General Teacher Support

 

Annenberg Media Featured Online Workshops
This site provides descriptions and links to featured free online workshops provided by Annenberg Media.

Annenberg/CPB Learner.org
Learner.org provides free professional development resources for the K-12 teacher. There are 48 separate courses with each being accompanied by videos, support materials, and activities. The Learner.org for Students link contains 11 interactive exhibits including topics such as Volcanoes, Math in Daily Life, and Literature.

ALEX: Alabama Learning Exchange
ALEX, a project of the Alabama Department of Education, is designed to index and share many types of educational materials and information through a time-saving, one-stop resource for educators, parents, and students.  The majority of these rich resources (lesson plans, Web links, and interactive activities) are located and connected to the Alabama Courses of Study by National Board Certified Teachers. By sharing the wealth of expertise and knowledge now available through ALEX, Alabama‘s best educators, and the youth of Alabama are poised to benefit from the best of the Web!

APTPlus
An online multimedia digital resource for Alabama teachers and students featuring thousands of instructional videos, teacher guides, still images and other materials all available on-demand.

AOL@School
America Online has developed a comprehensive and practical collection of materials for students and teachers. Student resource areas include subjects, brainteasers, study kits, research & reference, and news & current events. The teacher's area contains sections on Subjects & Standards, Lesson Plans, Special Needs, Professional Development, Classroom Tools & Tips, and Education News. The Textbook Activities area in Subjects & Standards provides supplemental activities for all major textbooks.

AREN E-Resources
The Alabama Supercomputer Authority and The Alabama Research and Education Network provide a monthly e-newsletter which contains recent educational technology news, useful Internet sites for teachers, and educational technology opportunities. This link will take you to the site where you can find the latest newsletter, archived newsletters, and a link to sign-up for the e-resource.

CIESE K-12 Curriculum
"The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education sponsors and designs interdisciplinary projects that teachers throughout the world can use to enhance their curriculum through compelling use of the Internet. They focus on projects that utilize real time data available from the Internet, and collaborative projects that utilize the Internet's potential to reach peers and experts around the world."

Discovery School
The Discovery Channel's educational site offers useful and entertaining materials for teachers, resources for students, and advice for parents. The site hosts Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, Homework Helpers, and Science Fair Central. The Teaching Tools link provides teachers with access to Puzzlemaker, Lesson Planner, Quiz Center, and Worksheet Generator.

Education Podcast Network
"The Education Podcast Network is an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century."

Education World
The Education World home page offers materials for Lesson Planning, Professional Development, Administrators, Technology Integration, and School Issues. There are also sections for financial planning, grants, and Teacher Tools and Templates. Two other highlights include a "Best Of" Series which is a summary of the best classroom ideas since 1997, and the Technology in the Classroom Center which includes a Template Library and easy to use Tech Tutorials.

Educational Web Adventures
Eduweb designs award winning online learning experiences, and this site provides access to all of their interactive and educational adventures. They are organized by subject, grade, and creation date.

The Educator's Reference Desk
The Educator's Reference Desk site houses the resources formerly located at AskERIC. There are Resource Guides, Lesson Plans, Question Archives, and Search GEM/ERIC. Resource Guides contains a useful Teaching Methods resource, and the Lession Plans section offers excellent lesson plans for Information Literacy.

Edutopia
Edutopia is the magazine of "The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), which is a nonprofit operating foundation that documents and disseminates information about exemplary programs in K-12 schools to help these practices spread nationwide." The site contains "detailed articles, research summaries, and links to hundreds of relevant Web sites, books, organizations, and publications to help schools and communities build on successes in education." The information is divided into 13 critical elements of public education.

eThemes
eThemes "is an extensive database of content-rich, age-appropriate resources organized around specific themes. These resources are created for educators to use in their classrooms." The quality, grade-level appropriateness, and connection to state standards are assessed by staff and graduate students from the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Education. There are over 900 themes which can be searched alphabetically or by grade-level.

4Teachers
4Teachers.org offers free online tools and resources. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics and classroom calendars. There are also tools for student use. Highlights include RubiStar, TrackStar, and the Web Worksheet Wizard.

Glencoe Online
Glencoe (McGraw-Hill Publishing) provides an abundance of supplementary material online through this site. There are 21 separate curricular areas directly connected to standards-based texts. There are videos, lesson plans, projects, graphic organizers, maps, web links, WebQuests, interactive tutorials, quizzes, and interdisciplinary connections. Other highlights are Teaching Today, an online magazine for high school and middle school teachers, and the New Teacher Survival Guide.

Internet4Classrooms
Internet4 Classrooms has been rated by ISTE as the best for just-in-time teacher technology help. It contains a vast number of useful links for K-12 teachers that are divided by subject and grade level, specific tutorials for commonly used classroom computer applications, links to grant information, templates for web-based lessons, and links to education publications. The site also contains a Daily Dose of the Web which provides links to more than 100 sites offering daily questions and activities.

InTime
InTime provides ideas for good technology practices in the classroom. The site is a compilation of "video vignettes of PK-12 teachers from various grades and subjects who integrate technology in their classrooms using numerous teaching strategies." Lesson plans and transcripts are also provided for the nearly 600 video vignettes on the site.

Thinkfinity
ISTE sites Thinkfinity as quite possibly the best educational web site online today. It is a collection of content and resource sites for K-12 teachers. The teacher resource section contains information on standards alignment, using Thinkfinity, the Thinkfinity Calendar, and free access to the monthly newsletter. The unique search function can be accessed from any page in order for teachers to locate material on their selected topic from the seven contributing partner sites.

PBS Teacher Source
This user-friendly site contains a collection of 4,500 lesson plans and activities. Many of these are based on PBS programming and are connected to state standards. Sections include Arts & Literature, Health & Fitness, Math, Sciene, Social Studies, Pre K-2, and Library Media.

Teach-nology
Teach-nology offers a wide range of free materials and tools for teachers. These include graphic organizers, lesson plans, web sites, tutorials, articles, worksheets, and games. Other highlights include a rubric generator and worksheet maker. For easier navigation of the site, locate "Site Map" near the top of the page. There is also a membership section for a small fee that provides access to even more helpful materials.

TechLEARNING.com: Technology & Learning
This is the site for Technology & Learning magazine, which is an excellent educational technology resource for teachers at all levels. There are archives of past issues as well as how-to and best practice articles, grant and contest information, and professional development support.

The WebQuest Page
The WebQuest Page provides a comprehensive overview of the technology integration tool known as the WebQuest. The Training Materials and Portal sections of the site are useful for teachers desiring to learn more about or to find samples of WebQuests. The Portal contains a matrix and search feature to enable teachers to locate WebQuests for particular subjects and grade levels.