Educational resources
School is back in after our summer and a new year has begun.
I have a list of educational resources in no particular order here. I did write it when I had a web site about education so let’s hope most of the links still work.
A site which has a lot of information for students and teachers is achieveonline.
It is Australian.
You have to register with it also, but its newsletter may be very useful.
I found this site recently. It is fairly advanced in its content, but it has everything you’d want to know about just about every subject. It doesn’t pretend to be anything but links but it would be great for final year and tertiary students and yourself. There’s computer science there. You can also submit links to it. It is a huge database. Edulink
Believe it or not, many schools and libraries still do not have web pages, so teachers are known to use Backflip. It is a free place to store favorites in an organised way. Maybe it’s pretty useful for those with web sites too. Get the feeling that it’s too hard to organise those many favorites/bookmarks you have?
This one is an example of how a teacher has used it. Organise favorites for yourself or your students
I have been searching for crosswords which make themselves.
I am not a crossword expert. Crosswords are really useful, not just for vocabulary, but you can use them to test students on a unit of work.
Do you want to download your own to make crosswords?
It only works in IE 5x unfortunately. Download DHTML crossword generator http://www.greeneclipsesoftware.com/eclipsecrossword/
Cathy has a marvellous site for primary students and teachers. She has advertised me a few times in her newsletters, so it’s only fair I promote her site. Her newsletters are excellent. Primary school site
If you are a teacher like I used to be, then any ideas were good ideas (almost). I didn’t have the huge advantage the internet has brought for teachers now though. The following link is a site full of lessons for teachers, but don’t forget our own page called ’submit a lesson’. If you have a lesson to submit to this site we’d be most grateful as will others. Educator’s network
From EduScapes, this workshop explores the role that teacher-generated pages can play in supporting teaching and learning: Introduce visitors to activities; Link to Quality Online Resources; Publish Student Work, and Share Local Curriculum and Information. The workshop has these topics: Explore Teacher Websites; Identify Content for Your Class Page; Locate a Web Host; Expand Your Project; and Re-examine Your School Website.
Set up by University of Queensland this next site is about the new biologies - genetic engineering etc. It is packed with all the latest sciences in this area. Useful for all of us. New biologies
Knowledge Management forum
I have discovered a free educational resource. The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for non-profit educational users who make their pages available on the web. Other users must pay for a licence. Check out the Hot Potatoes licencing terms and pricing on the Half-Baked Software Website.
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/
For primary teachers
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/archives.html Archives of virtual teacher newsletter mainly directed to primary but Cathy is an IT specialist also.
Here’s a site for researchers in Australia.
Anyone can ask Australian librarians during business hours a reference question at
http://www.asknow.gov.au
http://www.wikipedia.org/
A free encyclopedia including news items.
Search Apple Learning Interchange. Colleagues have located and catalogued thousands of Internet resources that can be valuable for teaching and learning.
http://cie.asu.edu/
American site which talks of current issues in education
A really lovely site about science - newsletter, news in Science, screensavers, e-cards, tech talk on computer problems
http://www.abc.net.au/science/
http://www.literature.org/authors/
Classics at the Online Literature Library
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/
Physics classroom
CyberSmart! Lesson Plans
http://www.cybersmartcurriculum.org/lesson_plans/
CyberSmart is a free, standards-aligned curriculum for teachers to introduce safe, responsible and effective computer and internet use in the classroom. The lessons and activities provide links to web sites as well as offline activities that complement the sites. Each lesson is tied to National Educational Technology Standards. The presentation is simple and uncluttered–just what you want when you are trying something new! K- 12
Your guide to free online dictionary and translation services.
With definitions in most languages, thesaurus, word of the day & encyclopedia links. You’ll find it all here!
http://www.dictionarylink.com/
These educational journals are available full text online
The Australian Educational Researcher (AER) The AARE Journal
http://www.aare.edu.au/aer/aer.htm
Australian Educational Computing
http://www.acce.edu.au/journal/
DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/
EdResearch Online - ACER Cunningham Library
http://cunningham.acer.edu.au/dbtw-wpd/sample/edresearch.htm
soundbyte.org is an online portal that provides electronic access to an array of music resources for teachers, students and young people. Discover electronic and computer music production through a range of tutorials on soundbyte.org - upload and listen to music created at school or in community organisations and participate in online virtual jam sessions with other musicians in remote locations using a specially developed unique dase v2.0 software
Close the Book on Hate: 101 ways to Combat Prejudice
http://www.adl.org/prejudice/default.asp
No one is born prejudiced! Prejudice is learned and can be unlearned.
This website, of the American Anti-Defamation League, contains specific
ideas on how to encourage others to take up the fight against hate. It
contains a citizen action guide, creative approaches and solutions teachers
can apply in their community, including a printable pamphlet containing
practical suggestions for combating prejudice at home, in schools, in
the workplace, in the community and in houses of worship.
This page on the Microsoft site is part of their Microsoft Education section and is aimed at those in the teaching profession; however, these tips are valuable to more than just teachers.
There are tips on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher and Internet
Explorer. Teacher or not, I am sure there is something here for everyone
http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=ClassTipsArchive
As teachers we do concentrate to an alarming degree on academic ability and forget about other competencies necessary for life.
Multiple intelligences (visual, emotional, logical etc) are now back in vogue as a teaching philosophy.
Since I resigned from teaching I have been able to catch up a lot on radio programs that I could never listen to before. The presenters seem very well trained, not just in libel, but in being sympathetic and inclusive.
I have found also that marketers, about whom I read now that I am a web designer, have learned many lessons about communication that I never had to learn. I have to admit I always thought salespeople were lying and many are, but some are excellent communicators. Their sales depend upon it.
I came across this site lately which talks of Emotional intelligence from the marketer’s approach. But that doesn’t mean that many tips here would not be useful to the teacher or anyone else.
http://www.susandunn.cc
TrackStar helps instructors organize and annotate Web sites (URLs) for use in lessons. The resource list remains visible allowing the user to easily stay on track. The way it works is — you put in the name of the web site - the URL and then comments and questions. All the sites become hyperlinked and you can use it like a webquest, a resource list and any other ways. It has a searchable database of tracks that are already made up that you can use - just fabulous and free
http://trackstar.hprtec.org/
Education Online - Free User Training for Software
This is a delightful site offering tutorials on Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, Front Page, Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, Web development and Publishing. The site is meticulously laid out and tutorials surprisingly easy to follow. A must for anyone who wants to acquire these skills. Free.
http://www.educationonlineforcomputers.com/
Ready made worksheets and generators to create your own.
http://www.worksheets4teachers.com/
Interactive whiteboards for teachers or people having conferences
http://www.snc.net.au/interactivewhiteboards/index.aspx
Of note for teachers is the ‘new’ catchword - multiple intelligences. In fact, it is not new. When I did my Diploma of Education in 1969 we studied Bloom’s Taxonomy. When I applied for my last job I had to address what I thought about multiple intelligences. I didn’t know too much at the time but I discovered that it was a Soviet educator who first used the term. I have added a link to a great site on multiple intelligences.
