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t's the 21st century and I'm sure your school district has been embracing technology. With budget cuts, however, can your school keep up with the need for new and updated computers? I work in Bergen County (N.J.) where we have the highest property taxes in the nation, and yet this fall I'm not sure whether or not our media center will see more computers for our students. (Thank you, Governor Christie) I know of districts where every student has their own laptop. Not where I am. Still, I try to use what we have to prepare our students for when they graduate and go out into the world. No matter what they will do in their career, whether it's an auto mechanic or a lawyer, they will need these digital skills. If you are still wary about technology, it is time to jump into the water. We don't want you and your students left behind.

Why Blogging? The benefits of blogging with students are quite numerous. It is a great platform for teaching online ethics, internet safety, and the responsible role of a digital citizen. Blogging is also a good tool for reinforcing digital copyright laws, to practice writing for an audience, and to get some extra typing practice. Many teachers also like it as a way to collaborate with other classes and often use it for extra motivation with writing tasks. So, there really are lots of worthwhile reasons to start blogging with your students, and the following sites are great places to get started

"Do you find that students often struggle to put together effective oral presentations? To help students, try this activity as a way to provide feedback before the big speaking day. The four-corners activity can foster confidence in students while informing them about effective non-verbal/verbal delivery, audience needs, and how to craft effective speaking notes. "

Lingt Classroom helps teachers enable their students to speak. Create online assignments that make engaging and assessing spoken performance as natural as giving out a worksheet.Make oral exams that take a fraction of the time to administer and assess. Perfect for IB and AP preparation.Offer targeted feedback to individual responses to maximize student improvement.Incorporate video and images to create media and culture-rich exercises.Archive all your assignments and students' responses to reuse next time and track individual improvement.

"Want a truly organized classroom? Set up a graphic organizer folder system. Print out one of each of these organizers and make a folder for each organizer. Make enough copies of each organizer for your entire class, with a few extras, and put them in the folders. Have your folders in an easy-to-reach place, so when you are teaching a lesson that lends it's self to a Ven Diagram, you have them on hand! Pass them out to the students and bam-you can help your students organize their thoughts on the fly!"

Teachers are often diverted from their teaching by tasks outside of the classroom. The Study Help Site provides a simple, on-line suite that helps teachers plan, organize and communicate all at the same time. As you write lesson plans, determine in-class activities and task students with outside assignments, the system automatically and simultaneously provides a free-form organization system and communicates with parents and students. It's simple and efficient. The Study Help Site will allow you more time and energy to focus on the best part of your job - TEACHING. See the Planning, Organizing and Communicating features in action and you'll see how easy it is use The Study Help Site. Or, Sign Up Now to begin simplifying some of your "non-teaching" tasks.

History is boring. At least the way we typically teach history is boring. Ask anyone who's been forced to memorize a list of dates and facts and they will tell you that they would rather have open heart surgery than deal with another high school history class. It's unfortunate that so many people have such a negative introduction to such a key subject. History taught well is mind blowing and life changing. It turns out that the same history that puts 9th graders into a comma can also be made into movies that people PAY to see. History experienced instead of memorized changes our perspectives, opens our eyes and helps us avoid the mistakes of our fore-fathers. History teaches us that while people 100 years ago wore different clothes and lacked iPhones they still shared our same basic human thoughts and passions. By giving students the opportunity to see and feel the world through the past hopefully they can plan for the future. TwHistory is about helping students experience a slice of time through the eyes of another person. The aggregate of these personal experiences can then give a unique perspective of an event in history. It's dull to memorize the events of the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis for a pop quiz but it gets your attention when McNamara drops the F-bomb on Twitter because the world is about to end in a big nuclear fireball. We encourage you to help your students live history. Pick an event. Pick a person. Do the research and prepare the Tweets. Then watch history unfold via the most modern of experiences - Twitter. Enjoy TwHistory and contact us if you have any questions or need help.

Learn together in the classroom and share your projects with the world. Photopeach is used by educators and students in hundreds of schools world wide, including schools in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, England, Pakistan, Argentina,Thailand, and more. The combination of images, music, and text helps students learn about presentation, expression, writing, communication skills, art appreciation, and media literacy. The quality of the finished work is great and students will remember it forever. Start creating fun slideshows with captions, soundtracks, quizzes, and easy editing controls!

"Here's how it works. The instructor attaches a blank piece of paper to the back of every exam. Students may write on that sheet any exam questions they couldn't answer or weren't sure they answered correctly. Students then take this piece of paper with them and look up the correct answers. They can use any resource at their disposal short of asking the instructor. At the start of the next class session, they turn in their set of corrected answers which the instructor re-attaches to their original exam. Both sets of answers are graded. If students missed the question on the exam but answered it correctly on the attached sheet, half the credit lost for the wrong answer is recovered."

The ePals® approach provides an effective way to instruct and reach today's technology savvy students and teachers. ePals provides digital content designed for collaboration and self-paced, self-directed learning as well as a safe platform to share work globally. Authentic ePals projects are centered around meaningful content and experiences that require teamwork, digital literacy skills, higher-level thinking and communication. By engaging in authentic learning experiences about relevant issues, students, teachers and mentors learn and work together, strengthening core learning while motivating learners and building self-confidence and skills necessary for future careers. At the same time, ePals helps teachers learn to use technology effectively in their classrooms, providing professional development, curriculum, contests and other resources.

"Shmoop is a study resource for students, an in-depth teacher's guide to topics (cuz sometimes we don't know everything - except me, I know everything), and a series of exam study guides for AP, SAT, PSAT, ACT, SAT Subject Test, etc"

This interactive activity will help students become more familiar with maps and how they are used to determine locations. Excellent resource and support for student learning. Important terms and ideas are presented to further understanding!

"Finally! A Hassle-Free Way for Teachers to Text Their Students ClassParrot is the 100% safe, and simple tool that lets teachers reach students the way their friends do. "

Put all the pieces of your music program together. uTutti is an online program created with one overall goal in mind: save music teachers time and energy so they can get back to teaching! uTutti allows you to streamline the administrative aspects of your program so you can focus on the education of your students. Take control of your program by managing student contact info, parent communication, inventory, finances, fees, fundraisers, calendars, group email, grades, classes/groups, and more. We also work well with SmartMusic! Start making your life easier with uTutti.

Students select a picture and then spell the name of the item.  Or, students can see the word and select the correct picture.

STORY HIGHLIGHTSSalman Khan: I had no idea my learning videos would go viralHe says he's given up hedge fund work, dedicated himself to nonprofitKhan: Videos and software don't replace teachers but can make them more effectiveTeachers can cut lecturing time and work with students one on one, he says

PrimaryAccess is a suite of free online tools that allows students and teachers to use primary source documents to complete meaningful and compelling learning activities with digital movies, storyboards, rebus stories and other online tools.

"These pages are designed to help you and your students to get the most out of the Poetry Archive. Here you will find a wealth of information, lesson plans and ideas for inspiring activities to bring poetry to life in your classroom."

Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more-using your own word lists

It's getting to be that time of year. Your chances of seeing school supply commercials have increased exponentially. Kids are breaking out last year's Elmer's in anticipation of glorious glue feasts. Teens are cramming their entire summer reading into the last week of August. Yep, it's back to school time, folks