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More and more websites are coming online to give students the ability to unleash their creativity in new and innovative ways. From abstract art to pointillism, students now can click and draw their way into original works of art, and today's freebie gives you a great list of places to begin. The sites are labeled by grade level to help guide you to those that best suit your students. In addition, I've added ratings to give teachers and students an idea of how much interactivity is available at each site. Some allow students to create from beginning to end, while others simply generate the final product with minimal effort. What you will not find here are basic virtual coloring sheets. I tried to find sites that would give students a chance to generate their own original works of art. What could be better?

or much of the world, it's that special time of the year when students head back to school. The good news for students is that even though that means waking up early and doing homework, there are a number of web-based and social tools to help you get through the school year. From staying organized to improving study habits to making sure you reference your research sources properly, the web can help you be a better student.

"Students need much more support and feedback in the online environment than in a traditional course. This is because the potential threat that students feel alienated is quite high in the Virtual Classroom. Using effective feedback strategies will enable the instructor to identify and meet individual student needs as well as encourage students to participate and continue to participate at a high quality level."

"NWEA Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) tests present students with engaging, age-appropriate content. As a student responds to questions, the test responds to the student, adjusting up or down in difficulty. The result is a rewarding experience for the student, and a wealth of detailed information for teachers, parents and administrators."

"Webquests make learning more interesting for your students. Using the power of the internet you can tap the resources of almost every library, school, museum, and laboratory in the world! You can take your students on a journey, to anywhere. Webquests allow students to explore content in more depth, but within boundaries that you have selected. This makes them ideal for classes which combine students with different ability levels."

Challenging times create economic and social pressures that can undermine our most basic values. For more than 30 years we have been offering teachers and students ways to confront prejudice, apathy, fear, and violence. By teaching students to think critically, to empathize, to recognize moral choices, to make their voices heard, we put in their hands the possibility-and the responsibility-to do the serious work demanded of us all as citizens. Founded in 1976, we are an international educational and professional development nonprofit organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives.

"Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with other students, their teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to develop deeper knowledge of the subjects students are studying, accept and solve challenges, take action, share their experience, and enter into a global discussion about important issues."

"Whether you're writing a paper or studying for a test, odds are you spend more time gathering the pieces than actually working. In my experience, getting all of my notes together, hunting for quotes, and tracking down bibliographical information takes at least as long, if not longer, as writing the paper itself. In a group situation, sharing research and collaborating on the production of one document is even more difficult without the proper tools. Enter Evernote. For students, it's an invaluable way to organize research and streamline the collaboration process. Here are some examples of how Evernote simplifies the student research process."

The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) is the largest non-profit professional association committed to ensuring success for all students through staff development and school improvement. NSDC's purpose: Every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves. Read more about NSDC's purpose and what it means for educators and schools. The Council views high quality staff development programs as essential to creating schools in which all students and staff members are learners who continually improve their performance.

"Backward design begins with the end in mind: What enduring understandings do I want my students to develop? How will my students demonstrate their understanding when the unit is completed? How will I ensure that students have the skills and understand the concepts required on the summative assessment?"

Although YouTube has been blocked from many/most schools, for obvious reasons and not so obvious ones. YouTube does provide great resources and content for teachers and students. View the list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers. This list is provided by SmartTeaching.org, a leading online resource for current teachers, and aspiring education students and student teachers.

The most dreaded word in school reading for students: book reports. Teachers assign them, viewing them as a necessary component of assessing reading comprehension. Book reports can be a contributing factor to 'readicide'. "Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools." http://stenhouse.com/html/readicide.htm. So, how can we as teachers continue to monitor our students understanding of reading material without killing the love of reading? Enter technology. Technology can help bring some excitement and creativity to the traditional book report while still displaying students understanding of reading.

"Becoming accustomed as a coach to not having your own classroom or your own students was probably challenging. I am sure, however, you quickly engaged in conversations with your colleagues about offering to demonstrate or co-teach some lessons to those teachers willing to share their students with you. Although alien at first, I'll bet it was very rewarding to work with students again and feel that great "high" that a teacher feels when the lesson worked well. "

This collection of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is selected to help teachers, parents, and students understand concepts of copyright and Fair Use.  This collection includes instructional activities about copyright and collections/tools to use images, music, and texts legally, either through Fair Use or Creative Commons licensing. Use these resources to model and teach ethical use of electronic media or to find copyright-safe raw materials for student projects. Be sure to share these resources with students for them to access any time they have a project to do.

Today, the web has made it possible for anyone to create and edit professional-looking content without having to purchase any special equipment or software. Creating video content is a great way to get students engaged in projects through which they can demonstrate their learning. The following are six free, web-based, resources students can use to create their own videos.

SweetSearch is a Search Engine for Students. Most search engines search billions of Web sites and return tens of millions of results; some are from reliable Web sites, some are not. SweetSearch searches only 35,000 Web sites that have been evaluated and approved by a staff of Internet research experts at Dulcinea Media, and its librarian and teacher consultants. SweetSearch excludes results from the unreliable sites that rank high in other search engines, and waste your time. It lets students choose the most relevant result from a list of credible results, rather than having them waste time on unreliable sites.

"The purpose of this resource is to provide "Just in Time" training through an online interface for K-12 educators based on the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). These standards are the basic technology skills every educator should possess. In the process, educators will develop their own skills and discover what students need in order to meet the NETS for Students, as well as the new MMC Online Experience requirement. "

"The purpose of interventions is to ensure students are provided with the standards based supports they need to meet/exceed grade level standards. A comprehensive system of interventions involves a graduated set of safety nets aligned to specific student needs and standards. In Pennsylvania, ELL educational programs are all found within the instructional core"

I must admit I have a bit of an aversion to drill-type activities, but I realize there are times that students need to practice and memorize certain concepts in order to succeed. Certainly we all know that studying makes for more successful learners. Abraham Lincoln clearly knew the value of studying when he said, "I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come." I doubt that Abraham could have imagined the neat Web 2.0 flashcard-type applications that our students can now use to help them with their studies.

An awesome collection of rubrics by Kathy Schrock at Discovery Education.

Now that we are using the Internet in the classroom to support instruction, it is important the area of assessment be addressed. One usable method for teachers is to provide a rubric for student use and for both formative and summative assessment purposes. Another is to provide some type of graphic organizer. Below you will find a collection of assessment rubrics and graphic organizers that may be helpful to you as you design your own. Let me know if you have one you would like to share! A book dealing with both the theoretical and practical design of rubrics is the ASCD publication, Assessing Student Outcomes: Performance Assessment Using the Dimensions of Learning Model.