8.++THREE+Helpful+Websites

Submit your THREE examples of helpful websites here. Please concentrate on websites that would be helpful to teachers and educators. So, each of you should have THREE total postings on this page. Please be sure that your submission contains your name, website title and address (hyperlinked), and at least a 100 word review of each website (see **submission example** **with questions). Your websites MAY contain (but are not limited to) the following:**
 * **drill and practice software (see page 208)**
 * **mindmaps / webmaps (see page 209)**
 * **types of assistive technologies (see pages 218-219)**
 * **types of gradebooks, lesson plans, seating charts, etc. (see pages 223-224)**
 * **educational software (that you might want to use, or would like to buy, for your own classroom - you don't have to download it)**
 * **websites that you can see using as a resource for your students in your own classroom (think of the subject / content you would like to teach).**

· Jake Beeney-Learning Point · [|www.learningpt.org] · I found this site to be quite interesting as well as educational. This site is hosted by a group called Learning Point Associates. This organization performs educational research, curriculum development, and professional services to help education keep progressing. They also work with educators, school districts, and state/national school boards to further develop and improve education and the teaching techniques implements at schools. This organization formed in Elmhurst, Illinois and now has offices in Naperville, New York, and Washington D.C. I felt this site would be a great tool for anyone in the education field to ensure they are a life long learner and always continue to improve.

· Jake Beeney-Learning Point · [|www.learningpt.org] · I found this site to be quite interesting as well as educational. This site is hosted by a group called Learning Point Associates. This organization performs educational research, curriculum development, and professional services to help education keep progressing. They also work with educators, school districts, and state/national school boards to further develop and improve education and the teaching techniques implements at schools. This organization formed in Elmhurst, Illinois and now has offices in Naperville, New York, and Washington D.C. I felt this site would be a great tool for anyone in the education field to ensure they are a life long learner and always continue to improve.

· Jake Beeney-Sites for Teachers · [|www.sitesforteachers.com] · This website itself does not contain much information or many activies, but it serves as a wonderful database to a plethora of sites that would most defenitely prove to be beneficial to anyone in education as well as they students. Another reason I chose to share this site with others is that it appears it is very up to date and updated either daily or weekly, ensuring a list of the most reputtable and credible sites for teachers to visit. = · Casie Golliday – ReadWriteThink, Webbing Tool = = · [] a = = · This is a helpful website for elementary student learning to make web diagrams. A flash player is required. It focusing on improving organizing and summarizing skills. It is really easy to get started. Each student signs in by just typing in their name choosing either circles or squares for their web. There are only three steps and their on the left side. You first add your square or circle, choose if u need to delete one and then click to connect them together. It is a very simple, easy and quick way for students to use technology to create their own webs. =

= · Casie Golliday – Class set-up tool = = · [] = = · This website can be used by teachers to create their own personalized seating chart. You can first choose the shape of your class room, then add in exactly where the windows, door, blackboard, bookshelves, computer is ad etc. After that the teacher can then choose the shape of their desks and place them in the order in which they want. It also includes odd shaped in case there is something shaped odd in your classroom you need to add. When you’re all finished setting up your classroom can then add your students to the chart. You just type in their name and then drag them into place, then print! =

= · Casie Golliday – Global Education = = · [] = = · This site is good or teachers to get templates for their classroom instead of having to make them. The template available are: Bibliography, Consequences chart, Diamond ranking, Fishbone diagrams, Flow chart, Futures wheel, PMI chart, PNQ chart, Rubrics, Venn diagram, Web map , Futures line, Placemat proforma, T chart, Y chart, World map. It tells you what each template can be used for. It is great or teachers to use if they need to print certain graphs or diagrams for their classroom. You just click the links, it tells what each diagram is for and then you can just print it off. =

Elise Davidshofer—Flash Seating Chart Maker [] This website, Flash Seating Chart Maker, appears to be an easy and effective way to create a seating chart. It allows you to enter in all of the names of your student in a class. Then you are able to drag and drop the students names to the seats on the seating chart. The program will also shuffle the names for you if you press the shuffle button. This would work well if you want a completely random seating chart for your class. Even after you have created the seating chart, it will allow you to make adjustments to it and redo it.

