Newsela is so helpful in general, but especially helpful to teachers that teach social studies or even a kind of current events class. At first the site seems like a simple news article site. It has a bunch of articles on current events or new discoveries. What's unique about it, though, is that you can get the same article in different ways based on lexicon. You can choose the lexicon level and based on that, the article is written at different levels. For gifted/talented students, they can be given a higher lexicon level version of the article. For students with special needs,

This site is simple, but I can't stress enough how helpful it will be. It is also downloadable as an app. Instead of calculating grades individually, Groovy Grader allows you to find student scores with ease. Teachers can enter in the number of questions, and then all possible scores are calculated from that. For example, if there are 63 possible questions to get correct, Groovy Grader shows the score if a student got anywhere from 1-63 wrong. This takes some of the hassle out of grading. It also will help eliminate calculation mistakes.

Ning costs, but I can see how it would be very useful to teachers. It has a ton of community features that promote communication and the sharing of information. Some of these features include forums, photo/video/doc sharing, broadcast capabilities, email, and more. It has publishing tools, as well. These publishing tools include blogs, websites, and an unlimited access to custom HTML pages. It allows member sign in through a number of social media websites and also integrates YouTube videos on social channel pages.

I stumbled upon this site and think it's very helpful for teachers. It explains the difference between the PLN of a traditionally networked teacher versus the PLN of a Web 2.0 connected teacher. This goes to show that a Web 2.0 networked teacher has access to many more resources than a traditionally networked teacher. This website has a ton of suggestions on using instructional technology. It also gives suggestions and tools to create and then maintain a PLN as a teacher.

I just recently learned of this website from a teacher who has been using it in her class. She reports that it works great and really helps the students. It is basically an organizational education site for your classroom. Students can log on to Haiku and look at assignments and other upcoming things. Teachers can upload any resource they would like students to view. Similar to Moodle, students can submit homework online. Haiku can also be synced with Google, allowing things such as a Google Calendar to be implemented.

This website is incredibly helpful in talking about Web 2.0. It explains Web 2.0 and the details surrounding it. It also provides a number of Web 2.0 teaching tools for teachers to use. The creator of the website explains on the home page that they have been teaching for over 25 years and is not a tech expert. Therefore, the creator provides reassurance that Web 2.0 is something that everyone can utilize.

A great thing about this website is that you don't have to sign up and it is completely free. Not only does this site offer lesson plans, but it offers a multitude of other helpful tools as well. There are free printable worksheets and activity sheets, message boards, entire units, and project ideas. Daily writing prompts are a big part of this website, which I think is great because it gets students thinking and writing. It has other random tools for teachers to utilize and create their own, such as word scrambles, coloring pages, calendars, tests, crosswords, mazes, and more.

Sharemylesson is "by teachers, for teachers". It has lesson plans for early elementary, late elementary, middle school, and high school. It also has modified lesson plans for students with various special needs. It has a community tab that answers teacher questions, provides information on Common Core, and also has a general forum in which teachers talk and share their ideas and frustrations. There are over 300,000 teaching resources on this site alone.

This is another helpful educational gaming site. It has games for grades K-8. There are math, English, science, and history games on this site. It also has resources that can help students with homework. There are also just simply arcade games that students can play for fun. These games help students because they can have fun while they learn, making them more likely to enjoy learning.

There are a TON of educational games on this site. You can search by subject, grade level, or both. The games on this site are geared towards lower kindergarten grades. Although I am secondary education, I realize the importance of students having preliminary knowledge before they arrive in your classroom. By students participating in activities such as playing these skill-building games, they are ensuring their abilities for the future.

This site is completely dedicated to health and fitness. For PE/Health teachers, it seems to be ideal. It has information on physical education and how activities can be adapted for students with various needs. Health and nutrition lessons are also included. It has links about fitness outside of school. It even has information about using technology in physical education. This site seems to have everything PE/Health teachers would be looking for.

This site is really nice because it has options for all grades, K-12. There are over 300 lesson guides provided for teachers to use. All of the lesson guides are designed to meet national health curriculum standards. The site also provides several assessment strategies in order to assess what you have taught. I think sometimes it might be harder to find health lessons so this website is probably very helpful for health educators.

I absolutely love Bill Nye. Without Bill Nye, far less students would think science is interesting. Bill Nye always broke things down in a fun yet still meaningful way for students to understand. His site has science videos that cover a huge variety of topics. It also has educational resource for teachers to use. The educational tab comes with demos, episodes, printable worksheets, and more.

I love space, so I just HAD to include NASA's website. NASA provides a photo of the day, updates on where different spacecraft is, and more. They also have a TV channel that streams various videos about space. It also has a section for educators and a section for teachers. Under the educational tab, there are tools to help find lesson plans, posters, guides, and more. It provides subject/topic specific videos and other info as well.

Go Social Studies Go's tag line is "History Meets Humor". The mission of this site is to make history fun and interesting for students to learn about. It has several different events or people that visitors to the site can click on. It is organized by US history and World History. Once you click on a topic, you are provided with a large array of information on it. There are visuals, such as newspaper clippings, text boxes, photographs, quotes, etc. that really make things memorable. There is also an educational but simplified description of the event that is written in a way that will appeal to students. It is not long and boring, rather it is something that students can relate to.

This website is great. It was recently showed to me by a current high school teacher. Cagle is basically a collection of political and other cartoons that are arranged based on topic. This is useful in the social studies area because it allows students to study events, past and present, by the use of a humorous and/or ironic visual. It also promotes critical thinking skills because students have to think about what each thing means in the cartoon in order to decipher the whole meaning. This would be especially useful in a class that deals with current events.

Funbrain is another site similar to Cool Math. It has a wide array of games that students can play. These games are in arcade style for the most part, which I think students probably really like. Another cool part of this website is that there is a "For Teachers" section. It has tools that make it easy for teachers to find a game that relates to what they're teaching. It also helps you find activities based on different standards and grade levels. Funbrain also provides flashcards that they allow you to print for free so you can use them in your class.

I have mentioned this site before and I will mention it again. I think Cool Math is an awesome resource. It has typical math games you'd expect, such as simple addition and subtraction activities. However, it also has games that incorporate other skills as well. Some of these games really, really play on your critical thinking skills. Students can learn business strategies, complex math strategies, understand dimensions and time, and even math terms. Even as a person that totally hates math, I appreciate this website very much. I remember loving it when I was in K-12.

I love this site for so many reasons. It is a great learning tool and it is also doing something good for the world. You can play anonymously, or make an account and track progress. It is a vocabulary challenge in which you are asked to choose the definition of a word from 4 options. If you get the answer correct, 10 grains of rice are donated through the World Food Programme to help earn world hunger. I can definitely see myself allowing students to do this during free time in class. I can also see myself offering it as extra credit. For example, so many grains of rice donated equals so many points extra credit to students.

This website is an incredibly useful tool. It has thousands of books online for teachers to use. It has them listed by topic and then broken down into several different subcategories. Listed for each book are things like author interviews, lesson plans, audio tools, project ideas, tests, and more. Just under the English/LA category, there is 29,674 books listed. It is amazing that this one site has so much to offer. I can't wait to make use of it more.