Resources for Teachers

The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness blog maintained by a secondary teacher contains four excellent blog posts that list a plethora of resources by subject area. In all cases, descriptions of the resources are given with hyperlinks to immediately access them. The resources available apply to  teachers grades K-16. You can spend hours exploring all the resources offered. Take a look at one of the pages to find a long list of possible sources applicable to teaching and learning.

Resources for English

Here you will find general resources as well as resources on Writing, Reading, American Literature, and British Literature.

Mathematics Resources

Gives about 40 general resources followed by resources for the areas of algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry.

Science Resources

General resources followed by resources categorized as earth-space, biology, chemistry, and physics.

Social Studies Resources

Categories resources by history, geography, economics, and arts/humanities.

In total, the resources available from these blogs should keep high school and middle school teachers happy with the quick access to a variety of valuable resources for integrating technology into their teaching. Let us know which resources you find particularly helpful to your teaching.

Teachers' Websites

Let's share examples of excellent teacher websites you have explored. Based on one student's contribution to our class's online discussion, I found an excellent model created by a teacher who has been a student at Saint Joseph College. Please take some time to explore Mercier's Magic. There's plenty to explore here. When you first open the site (be sure to have sound on), you will find her current school year site, but under the Home tab, you will see accessible sites from prior years.

Not only does Ms. Mercier group her content by subject area and audience (e.g., parents), she also provides throughout the site links to wonderful websites for instructional purposes. She uses Weebly to maintain her site. Feel free to explore Weebly as a mean to create your own student-centered website.

Ms. Mercier works with symbaloo.com to create customized pages of recommended sites for students. Here are fast links to some of her Symbaloo pages:
multimedia , math, and writing.

To create your own customized resource pages for your students with Symbaloo, open an account, and then you are set to build your pages of recommended sites by discipline, subject area, or general area of interest, using Symbaloo's database of recommended sites.

Ms. Mercier also maintains a blog through Weebly, allowing her students to post comments. In addition, check her Twitter account.

Webbly, Mrs. Scelia is a site designed by another Weebly-user teacher. Ms. Scelia started this site August 2010 to provide resources to her young students.

Let us know what you think of the websites these teachers maintain.

Post your recommendations of teacher websites worth visiting by providing the URL's.

Photo of Ms. Mercier from Mercier's Magic. Photo Ms. Scelia from Webbly, Mrs. Scelia
Logo from Weebly.

Black History Month Links

Here are some links for exploring sites related to Black History Month offered from NCTE. Let us know which sites you find particularly helpful. These sites should be useful beyond the month of February.
General Background Information
African American History Month, from The Library of Congress
Black History Month, from Biography.com
Black History Month, from EDSITEment
Black History, from The History Channel
Culture and Change: Black History in America, from Scholastic (includes a video interview with Christopher Paul Curtis)
Literature
A Brief Chronology of African American Literature, from San Antonio College Lit Web
African American Poets, from Famous Poets and Poems
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century, from The Schomburg Center at the New York Public Library
African-American Women, from Duke University Library
Black History, from Academy of American Poets
Twenty-Eight Days Later, A Black History Month Celebration of Children's Literature, from The Brown Bookshelf (Check the archive links on the right for celebrations from 2008 & 2009 as well as a poster you can download and print)
Video Interviews with children's book authors and illustrators, from Reading Rockets (includes an interview with recent Caldecott Medal winner Jerry Pickney)
Historical and Nonfiction Texts
African-American Quotations, from InfoPlease
African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920, from the Library of Congress
African American Cultural Heritage Tour, from the Smithsonian Institute
American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology, from American Studies Hypertexts at the University of Virginia
The Church in the Southern Black Community, from Documenting the American South
Electronic Text Center: African American, from the University of Virginia (Note this site includes texts about African Americans as well as by African Americans, so you will need to help students choose wisely to avoid mistakes.)
In Those Days: African-American Life Near the Savannah River, from the National Park Service
North American Slave Narratives, from Documenting the American South
Notable Speeches and Letters by African Americans, from InfoPlease
Personal Histories
Experience War: Stories from the Veterans History Project, from the Library of Congress
Buffalo Soldiers: The 92nd in Italy
African Americans at War: Fighting Two Battles
Oral Histories, from the National Visionary Leadership Project, including histories from Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, and Faith Ringgold
StoryCorps Griot, from National Museum of African American History and Culture
Blogs and More
Sharon Draper's Blog Read details on the author’s trip to Africa, and comments on her books Just Another Hero and Sassy.
Nikki Grimes Fan Page Check the Wall for responses from the author to comments posted by her fans.
Alice Walker’s Blog Find new poems, fiction in progress, and a tribute to Walker’s friend, historian Howard Zinn, who passed away last week.

Free Technology for Teachers

Check out this blog, Free Technology for Teachers. This site is worth bookmarking and returning to weekly for access to sites that you can use. Just today I discovered from this blog this slide show Tap Into the World of Comics: Strategies for Using Comics in the Classroom as well as Museum of Humor, which offers teachers a host of lesson plans. The left sidebar on Free Technology for Teachers offers a list of links for resources in teaching social studies, English/language arts, math, science, and foreign language, while the right sidebar has links to a variety of resources. The site's designer boasts: "In 2008 Free Technology for Teachers was awarded the Edublogger Award for 'Best Resource Sharing Blog.' Free Technology for Teachers is read by an audience of more than 8000 subscribers." I know this is one blog that I have bookmarked and follow weekly. Hope you do too, and share with us helpful resources you find through the blog. Yesterday, October 29, the blog's main post was on the Crash of 1929, with the 80th anniversary of the Black Market marked on that date. A link to CNN Student News to a short segment and a PBS series American Experience with an hour long video about the stock market crash of 1929 were provided as well as this offering for watching an American Experience: The Crash of 1929 by clicking here. I also learned about the Science Netlinks - Dozens of Science Lessons, including ones for integrating science into the elementary school classroom.



For those of you seeking videos beyond YouTube these are offered:

Great Alternatives to YouTube
Dozens of More Resources
Teacher Tube
Edu Blogs TV
Nibipedia
Ted - Ideas Worth Spreading
Hulu

Cell Phones as Learning Tools

I have posted on this topic before, but wanted to again, as I just read about another school incorporating cell phones into the learning process. The original story was posted in a St. Petersburg newspaper and then picked up by Teacher Magazine. The students in the school have been using the phones for science, literature, and other classes: "Florida School Allows Cell Phones in Classrooms." In addition to the use of the phones in these classes, mention is made of using them to assist English-as-second-language learners. This is not the first school where cell phones are augmenting the learning process, and given the proliferation of cell phones, their use might be an economical way for schools to integrate computer technology. Check the article, and let us know what you think.


In addition, here is a link to a recent article from The New York Times addressing the controversy of cell phones: "Industry Pitching Cell Phones as a Teaching Tool." My two earlier blogs on cell phones in schools can be accessed by using the Search feature at the top of the page and typing in cell phones. Also, note the label (see right column) for cell phones. In addition, you might want to check the blog on clickers, using the search feature.

image 1 from: www.twentyfortech.com/?p=88
image 2: Dusty Oliver, caption from photo, "A teacher at Southwest High School in Jacksonville, N.C., said the special cellphones helped students improve their math skills." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/technology/16phone.html?_r=2