Rant of The Day

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

- Winston Churchill


Saturday, September 19, 2009

High School Education SIte of the Week


http://www.brighthub.com/

Bright Hub’s goal is simple: share knowledge about how the simplest scientific idea evolves into tomorrow’s technology.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Lit 2 go! Get it now!!!!

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format.

You can:

Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.


If you haven't paid a visit to this site, you don't know what you are missing!!!!!!!!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Internet Resources for Elementary School Science

I taught elementary school for 7 years, before coming to high school. Elementary teachers are very different from high teachers. The websites below do not all have descriptions, however, elementary teachers like to explore and discover.
Internet Resources for Elementary Science Teachers

1. http://classroom.jc-schools.net/basic/science.html
2. http://homeschooling.about.com/od/gamesscience/Online_Science_Games.htm interactive science games
3. http://pbskids.org/dragonflytv/parentsteachers/about_site.html
4. http://resources.kaboose.com/games/science.html online science games
5. http://school.discovery.com/sciencefaircentral/
6. http://www.apples4theteacher.com/science.html online science games
7. http://www.edbydesign.com/
8. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/school/index.shtml Zoom School a science link from enchantedlearning.com
9. http://www.engagingscience.org/games/onlinegames/games.html online science games
10. http://www.englishforum.com/00/interactive/
11. http://www.fema.gov/kids/games1.htm FEMA for kids
12. http://www.gradebook.org/Science%20Worksheets.htm
13. http://www.howstuffworks.com/index.htm
14. http://www.iknowthat.com/com interactive science lesson for all ages
15. http://www.juliantrubin.com/fairprojects.html science fair ideas and info
16. http://www.lessonsense.com/
17. http://www.mahopac.k12.ny.us/mms/perrylinks/science.htm a database of online Science resources
18. http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/game/
19. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/games/
20. http://www.primarygames.com/
21. http://www.primarygames.com/curriculum/science.htm
22. http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/home.htm
23. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/games.aspx online science games
24. http://www.science-teachers.com/
25. http://www.sciencewithme.com/worksheetsmain.php science worksheets register for free
26. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/kidscorner3.htm
27. http://www.softschools.com/
28. http://www.studystack.com/Home.jsp
29. http://www.teachervision.fen.com/science/activity/5833.html links to online science games
30. http://nobelprize.org/
31. http://www.smm.org/explore/
32. http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/science.html

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Internet Resources for High School ELA Teachers

Lesson Plan Sites
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rayser3/litera1.htm - Outta Ray’s Head: Lesson Plans, Handouts, and Ideas – a great collection of lesson plans from other teachers.

http://www.georgiastandards.org/ - This is a great search engine that searches various resources for information. Though aligned with the Georgia State Standards, many of the resources are usable for anyone.

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/6 - This site is small but looks to be growing. Check out the sections called Great Poems to Teach, the collection of lesson plans, and the poetry map which finds poets in every state.

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/ - This site was created as a place to gather “the best of K-12 English/ Language Arts teaching resources.” A huge site, it will lead you to many places.

http://www.dailygrammar.com/archive.shtml See the past lessons or sign up for a daily e-mail grammar lesson

http://www.myenglishteacher.net/previous.html site contain grammar lessons

http://www.monmouth.com/~literature/ This site provides lesson plans, worksheets, vocabulary and projects for high school literature; worksheets are here so you don’t have to create them

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/lit.html lesson plans on literature stories


Writing Sites
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ - This writing lab is a great resource for teachers and students. Click on the link old owl at the bottom of the page and find presentation resources such as PowerPoint and handouts.

http://www.ttms.org/ - Teaching That Makes Sense is all about writing and this site presents a plethora of theories, practical strategies, examples of student writing, and assessment schemes. Although this is a site that does promote the author’s company, the best part is the free, downloadable books on writing. **The files are pdfs so you must have Adobe Acrobat.

http://citationmachine.net/ Citation Machine is an interactive web tool designed to assist high school, college, and university students, their teachers, and independent researchers in their effort to respect other people's intellectual properties. Students input information and the citation machine produces a citation that can be copied and pasted into their research papers

http://easybib.com/ The Free Automatic Bibliography & Citation Maker

Other Resources

http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/jvles.html - This site is a mixed bag of goodies. Though not all of the information applies to Language Arts, many of it does. One of the best parts that I found is that many of the sections link to student-made videos for common English errors. To access just the videos, use this link http://springfieldvideo.edublogs.org/

http://www.learner.org/resources/series164.html#program_descriptions – Video on demand. This set is for American Literature teachers but if you put in your discipline level and grade level at the top of the screen, you will get more to choose from.

Online Activities
Grammar Sites

ESL websites (English as a Second Language) are great sites to help our students learn the vocabulary and grammar used on standardized test.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ - This site is interesting because it is so well partitioned into subject matter. Check out the grammar quizzes under the section titled Ask Grammar, Quizzes and Searches.


http://a4esl.org/ Quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles to help students improve their grammar skills has thousands of contributions by many teachers.

http://www.esl-lounge.com/ Under Extra click student site and students can complete online activities to help with their grammar skills

http://www.manythings.org/ a wide range of online activities: Word games, puzzles, quizzes, exercises, slang, proverbs and much more, to help students with their grammar

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/ Online Grammar, Spelling, Reading, Writing, Listening and Vocabulary quizzes and activities to help with grammar

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/grammar.htm site contains grammar presentations, interactive practice exercises, and help pages for basic writing skills

http://www.english-online.org.uk/course.htm click advanced for online ELA activities for high school students

http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/agdouble.htm Animation to show when to Double Final Consonants. Requires JavaScript

http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/agpyesno.htm Animation to show past tense negation. Requires JavaScript

http://www.chompchomp.com/menu.htm Interactive Exercises, Index of Grammar Terms, Rules for Fixing Grammar Problems

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/ click “English grammar secrets” and you will get a host of online quizzes for a variety of grammar topics

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/index_main.php The Fun Way to Build Vocabulary Skills!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Middle School Math Internet Resources

Excellent Resources for Middle School Math Teachers, Parents, and Students

http://mathforum.org/k12/mathtips/beatcalc.html tips for beating a calculator when doing math
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/drmath.middle.html
http://mathforum.org/mathworld/ math challenge for kids
http://members.aol.com/LooseTooth/sailorpi.html a site about Pi
http://quizhub.com/quiz/quizhub.cfm online interactive learning center
http://schoolexpress.com/ math worksheets
http://www.allmath.com/ math search engine
http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/ simple math games use as a refresher
http://www.hellam.net/bombno.html simple division game
http://www.learningwave.com/abmath/absurd4/index.htm pre-algebra sites
http://www.mathproblemgenerator.com/main/gui/ register and create custom math worksheets
http://www.nadn.navy.mil/MathDept/mdm/pyth.html animated proof of the Pythagorean Theorem
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Div/Winchester/jhhs/math/lessons/mlesson.html math lesson plans
http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/shuttleLaunch/shuttleLaunch.htm
http://www.quia.com/shared/ do a Boolean search
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/ math activities online
http://www.stfx.ca/special/mathproblems/welcome.html math problems to challenge your students
http://www.thatquiz.org/ register and create test that your students can take
http://www.visualmathlearning.com/pre_algebra/lessons.html pre-algebra interactive site
http://www.wfu.edu/~mccoy/NCTM99/ math webquest already done for you