Elise Davidshofer—Wise Mapping __ [] Wise Mapping __ is a free download, which might be benefital to teachers that like using mindmaps or web diagrams for notes. Use these for your notes in your classes might help some of the other learning styles in your class. __ Wise Mapping __ allows you to create these web diagrams with easy abilities to move the boxes where you want, change the colors of the boxes or text inside the boxes, and it makes them easy to access after you have created your mindmap or web diagram. It also give you the options to publish, share and export the work that you have done.

Elise Davidshofer—The World of Math Online [] Math.com is a good site for students to get extra practice. In fact, I have had past teachers—both in middle school and high school—tell me about this site. The website covers all different levels of math from basic math like fractions and multiplication, to algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and more. The website provides students with definitions, key terms, basic information on how to solve the problems as well as practice problems and quizzes. This is a great resources if you ever feel like you have students that might want extra practice but are too afraid to admit it. You could just give out this website to everyone to let them know it is a resource if they need it.


 * Benjamin Culik - Discovery
 * [|Discovery Education]
 * The Discovery Education website is a great source for teachers of all grades. It provides lesson plans for a wide variety of topics, as well as videos and worksheets with each lesson plan. Also, there are a number of resources available to teachers, students, and parents. The lesson plans are all incredibly well organized and interesting, including everything you could possibly need for a class. For example, [|this lesson plan] about dinosaurs, is just one of the many excellent sources available for teachers. I was blown away by how comprehensive the lesson plans were, and how much information was available to teachers from this site. This website would be incredibly useful for any teacher.


 * Cara Philpott-PBS Teachers
 * []
 * This website procides educators online resources for educating students regarding a variety of topics pretaining to different grade levels. The subjects include art, math, science, and technology, health and fitness, language and reading arts, and social studies. There are interactive games and videos to engage students in learning. There are also lesson plans available in all of the subjects mentioned previously that are separated into grade levels. This website also has a teacher discussion board for posting questions regarding teaching and resources. There is also a professional development are that provides online courses to teachers to increase their knowledge and enhance their teaching ability.


 * Cara Philpott- Teacher Planet
 * [|http://www.teacherplanet.com]
 * This website provides educators with lesson plans in a variety of subkects including math, science, language arts, social studies, visual arts, physical education, music, health and nutrition, history, geography, technology, foreign languages, and special education. There are lissons plans for students in pre-K through high school. There are free online worksheets for teachers to print and use in the classroom as well as rubric tools to create a rubric. There are also products for sale such as software, movies, and books to enhance a particular subject being taught by the teacher. There are also links to free items to enhance teaching of a certain subject.


 * Cara Philpott- Scholastic
 * [|http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/home.jsp]
 * This website provides educators with teaching resources that include lesson plans, that are divided by subject and grade levels. There are teaching strategies and tools for educators that include rubric maker, flash card maker, graph organizer, and spelling wizard. There are teacher advisors that provide teaching tips and strategies for the different grade levels. There is a teacher helpline where teachers can ask questions and seek advice. There are student activities including those for an interactive whiteboard. There are tools for teachers to print to be used in the classroom for enhanced learning. There are computer lab learning activities available to add interactive learning and technology to the classroom.

Alanna Blackburn – Assistive Technology to Meet K-12 Student Needs [|• http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te7assist.htm]  Assistive technology is a website that teachers can visit in order to remember all the “technology” students will need in the classroom. This type of technology is not narrowed down to computers and Smart Boards. In fact many of the objects on this list deal with simple things such as lighted pens. There are different categories according to the child type including students with difficulties accessing communication or tools, students who are deaf or hard of hearing, students with learning behaviors etc. I think that this website is very important because it gives good ideas for supplies that students can purchase. It is also important that teachers incorporate each student, no matter their learning ability, in each activity. With this being said it may be easier for a student with a learning disability to have electronic reminders to turn his or her paper in, compared to the other students in the class. I also think that it is important that teachers are constantly reminded that by using different technology certain students may be able to learn more effectively.

· Alanna Blackburn – Dolphin Don’s Music School · [] · Dolphin Don’s Music School is an example of drill and practice software. This software contains different educational games that test student’s music ability. The software tests for the ability to hear the different beats, musical patterns, identifying notes correctly etc. I think this website is important because student’s can get feedback immediately after participating. The student then knows exactly what to focus on while studying. This is also beneficial to teachers because the better students understand the materials, the better satisfaction the teacher receives. It is awesome that the student’s can come to this website at any given time to complete these tasks.

