The American Association of School Librarians, AASL, recently released their 2015 Best Apps for Teaching and Learning. Also released are the 2015 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning.
The link for the 2015 Best Apps for Teaching and Learning: http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-apps/2015
2015 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning: http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-websites/2015
Speaking of Edutopia, Edutopia has a link to a list of educational grants and resources. Check early and often!: http://www.edutopia.org/grants-and-resources
If you have not visited Edutopia, you should. A wonderful resource for different and innovative ways of teaching and learning. Some of the resources/topics that I find particularly useful are on project based learning, assessments and technology integration. However, there is a topic for every educator for every grade level. Visit Edutopia and join its learning community!
Some tips for teaching in 2015: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/new-things-to-try-2015-ashley-cronin
Common Sense Media, https://www.commonsensemedia.org, rates, educates, and advocates for kids, families, and schools. One of the features of Common Sense Media is the digital literacy program. The program includes curriculum content, lesson plans and activities for educators. Educators must register in order to access the curriculum materials. Registration is free and the curriculum is definitely worth using. You can view the information here.
When I ask my students the above question, I get strange looks and responses like who? what? I then explain to them that Sweetsearch is a search engine for students that provides credible, authoritative results on any topic. Howevever, community college students could use this source as well.
Sweetsearch.com searches only 35,000 web sites that have been evaluated by the Sweetsearch staff. Thus, students can be assured of receiving reliable, authoritative, credible sources for their topics.
Sweetsearch4Me is especially designed for elementary students. “Only the best sites directed at elementary school students are included, and many of the results on the first page were created exclusively for kids.”
SweetSearch2Day is another feature of Sweetsearch. “It offers a daily curated assortment of the best content on the Web for history, language arts, science, news, culture and other topics. It was developed in consultation with leading educators to help integrate timely topics into daily lessons, and lead students to research and explore the best content online.
Sweetsearch Biographies profiles more than 1000 people and provides students with credible information on well-known people.
Web Guides “provide a road map to exploring hundreds of topics online, with links to the best resources, ordered logically, and woven with narrative, insights, and research strategies. Web Guide categories include dozens of academic subjects, as well as health, technology, careers, and other topics.”
Sweetsearch offers a variety of tools for students and teachers. Take the time to explore Sweertsearch for yourself.
Truly, it is okay that I have not posted a blog since April 2008! I refuse to beat up myself and make excuses for not blogging for over a year. Instead, I will focus on something different.
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was creating pages for students and educators. These pages would list websites, with annotations, that students and educators can access and use. I changed my mind.
I changed the appearance of my blog and added one page: Websites, Web 2.0 tools. So far, this page is dedicated to students.
The websites for teachers are listed under links. Teachers can access these links quickly without having to navigate to another page.
Since 2008, there are so many new and exciting Web 2.0 tools that students can use! I’ll be posted them shortly. In the meantime, explore the links I have posted.
Lifelong Quest 