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Christopher Shamburg is an Associate Professor in the graduate program in educational technology at NJCU. He's also a former high school teacher, a Folger Shakespeare Library Educator. Chris has a new book out this month, but before I get to his book, let me give you a good example of what he is getting students and their teachers to do in English language arts classrooms. As a Folger Educator, he worked with students and faculty at Washington DC's McKinley High School in a project called "Remixing Shakespeare." You can watch the video of the students doing their Macbeth remixes. It shows how they create original short audio dramas using scenes from Shakespeare. I've seen Chris do this in a workshop for teachers and he's using open source software (like the Audacity audio recorder/editor) and simple no-tech sound effects (coconut shell hoofbeats & the potato chip crunch of footsteps) as well as the students' recordings of the dialogs and license-free audio sound effects. There are so many lessons going on with this, including the ethical and legal remixing of other creator's work.

We found that access to equipment and software seldom led to widespread teacher and student use. Most teachers were occasional users or nonusers. When they used computers for classroom work, more often than not their use sustained rather than altered existing patterns of teaching practice. We offer two interrelated explanations for these challenges to the dominant assumptions that guide present technological policy making.

With these six tools you'll never have to cite another book by hand or tally up survey forms. You can save time sharing slide shows and converting media files to new formats. And my favorite - you can use the web to showcase your reading list and connect with others in a social environment.

Social studies teachers now have a new resource to help them integrate 21st-century skills into their lessons: a free online document that maps various social studies projects, tasks, and outcomes to corresponding skills--such as problem solving and critical thinking--that are becoming increasingly important for 21st-century success.

Taking a Good Look at Instructional Technology (TAGLIT) is a set of assessments and reports designed to help school personnel understand the current status of technology use in their schools.  TAGLIT includes surveys for school technology leaders, teachers and students.

One link from this site has already been bookmarked in this group, but after reviewing the updates, this main site has many new and useful tools for teachers.

Educator accounts for teachers to facilitate classroom-based sharing of bookmarks.

TRAILS is a knowledge assessment with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills based on sixth and ninth grade standards. This Web-based system was developed to provide an easily accessible and flexible tool for library media specialists and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students.

If you teach third grade, your students are getting ready for the next level of learning. These new challenges for students mean more work developing challenging lessons. Stay on top of your lesson plans with these resources designed for third grade students.  But first, check out our large list of resources including themes, motivating students to read, free printables, resources for slow learners and much more.