Websites to Enhance the Learning Experience

By: Sherry A. Hegstrom

Let’s face it, in this every changing world of technology, internet resources and changing

educational standards from the state, today, more than every, educators need excellent internet web sites that can be easily navigated and provide not

only standard based lesson plans, but many interactives and supplements. Professional

development is a never ending issue for all of us in order to stay in tune with our students (and our state certifications). The new millennium offers

many online training programs along with valuable teacher resource centers. Which one’s do we use?

How do we know the content will be relevant for us?

The Need for Quality Educational Web SitesW

Ever wish someone had already done a quality lesson plan for you?

Ever wished you could find quality material to enhance your lesson?

Ever wish you had more resources for your students?

Ever get sick of searching the web for the perfect lesson plan or supplement activity , just to spend hours and hours doing so with no luck?

Ever wonder how you are going to integrate your curriculum to adhere to technology standards which require you as an educator to provide content that uses technology to enhance the learning experience and contribute to your students e-portfolio’s?

Let the websites listed on the following pages assist you in assisting your students.

Ever wish someone had already done a quality lesson plan for you?

Ever wished you could find quality material to enhance your lesson?

Ever wish you had more resources for your students?

Ever get sick of searching the web for the perfect lesson plan or supplement activity , just to spend hours and hours doing so with no luck?

Ever wonder how you are going to integrate your curriculum to adhere to technology standards which require you as an educator to provide content that uses technology to enhance the learning experience and contribute to your students e-portfolio’s?

Let the websites listed on the following pages assist you in assisting your students.

The following web sites have been evaluated for content, standards and

effectiveness along with design. Some are much more appealing and intuitive that

others, but let’s keep in mind as educators while reviewing these web sites, that we also have a responsibility to ourselves to notice the design of each web site, along with credentials and ease of use. Try to

keep in mind technology standards while we tour each website together.

MarcoPolo-Education.org - This comprehensive website is has a lot of great features for educators and parents alike. It has a nice clean interface with an excellent search engine that can be searched by grade level, topic and education standards.

The Following website are excellent resources for Enhancing Classroom Instruction

http://www.nheon.org

New Hampshire Educator Online provides curriculum development and professional planning. It’s interface is clean and very user friendly with a focus on ICT Literacy Standards and online professional development courses.

Educationworld.com - Another great resource for educators. This site addresses lesson plans, professional development, technology integration and school issues. It’s home page is extremely busy with many ad’s. While not the best designed web site, once you get to know the “shortcuts”, it can provide valuable information.

A Tour of Marco-polo.com

The Marco Polo Home Page

Applying an animation scheme

Registration is free and allows access to all of Thinkfinity's teacher and trainer resources

Partnerships and Affiliations

Teacher Resources

Let’s take a closer took at “Teacher Resources”.

•Using the left hand menu on the home page, click on the Thinkfinity Calendar link.

•The Thinkfinity Calendar shows daily lesson plans.

•Featured Resources includes Theme based Lesson Plans for the month.

•The Standards alignment link allows quick and easy access to current state standards based on subject matter and state.

•A Gold Mine, “The Lesson’s Plan Index which provides quick access to a browse able lesson plan index. These lessons will be shown to you in the order in which they were submitted. For example, you will notice the first lesson is dated 12/27/06.

•The Student Materials Index allows you to search a general materials index where interesting student interactives can be found to supplement your lessons.

Teacher Resources

A Closer Look at the Thinkfinity Calendar

This month’s Thinkfinity calendar is shown on the right.

Notice how each day has an event of historical importance.

Clicking on any event will provide quick and accurate information along with accompanying lesson plans, activities and resources.

List with animation scheme applied

Using the CalendarNotice that the dates are displayed, along with historical information that occurred on that date.

• The date is displayed along with

• Links to Lesson Plans and Partnering websites.

• Clicking on Monday 2/27, will bring us to the following screen. Not only is a summary given, or interesting facts, but lesson plans that compliment the historical event are also included, along with additional websites and interactive for your students.

Professional Development and MarcoPolo

•Clicking on the Professional Development Tab from the Home Page, will bring you to the following page.•Thinkfinity offers a variety of needs to today’s educator, including online training as well as the necessary resources for integrating the internet /technology into your curriculum.•Information regarding alliances and alignment between MarcoPolo and its affiliated partners can also be found.•The Trainer Resource Development Center provides free information to help facilitate training. While the content is indeed free, registration is required to access this information.

MarcoPolo-education Comprehensive Search Engine

There are many ways to search/find lesson plans within this site.

1. From the home page, click on ‘search Thinkfinity’.

2. Let’s do a search on the water cycle, being taught to the 8th grade.

3. Notice that the search results include the partner link, full descriptions and also the grades in which the lesson content is

applicable.

A Tour of Educationworld.com

Other features includes information on classroom management, substitute teacher resources, as well as a career center.

EducationWorld.com Home PageThis website is very useful once you get past

the busy ads and graphics.1. Search on thousands of lesson plans

2. Look up professional development

3. Check out the Technology integration section – link provides valuable information regarding technology standards and sample cross curriculum plans.

