Sites for Educators

While the end of the school year is upon us, there is always time to share sites that can serve as great resources for teachers. Check out a few of these during your summer break.

San Diego Zoo — The zoo’s education site offers K-12 classroom materials and teaching guides focusing on animals, the environment and conservation. If you don’t live close, the zoo makes its experts available to schools via videoconferencing.

For those who live in the Pittsburgh area, plan on a live field trip to the Carnegie Science Center. This center is known for pioneering STEM-related programs and houses the Robotics Hall of Fame. This site also includes downloadable lesson plans.

From grade K through higher education teachers will be surprised that this NASA site offers a wide variety of surprising materials to support a wide variety of content from the expected STEM offerings to history and careers.

Want to get your kids out and moving? Check out this soccer site designed for elementary schoolers. Information provided is about the game, the rules and most importantly the behaviors.

This PBS site – Liberty – is all about the American Revolution. It goes beyond the PBS series and seems to be a large database of everything associated with the American Revolution. There is even a trivia game that allows students to test their knowledge of the material.

If improving school climate is part of your school improvement plan for next year, check out this site. The Safe and Supportive Schools Technical Assistance Center is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students (formerly the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools) to help address issues such as bullying, harassment, violence and substance abuse. The archived webinars and research section cover a variety of topics.

Shmoop is today’s version of Cliff notes. While some areas of the site are paid, the free areas are pretty comprehensive.

This site is the source of everything technology that CNN covers. A great site for tech teachers, this is also the place where teachers not quite so tech-savvy can learn a lot. Education World says, “Whether you’re the one who can’t throw out that old typewriter or the one who’s already waiting in line for the new iPhone, CNN.com/Tech is worth a look.”

Looking to put some fun into a math lesson? Check out details behind the Rubik’s Cube here. If you’re a fan of the 80s, click here.

Geo-Cube is geography on a Rubric’s Cube and a fun way to learn more about the world. With 6 faces and 54 topics there is so much to explore!

RTI is a challenge to implement. This site holds a wide variety of assessment tools to help teachers find out where students are and to monitor their progress. There are a lot of ideas, evidence-based technical assistance and resources.

I used to have a question of the day in my class – sure wish this site had been around then. What a great resource for teachers and students – the question, the answer and background information. Could be fun for everyone.

Two site for tag clouds that are fun AND have assessment value. Take your classroom blog or online discussion, dump the text into a tag cloud at Tagxedo and see what jumps out. Are the words that are most prominent the ones that you would expect to see most often. Can you tell how well your students are getting the content you want them to learn??? Try Wordle as well.

Every Friday my leadership students turned in a journal. We shared a written conversation about their thoughts, impressions and learning…and their lives. It was also a full milk crate to lug to and from the classroom. This electronic journal takes away the need to carry paper and pen.

All things regarding US politics live here and, thanks to NBC, are made easy to understand. All civics, social studies and history teachers should at least peruse the content here, particularly during this election year.

Annenberg has long been a favorite of mine when it comes to articles and videos for professional development. There are a wealth of resources and courses available here.