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The Portal is a gateway to Texas history materials. You may discover anything from an ancestor's picture in a college yearbook to a rare historical map.

This web site supports the use of cell phones in the classroom by providing a controlled, secure environment for users. Students join teacher-created "cells" where phone numbers are kept private. Teachers can moderate all comments to make sure they are on-topic and appropriate for the group. Tip: After students text comments about a reading assignment, teachers can review the comments and display them using a projection device at the beginning of class the next day to stimulate discussion.

Gamestar Mechanic is an interactive site that leads users through the game design experience. This site teaches the principals of game design and systems thinking in a highly engaging environment that allows users to share games with other community members. Tip: Use as part of a STEM initiative, Gamestar Mechanic has a teacher's page with useful lesson plans.

BoomWriter is a supremely engaging creative writing website that has students reading, writing and assessing content in ways they've never done before! The teacher selects or produces his or her own story start, and the students let their imagination and writing skills take over. One chapter at a time, the students write, read, and then vote on the submissions they like the most. The winning chapter is then added to the story and the process continues. The teacher determines the total number of chapters to be completed, and when the competition is over a new book is ready to be published.

American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity. AIR is a national leader in teaching and learning improvement, providing research, assessment, evaluation, and technical assistance to ensure that all students-particularly those facing historical disadvantages-have access to a high-quality, effective education.

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing 

The Technology Student Association (TSA) is the only student organization devoted exclusively to the needs of students interested in technology. Open to students enrolled in or who have completed technology education courses, TSA's membership includes over 150,000 middle and high school students in 2,000 schools spanning 48 states. TSA is supported by educators, parents and business leaders who believe in the need for a technologically literate society. Members learn through exciting competitive events, leadership opportunities and much more. The diversity of activities makes TSA a positive experience for every student. From engineers to business managers, our alumni credit TSA with a positive influence on their lives.

Welcome to the Google SketchUp for Educators Community, a site to share, connect & learn This site is brought to you by Google and made especially for Google SketchUp educators and students.  Come join and help us build it! Google SketchUp is an easy-to-use program that lets you and your students create, modify and share 3D models. From history to calculus, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to see your ideas in 3D. And when you're done, you can export an image, make a movie or print out a view of what you made.

Shidonni is an imaginary world that kids create. It provides a virtual universe where kids can create their own imaginary world, play, and share games and interact with each other in a safe environment online. Kids can create their own animals or characters online and make them interactive. Their characters actually move and interact with the kids (no programming required!). They can create a world for their character, feed their character, write stories starring their characters, and play games using their character. Shidonni is an amazing way for kids to express themselves creatively. They will LOVE the interaction that this site provides.

he virtual world GAME FOR SCIENCE enhances the educational success of 21st century learners. Interactive and fun, the site provides a fertile ground a greater sense of ownership of various science and technology subjects by learners. GAME FOR SCIENCE offers a library of educational resources for all levels: elementary, high school and college.

The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources. Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them. Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie. Students can also create a Pathway Challenge. In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records. Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges. There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge. Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue. This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history.

Projeqt describes itself as "dynamic presentations for a real time world." Use it to create linear and stacked slide presentations for any type of event. Embed images, text, documents, or add data from your favorite social media tools. Tip: Use in your library to create a stacked slide show to feature books by genre.

This is a fee based resource created by a Texas computer science teacher. It includes an entire computer science curriculum, and is aligned to the AP Computer Science exam.

iPad app for digital storytelling "A Novel Idea is the premier tool for plotting your story and recording bursts of inspiration. Use its simple interface to create your characters, locations, scenes, and novels and then link them together to create your story's plot. Use the Idea feature to quickly jot down your creative sparks, snap pictures and link them to your story elements. "

Great ideas for tech integration from the Tech Chicks

Free! METRYX is a formative assessment tool that allows teachers to "track, analyze, and differentiate" students across any number of customizable skill sets. Teachers can import class rosters and any number of skill sets via a CSV file, and then individually track students across each skill set as they perform various classroom activities. The granularity of these activities is completely at the discretion of the teacher, though Metryx appears especially useful for project-based learning, skills demonstration, and other activities where multiple-choice assessment data can't fully convey student progress. 

What started as a blog morphed into a community resource, full of real world advice from working designers about art, graphic design and the business smarts needed in this field. The site offers videos, tips, tutorials and freebies like plug-ins and presentation templates. Articles include Blank Canvas discussions like "Students - What's Missing From Your Classes?" and "How Do You Learn?"

Tutorial9 is a fantastic resource for Photoshop tutorials, all of which are entirely free. There are currently 30 pages of training available so you are sure to find something of interest here. There is also a search option so you can filter your options to find the newest tutorials submitted by either Tutorial9 themselves or submitted by other users.