4. School issues are addressed such as school testing and unions.

5. An Early Childhood section addressing the needs of the younger learner.

6. Articles and activities for parents can be found in ‘Education World at Home’.

7. Other useful links can also be found such as:

1. A Tips library that covers book reports, behavior management, classroom management, national certification, motivating kids, EdTech tips, Best Idea Ever and Homework.

2. A worksheet library for printable material.

The home page has so many options or pieces of information that one must scroll down to see all of it’s content. Let’s see what the rest of the page has to offer us.

Lesson Plans on EducationworldThis site has a lot of lesson plans with many different ways in which

to access them. (Let’s take a closer look at our search options)

• Search lesson plans by clicking on the search button at the top of the home page .

• Click on the Advanced Search listed in blue in order to make your search more specific.

• Browse topics is also a handy feature, clicking on Browse Topics in the top menu, we see the following page.

Lesson Plans on EducationworldThere are many lessons links

directly from the home page. Let’s take a look at today’s.

Clicking on this link will only bring you to a bigger version of the same text.

Keep in mind, this screen is almost exactly the same as the home page, Don’t waste your time, clicking on link after link, As you can see, if I click on the Itenerod, I am brought to another page with links, not informing.

I would suggest reviewing each of the links on this page, do not be afraid, feel free to browse

Professional DevelopmentThe professional development page has a lot of interesting links. While it does not deal with online education per say, it does have a lot of interesting sections, such as:

1. The Math Corner – This link provides supplemental materials such as math related websites, suduko puzzles, and cross word.

2. The Learning Lab – This is where true professional development comes into play. Notice the “voice of experience” which addresses teaching issues along with a ‘Strategy of the Week’. The virtual workshop link allows you to explore various learning communities, a techtorial, and a template for teacher to teacher communication.

3. A Columnists Podium with various teacher publications and suggestions.

4. **Featured Articles provide excellent information on motivating students, classroom observations, more links to the lessons of the month as well as student created websites.

5. The After Hours section deals with history but is also redundant for monthly lesson plans and teacher submitted lessons.

Looking at Technical Integration.•Tech in the Classroom offers the following:

•A Techtorial Link – This interactive lesson is for teachers and student alike. Not only does it provide an excellent interactive training, it can also be printed. It can easily be converted into a lesson plan as the learning goals, necessary technology and also what technology standards are addressed.

•Tech in Science provides online resources for your students. It currently lists a lesson on using a Venn diagram to characterize pandas.

•Interactivity features projects, virtual field trips and other interactive activities for your students.

•Sites to See recommends additional web sites to help you in your quest for technical integration.

•Featured Articles relating to technology concepts can also be found.

•The columnists podium provides real world stories from today's teachers to help in furthering our understanding.

•Tech tools such as tech templates

And

Tech tips of the week. This one deals with digital video and gives helpful hints for making a video or assisting a student project.

A Tour of Nheon.org

The Home PageThe Nheon.org home page is very simple and easy to use.

The left hand menu provides quick and easy access to:

Curriculum frameworks and lesson plans.

Professional Development

Additional Web Resources

A View of NH Educational Projects

**A Guided Tour – A very general overview of this website. It is not interactive.

Grant Resources – This link gives you a lot of information on writing education grants.

An Excellent Search engine and a Hot Tips link.

A Closer Look inside the NH Educator Online Web Site.

The Professional Education Network is listed as the preferred online network for NH Educators.

They offer information on State partnerships, grants and many valuable professional resources such as courses and workshops that can be used for Credit to Plymouth State College. Information can also be obtained regarding teaching a course and developing one as well.

New Hampshire’s ICT Literacy Standards

This link provides the technology standards as defined by the NH Department of Education. Along with sample materials from NH districts as well as background materials and links to ISTE, NETS-S and NHSTE.

The Local Education Support Center Network

Provides technology enhanced support to all educators and schools within about a thirty mile radius of a center. These centers offer targeted long-term professional development with a focus on technology.

Browsing on New Hampshire Education Online

Let’s take a look at some of the ways to search for content specific information for lesson plans.

1. Click on the link in the far left hand menu “NH Frameworks and Lesson Plans”.

• The following page will be displayed.

• As you can see, there are three different search options and a draft of new curriculum frameworks. Let’s try each search option together.

• Clicking on the Browse Option, brings up the following screen: Here frameworks are color coded by grade and subject matter is listed to the left of this table. All links access frameworks specific to the grade and content.

The Custom Animation task pane

Lesson Plans on NHEAA

Clicking on the search option, brings up the following screen where lesson plans can be searched for.

• Let’s walk through an example together to see what we find.

• I am looking for 6th grade lessons on volcanoes. I will type in volcanoes and

limit it to the science standards.

• As you can see, the results show three different lesson plans that involve volcanoes.

• Also of interest is the link to the Science NetLinks which is in partnership wit MarcoPolo

The End