Lesson Ideas
AASL Best Websites for Teaching and Learning
The "Top 25" Websites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. Websites are broken down into: Media Sharing, Digital Storytelling, Manage and Organize, Social Networking and Communication, Content Collaboration, Curriculum Sharing, and Content Resources: Lesson Plans and More.
Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX) Lesson Plans and More
The Alabama Learning Exchange, a multiple year winner from the Center for Digital Education, has a host of lesson plans, professional development opportunities, podcasts, and web resources all searchable by state content standards.
American Association of School Librarians Lesson Plan Database
AASL Lesson Plan Database – primarily geared towards school librarians co-teaching with content area teachers.
American Graduate Classroom Resources
American Graduate Resources highlight public media’s interactive resources and educational projects for use with middle school and high school students. Resources include multimedia productions created by students and professional development videos for educators. The resources featured are designed to bring educational content to life in engaging and innovative ways, and include games, activities, quizzes, quests, and other interactive experiences. The materials include, exploring the arts, careers, ELL, health & sports, language arts, math, media production, science & engineering, and social studies.
The Annenberg Learner, from the Annenberg Foundation, is a collection of classroom resources sortable by discipline and by grade. From step-by-step lesson plans on a variety of topics from the Wild West to neuroscience to literature to multimedia resources, there is something here for all types of teaching and learning styles. Some of the resources here are free; to access complete programs, purchase is necessary.
The Edutopia website, a project of the George Lucas Foundation, includes a wealth of grade-level strategies, core strategies, blogs, and much more. To get started, check out this blog on embracing continuous improvement.
Edutopia's Digital Learning Day: Resource Roundup
Edutopia offers a compilation of many useful resources on digital learning to help teachers and students celebrate Digital Learning Day.
ETS's Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning
ETS's CBAL (Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning) is a research initiative intended to create a model for an innovative K–12 assessment system that documents what students have achieved (of learning); helps identify how to plan instruction (for learning); and is considered by students and teachers to be a worthwhile educational experience in and of itself (as learning). Get an overview of the CBAL research program, including how the CBAL assessment prototypes are being used in the classroom and reactions from students, teachers and school administrators.
Exploring Computational Thinking
These lesson plans and resources introduce problem-solving skills and techniques that software engineers use to write programs that underlie the computer applications you use such as search, email, and maps.
Elementary school (and some middle school) math SMART Board lessons created by Harvey Almarode, sorted by strand.
JogNog Learning Game for Grades 2 – 8
JogNog is designed to meet teachers’ needs for teaching the state and national standard curricula for grades 2 – 8. It provides more than 40,000 educator-created review questions to its players. You can also create your own quizzes. Reports provide you with detail about your students’ strengths and weaknesses. “Try Something New on Digital Learning Day” by having your students play "1st Tower State Facts and Capitals” (free). The state which has the most students play JogNog on Digital Learning Day will be celebrated on the JogNog blog that week. Also from JogNog are mobile apps, theEveryone.Smarter blog, which features topics in digital learning research and commentary, and the JogNog video library, which features videos about digital learning and about JogNog.
Lesson ideas and management strategies with “differentiation” for multiple levels of technology access, educator expertise, and a social network rating system, for educators only, must register to view.
The New York Times and the Common Core Standards: Reading Strategies for ‘Informational Text’
This blog post lists ten easy ways to weave The New York Times into the classroom. It also has short segments on different reading strategies to share with students. All of these tips and techniques are designed to help students to better absorb informational text. Strategies are broken down into “Before,” “During,” and “After” reading.
This online directory from the Oregon Department of Education is searchable by grade level, content area, and technology standard. The available technology standards are: Communication and Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making, Digital Citizenship, Research and Information Fluency, and Technology Operations and Concepts. Lesson plans cover a wide range of topics.
The Kids Lab offers resources for kids, parents, and teachers. The website aggregates games by age and skill area so that adults can search for the games that will be the best fit for their kids. Parents and teachers can also search the game library by familiar and trusted PBS KIDS series. Additionally, the site helps parents and teachers learn how the games support learning by providing details on the games’ curriculum-based content.
LearningMedia is a free service for all teachers, students, and families nationwide. It is a rich public media library with thousands of resources for use in the classroom and with home-schooled students. The digital resources include videos and interactives, including lessons for the Interactive Whiteboard, plus audio and photos, and in-depth lesson plans.
Pearson Foundation and The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
The P21 Skills Videos are designed to illustrate how twenty-first-century skills are being practiced and cultivated in classrooms and schools. Schools were recommended by members of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills because of the ways they put into action the key precepts of the P21 framework.
Principal Sheninger's Delicious Site
Eric Sheninger, principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey, has a page on the Delicious site that includes links to websites and resources for teachers. The links are tagged by subject area and other areas of interest.
Principal Sheninger's Public Library
Eric Sheninger, principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey, offers up a public library page on diigo that includes links to websites and resources for teachers. The links are tagged by subject area and other areas of interest.
The SMART Exchange has SMART Board lessons uploaded by educators and searchable by grade level, content, objectives, etc. Lessons are also searchable by the set of content standards that they adhere to. Multiple SMART file formats are supported and included.
Thinkfinity allows individuals to search lesson ideas, activities, video clips, and more from a variety of partner sites by grade level, content area, resource type, and with a specific keyword search. Partner sites searchable include: ARTSEDGE, EconEdLink, EDSITEment, NCTM Illuminations, Literacy network, National Geographic Education, ReadWriteThink, Science NetLinks, Smithsonian's History Explorer, Wonderopolis, and Xpeditions Archive.
