EduTech+Teacher+Websites

www.thinkfinity.org Thinkfinity The website is sponsored by Verizon Wireless. It provides free lesson plans and educational resources such as graphic organizers, handouts, and assessment rubrics. I like the student interactives page, which provides free interactive games and tools. I also like that it explicitly states the standards that align with the lesson plans. A visitor to the site has the option of searching by state, grade, and subject to find lesson plans that align with GPS. The lesson plans use a lot of technology which allows students to have a more progressive learning experience. Thinkfinity also has blogs which cover current issues with technology in the classroom and teaching in general. The 21st century skills and student interactives use technology tools to make learning innovative, engaging, and creative.

Educationworld.com Education World The main channel: technology integration showcases lesson plans and learning activities that bring technology into the classroom. I was immediately interested in using excel to create adlib stories, although I don’t think that I would use that in a high school English classroom. It does seem like an engaging activity for lower level students as they learn parts of speech.This site also offers many free lesson plans. I really like the school issues section. I enjoyed reading the “in a sub’s shoes” blog written by Education World news editor Ellen Delisio. I could empathize with a lot of the entries; I really wish I’d found this when I was researching substitute teaching last year. The site had too many pop-up advertisements for spam. Overall, the site was too busy and immature – there were several typos and too many colors and fonts. I doubt I will use this in the future.

www.techlearning.com Tech & Learning This site’s primary sponsor appears to be Dell. The blog section covers interesting and relevant discussions on innovative practices such as using blogging, YouTube, digital storytelling and cell phones. This site has a slew of professional development opportunities, including FREE webinars. An upcoming free webinar for Tuesday, November 9, 2010 is sponsored by Intel and the topic is “Web 2.0 in Schools.” In addition to upcoming webinars, the site provides access to archived webinars. The virtual tech forums allow participants to chat, attend live webcasts, and network with others. This site also sponsors its own digital magazine which can be read online. This is by far my favorite educational technology website. It provides tons of information and seems to be truly innovative; best of all – IT’S FREE!! J

www.teach-nology.com teAchnology This site has a multitude of teaching resources such as lesson plans, worksheets, rubrics, webquests, and more. It is designed to help K-12 educators improve education through the use of technology. This online teacher resource is sponsored by Teachnology, Inc. It provides educators to a wide access of resources for free. Given concurrent assignments, I was most interested in the Web Quest section. This site also allows one to sign up for a free email newsletter.

www.4teachers.org 4Teachers: Teach with Technology This site is sponsored by ALTEC.org and 4Kids.org. It has blog which explores current issues such as virtual K-12 schools. Like teAchnology, this site provides tools and resources to help educators integrate technology in the classrooms. This site has a special interest in the professional development of educators working with ELLs, at-risk, and/or special needs students. I enjoyed perusing the “teacher success stories” of successful use of technology in the classroom; this section along with the student testimonies are excellent sources of motivation.