Illinois English Education - Class of 2012

If you haven't taken this class yet, I highly recommend it. I am in the class right now, and I have already gained more valuable information and experience related to teaching English than any class I have taken yet. If you can, take it with Kate Vieira.

If you are looking for an opportunity to volunteer tutor in the Champaign Urbana area, SOAR is an after school tutoring program for kindergarden through fifth grade. Students with experience speaking Spanish are always needed, as well.

We've all heard of blogs, but this site has twisted blogs to make them a little more creative and fun and coined them glogs. They are basically kind of like an online bulletin board where you can upload videos, images, text, etc. It is a great alternative teaching method for teachers and can be a new way for kids to learn/post information, too.

If you want to find out what's going on in the world, the New York Times is certainly one respectable place to go.

Yes, I know you've probably used sporcle as a distraction FROM homework, but I'm posting it because I think it can also be a great resource FOR teachers to use with kids to get them to learn in a fun way. The site is filled with quizzes on pretty much every subject possible. I think the sections on geography, literature, and language could be useful. For example, there are timed country and capital quizzes that are great study tools.

This site is a favorite of mine. You can create a profile and log all the books you have read, are reading, or want to read as well as give them ratings. For English teachers it is a great resource because it provides thousands of reviews on books you might be interested in teaching. It also has lists of books such as "new authors to watch for", "best young adult books", and of course the humorous ones such as "sexiest immortal males of all" might also give you a good laugh. There is also trivia, quizzes, information on authors and more...

This is a video that I saw at the Epsilon Delta spring initiation. It's a poem! Kind of like slam poetry, but a little less bash-y :)

This is a website for a non-profit organization in Chicago. It is a tutor/mentoring program for inner-city students.

This site provides definitions and context to difficult Shakespearean language, a useful tool for teaching students Shakespeare.

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools.

This is an awesome game! Great diversion for English majors

Useful examples of people using apple products in their classrooms.

The main politics page for CNN. Useful for finding out what's new in the world of politics.

I love this website! It gives a glimpse of stories not often discussed in mainstream media.

Interesting commentary in support of the creation of our personal learning networks.

Gates gives an interesting take on what it means to be a highly qualified teacher. He even suggests a few controversial ideas on how to help teachers and hold them accountable.