· Alanna Blackburn – Crafts for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners · [] · I chose this website because I think in the near future I will use this website frequently. I want to be a kindergarten teacher, and there are a wide variety of examples of activities for kindergartens to complete in the classroom. I can definitely see myself visiting this website to think of lesson plans, and come up with fun activities for my students to complete. In fact, in high school I taught a preschool class, and my group and I found ourselves coming to this website a lot to pull fun ideas of activities to complete. I am sure that many teachers already come to this website to get ideas about teaching certain concepts, and I can see myself doing this as well.


 * Kelli Hogan-Kids Crafts, Games, Recipes, and Activities for Early Childhood Education
 * []
 * I chose this particular website because I can see myself using it alot in my education career. Since I will either be majoring in Early Childhood Education or Elementary Education this website will definitely be good for either major. There are many reasons that this website will be helpful for these majors. This website has a table of contents that has the following on it: music, crafts, recipes, games, activites, and etc. I can see myself using the crafts section on the website quite often. From working at a preschool, one thing I have noticed is there is nothing kids love more than doing crafts and getting messy. I am looking forward to planning fun crafts to do with my children in my classroom.


 * Kelli Hogan-Teacher.Net
 * []
 * This is a website that teachers can use to find free lesson plans, participate in teacher blogs, find projects, and even find teaching jobs. I think I would use this website the most in the beginning of my teaching career. There are a lot of teachers throughout the country that take advantage of the blog on the website. They discuss problems they see in their classroom and how these problems can be solved. Being a new teacher, I can learn from these experienced teachers on how to solve classroom disruptions. I will also take advantage of the free lesson plans. Being a new teacher, it might be challenging to come up with creative lesson plans. I can take advantage of the free lesson plans on the website for my first few lessons; then I will get an idea of how lesson plans should be run so then I can create my own in the future.


 * Kelli Hogan-School Express
 * []
 * School Express is used for three main functions. These functions include the following: free worksheets, the ability to make your own worksheets, and being able to purchase workbooks. I can see myself using this website to print out free worksheets for any subject. There are also actual "eworkbooks" that can be purchased on the website for as low as $2.00. If I see a workbook that looks really interesting and could be beneficial to my class, I would not hesitate to purchase it. There are worksheets/workbooks for the following subjects: spelling, reading, handwriting, language arts, math, history, United States and etc. This website also allows teachers to create their own worksheets. This is a good tool because then it is a given that the worksheet will be neat and professional. I will definitely use this website for all three purposes.


 * Benjamin Culik - A to Z Teacher Stuff
 * [|A to Z Teacher Stuff]
 * I chose this website because it had a number of valuable educational tools that would be incredibly helpful for all teachers. The site is a teacher-created site designed to help teachers find online resources quickly and easily. The site has a number of lesson plans, teacher tips, thematic units, teacher discussion forums, downloadable teaching materials and eBooks, printable worksheets, and many more valuable teacher resources. I would definitely use this site often as a new teacher, because it would give me a number of ideas for lessons, and the discussion board would certainly be useful. Also, because of the vast amount of valuable educational resources, the site would be invaluable.


 * Benjamin Culik - 4 Teachers
 * [|4Teachers.Org]
 * 4 Teachers is a website that helps teachers integrate technology into their classroom by offering online tools and resources. The site also helps teachers find web lessons, quizzes, rubrics, and classroom calendars. Not only that, the site also provides valuable professional development resources addressing many issues today's teachers face in their classrooms. As a new special education teacher, I believe I would find that particular aspect to be extremely useful, seeing as I would want to research as much as possible about ways to deal with at-risk and special needs students. This site provides basically everything a teacher could use, even some things I hadn't even thought of, such as the classroom architect, which helps teachers create a classroom floor plan that would best foster a positive classroom environment. Apparently, the size of the classroom, colors of the walls, the type of furniture and flooring, amount of light, and room arrangement all influence how students learn. I had no idea...


 * Trevor Mitchell- PBS
 * []
 * The page found on PBS website is all about third parties and specifically Ralph Nader and his efforts as a third party candidate. The page has in depth research and history on Ralph Nader, his impact on the U.S. government and his individual efforts as a politician. The page overviews the impact of third parties in elections as to how they impact voter numbers and where the votes go as well as looks at the public perception of third parties. This is a great resource for a high school teacher as it shows the impact and legacy of third party candidates. Also contains multimedia and video.


