The American Association of School Librarians Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning

AASL Announce Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announces a new resource for school library media specialists and their teacher colleagues. The Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, a list honoring the top twenty-five Internet sites for enhancing learning and curriculum development, is considered the "best of the best" by AASL. The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning were named so because they foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. All sites are free, web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. They also provide a foundation to support AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Valuable information on each site, including tips for effective classroom use are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsites.cfm

The Library of Congress now offers a free resource for educators

• The Library of Congress has designed this new resource to facilitate the process of integrating primary sources into classroom teaching. This online resource includes professional development modules and classroom lessons and primary sources from the Library of Congress arranged thematically. It is designed to teach both content knowledge and critical thinking skills.
  
  Created by teachers for teachers, these ready-to-use materials provide easy ways to incorporate the Library’s unparalleled primary sources into instruction. Teacher-created lesson plans using Library of Congress primary sources.
  
• Themed Resources: One-stop access to the Library’s best exhibitions, activities, primary sources, and lesson plans on popular curricular themes.
• Primary Source Sets: Sets of selected primary sources on specific topics, available as easy-to-print PDFs. Also, background information, teaching ideas, and tools to guide student analysis.
• Presentations & Activities: Presentations and activities offer media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.
• Collection Connections: Historical context and ideas for teaching with specific Library of Congress primary source collections.

Convert Microsoft Office 2007 files for use with version 2003

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats
If you are using Microsoft office 2007 at home and want to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file formats to use at school you can install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. You will then be able to save and open your files in the 2003 version at school. Just click on the Office Logo to the left and follow the download instructions

Thanks to Ed Moloney, Technology Education Department at Gelinas JHS

Web site offers free online math lessons

Although this item deals with math, the link itself has other disciplines as well:

This web site offers free online math lessons. The California-based Web site Brightstorm offers online math help for students with video lessons created by teachers. Most of the site's math lessons are free, but the company also offers fee-based lessons in preparation for standardized tests. "Anybody who is confused with their homework can come to our site, search for the concept, find it really quickly, and then they can get an explanation that is concise and to the point from a really talented presenter who is also a great teacher," http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/drive_to_discover&id=7196389 or http://www.brightstorm.com/

(this from Alan Baum, Principal WMHS)

SMART EXCHANGE

Find resources for your classroom and connect with other teachers who use SMART boards. On this website you can search for lessons, images and web pages that can be used with the SMART interactive white board. You can browse by keyword, subject, grade or NYS core curriculum. Teachers can also upload and share a resource that they have found successful or connect with other teachers on the message board. This website is a great compliment to the SMART Notebook lesson activities on the SmartTech website.

View,Save and interact with SMART Notebook files online.  This website will provide a way for you to access update and edit your SMART notebook files when you are on a machine that may not have SMART notebook software loaded.  This website can also be used by parents/students to view lessons at home that you have created in SMART notebook and posted to Moodle

All My Faves Web Browser

All My Faves is a visual logo directory that specializes in the top 10 faves of each category. Making the internet an easier place to find teacher resouces. Click on the Education tab and you will find resources for each subject area as well as books, computers and many other educational themed websites.

Media Infusion

Media Infusion
A PBS Teachers blog offering strategies and resources to help you create rich, engaging learning experiences with multimedia. Free Resources for Teaching & Learning grades preK-12. Here you'll find classroom materials suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade levels. Thousands of lesson plans, teaching activities, on-demand video assets, and interactive games and simulations. These resources are correlated to state and national educational standards and are tied to PBS' award-winning on-air and online programming like NOVA, Nature, Cyberchase, Between the Lions and more.