. Federal law requires teachers in the US to teach a lesson on the US Constitution on that day. To help you develop lessons, Sunnylands Classroom is offering a free package of teaching resources. Included in the collection is a free DVD about the 1991 case of Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company which effectively barred race peremptory challenges during jury selections. Other resources from Sunnylands for Constitution Day include an interactive game on the First Amendment and an interactive game about the Constitutional Convention. Register here by September 5 to have the Sunnylands resources sent to you.
H/T to US History Teachers Blog.
Applications for Education
The Constitution Day resources from Sunnylands Classroom really seem to be targeted toward a middle school and high school audience. That said, with a little adaptation you might be able to use some of the resources with 4th and 5th grade students too.
a handy site for teachers who are looking for some lesson plan ideas to go along with children's books. The library features picture books, books for early readers, and books for young adults. Each book is linked to a list of activities that could be done either while reading the book or after reading the book. The books themselves are not free (you can buy them online or find them locally) but the listed activities are free for your viewing. Teaching Library is supported through Amazon Affiliate sales so if you purchase a book through their site you will be supporting them.
Applications for Education Teaching Library could be a good resource for teachers struggling to develop a new lesson idea. If you're looking for some new books to add to you classroom, but you're not sure which ones you want, take a look at Teaching Library's suggestions.
You have to register to start off. Interactive tutorials start-off from the very basics where you familiarize yourself with the home row keys, and then on to the more advanced lessons which are all about drills. There are specialty lessons too where you get to type chapters from literary classics and other works. So, even if you have nimble fingers, you can start off somewhere in the middle rather than start over. One of the nicer intelligent features of the online tool is that it learns your most error prone keys as you type the lessons. Once TypingWeb has learned which keys cause you to stumble, a custom practice lesson can be created for working on those specific keys.
Features of Note:
12 typing games serve up practice and fun.
A free teacher's portal with features like interactive lessons, real-time student monitoring and reporting can be used by schools worldwide.
You can set any among seven languages and choose from 26 different keyboard layouts.
"a free service that makes it easy for teachers to organize and share educational materials in a visually pleasing format. The "canvas" part of Edcanvas is where you arrange videos, links, images, and files around any topic of your choosing. Edcanvas has built-in search tools so that you do not have to leave your Edcanvas account in order to locate resources. Watch the thirty-eight second video below to see how easy it is to create an Edcanvas canva"
"HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.
HippoCampus was designed as part of Open Education Resources (OER), a worldwide effort to improve access to quality education for everyone. HippoCampus content has been developed by some of the finest colleges and universities in the world…"