 * Trevor Mitchell- Digital History
 * []
 * This website would be a wonderful resource for me as a history teacher. It has all sorts of first hand documents ranging from letter to the president to the Magna Carta. The website is devoted to history and the process of learning historical information. In addition to the documents provided by the site you can also find multimedia relating to historical information. The site further provides resource guides according to the time period which would be very useful to a teacher in need of extra material according to date. Finally the site gives a timeline of American history with key events and maps attached. The site is useful for American history and specializes in American Reconstruction.


 * Trevor Mitchell- Class Builder
 * []
 * This website is a great teacher help website that allows the teacher to set up a grade book for free online. In addition to online grading the user can create quizzes using templates and other helpful resources. The website allows the user to generate a class website that students and teachers can access. The online program overall allows teachers to effectively complete class work tasks online from one simple easy website. The site also is able to track attendance and posts grades for parents to view online. The website includes customizable reports for students and computes final grades. Very useful teaching tool for students and teachers alike.

Zach Wolf - ABCTeach [|http://abcteach.com] ABCTeach is a helpful website for both students and teachers alike; it gives teachers plenty of material ranging from worksheets, fun activities, power points, it even includes help articles on technology such as SmartBoard. It offers numerous options for kids too such as flashcards and educational puzzles. ABCTeach has thousands of different activities. It even includes banners and bulletin board borders teachers can print out to make their classroom environment friendlier. It even offers pages for homeschooled students and their parents which as well as blogs and discussion posts where teachers can swap ideas with each other. This site should definitely not be overlooked by elementary school teachers.

Zach Wolf - Caesar Rodney’s Elementary Kids’ Site [|http://www.teachercr.k12.de.us/~galgano/elemkids.htms.] This site is great for grades K-5; it has a bunch of fun online activities that incorporate common topics that are taught in almost every curriculum for that age group. With each increase in grade level the activities and games get a little tougher and feature more and more educational information (kindergarten starts with matching and works its way up). It gives younger students a chance to have fun and feel as if they are just playing some games online, while still incorporating educational material. The site also features numerous other links that can help kids with music, art, and even keyboarding skills. It’s a great beginner site for kids who have not had much experience with technology yet.

Zach Wolf - Survival Guide for New Teachers [|http://www2.ed.gov] The Survival Guide for New Teachers is an awesome site to recap what you have learned over the past few years preparing to be a teacher. It skims over the main points to remember when just starting off. Even the most prepared teachers are going to be nervous when first starting off and this website can help keep them in check. It offers advice on how to handle numerous different issues such as working with other teachers, the principals, as well as how to go about talking with parents of their students. It’s very organized and lists what the site covers in an outlined format so if there’s something specific a new teacher is looking for it can be easily found.


 * Ashley Brinkman-Grade Book Wizard
 * []
 * Grade book wizard is a grading program that is entirely web-based. Teachers can grade anytime, anywhere. There is no software to download. The program can be used on a PC or Mac with internet access. The program is secure for all uses. The program allows the teacher to select a room parent to help the teacher with grading if need. Teachers can grade many assignments at one time. Teachers can share grade scales and rubrics with other teachers. It also comes with a private email systems so teachers can communicate with their students. In the same way teachers can communicate with parents. Teachers can create a class website. This program comes with so many great features for a low yearly price.


 * Ashley Brinkman-Time savers for Teachers
 * []
 * Time savers for teachers is a great resource for teachers. This site offers printable, offend used documents for the classroom. These include report card comments, spelling activities, writing prompts, classroom awards, quick lesson plans and other helpful classroom forms. This website is all about saving teachers valuable time in pep ration for day to day in the classroom. These 11 books help in teachers organization of materials and activities. Some of the activities on this website are interactive, like the easy kit. They have activities for math and language units as well. If you are looking for quick and easy printouts this is the place to go.

Crafts for kids is a site to go to when looking for activities to do with early childhood aged kids. This site has crafts organized by letter as well as the materials need to complete the craft. You can also find crafts by topic or category. The site gives you the list of materials needed as well as instructions for completing the craft. It also has a section on holiday crafts and printouts. This site has hundreds of crafts that can go along with lots of lesson plans. I have used this site in the past and it's one of my favorites.
 * Ashley Brinkman-Crafts for Kids
 * []