Useful web sites for educators
- 1. Useful websites-Updated Jan 31,2012 Here is a list of web pages I have found with useful resources for teachers, especially if you have a projector, Interactive Whiteboard, Student response (Clicker) system, or wireless tablet. Of course, many of these can be used without those tools. There is no shortage of tips and lists of websites out there. These are simply ones I have discovered that I thought might be of particular use for those with interactive Technology in the Classroom. DK Books are well known for their wonderful graphics. A huge selection of these is available for free download from this web page. These can be used in many ways , including as illustratitons for powerpoints http://www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/cs/uk/11/clipart/home.html Http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/15.cfm Another UK site. The Birmingham learning grid has all kinds of activities that can be used with a tablet l, or an Interactive Whiteboard. Because these are in Great Britain, part of the fun for your students might be the fact that many are narrated in “British English” . http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm Not just games, but activities like SAT prep words. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ No, not tips on how to be a spy. But there are accurate and up to date maps of the world,and every country in the world here. You would hope the CIA keeps up with this kind of stuff..and they do. http://www.brainybetty.com/
- 2. This site a smorgasbord of free graphics, powerpoint images, clip art and tutorials. www.fiddlersgreen.net A site selling paper models. Mostly of airplanes but also many buildings. A Great source for dioramas. There are several freebies there and lots of info on each model plane and house. Thoreau’s cabin and Emerson’s home are among the models relevant to English teachers, for example. My college American lit professor, Dr. Joel Myerson, a world’s expert on Thoreau and Emerson, shared this site with his students, and sent me a nice email in return. Each model includes a write up about the history of the house or airplane. Everything from a Norman Castle to a model of the World Trade Center can be found here. www.funbrain.com All kinds of on line learning games and activities. K-12. Free http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/major.htm The Avalon project is a collection of primary documents found at Yale University. This is a great site for history teachers. http://teach.fcps.net/trt14/Power%20Point%20Games/power_point_games.htm A collection of Powerpoint games, Grades 4 and 5 http://www.sciencecourseware.org On line Science activities . High school Level http://pacificnet.net/~mandel/index.html Teachers helping teachers. A website with many useful resources. http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/fieldtrips2.htm A web site with listing of sites for virtual field trips.
- 3. http://manufacturing.stanford.edu/ Great animations of how everyday things are made http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/theshow/ The site of a PBS Program, “In Search of Shakespeare” http://www.nytimes.com/learning/index.html?8dpc The New York Times Classroom Resource Center has lots of useful info , including quizzes that could be downloaded, printed and used with the “Fast grade” aspect of CPS. www.Pogueman.com Speaking of the New York Times, David Pogue and I are old friends. He was interviewed today ( Jan 27,2007 ) on CNN about Windows Vista. He has a new show coming out in soon on the Discovery Channel. David is the technology columnist for the NY Times, and the smartest person I have ever met. You wont find any lessons or clip art, but if you want to learn about what’s new with technology, David is “da man” He also wrote “Classical Music for Dummies” and “Magic for Dummies”(he has a total of 8 “Dummies” books and all the manuals for the music software , FINALE…Like I said, smart guy. You might find his “Missing manual” books useful. ( I don’t get a commission! ) . He has a new series that premiered May 18, 2007 on the Discovery Channel : “Its all Geek to Me”. He has an informative( and hilarious) set of videos on his NY times web page. Several of David’s “ Its all Geek to Me” videos , and videos on LOTS of topics, Can be found at www.howstuffworks.com. This is a site hosted by the Discovery Channel. While there are videos here on almost any topic you can imagine, there seems to be a lot of science-related and computer-related videos and “how to “ articles. ‘ Do you have students with Ipods or MP3 players. How bout some free audio
- 4. books for them to use ? Here is a list of the books and stories to be found on this site. http://www.oculture.com/weblog/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html * A Christmas Tale, Charles Dickens (iTunes) * A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (iTunes) * Aesop’s Fables, Aesop (mp3 download) * Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (mp3 download) * Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen (mp3 download) * Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche (mp3 download)' * Beyond Lies the Wub, Philip K. Dick (iTunes) * Call of the Wild, Jack London (mp3 download) * Candide, Voltaire (mp3 download) * Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (mp3 download) * Chamber Music, James Joyce (mp3 download) * Collected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (iTunes) * Common Sense, Thomas Paine (mp3 download) * Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes (mp3 download) * Dracula, Bram Stoker (Just an fyi, this is not the best reading I've ever heard.) (iTunes) * Emma, Jane Austen (mp3 download) * Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (rss feed) o Also check out the 1938 radio broadcast that is faithful to Mary Shelley's text. (iTunes) * Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig * Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln (mp3 download) * Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, Patrick Henry (mp3 download) * Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (mp3 download) * Kubla Khan & The Pains of Sleep (mp3 download) * Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence (mp3 download) * Lancelot, or The Knight of the Cart, Chretien DeTroyes (rss feed) * Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (mp3 download) * Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (iTunes) * Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (mp3 download) * Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (mp3 download) * Poetics, Aristotle (mp3 download) * Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (mp3 download) * Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe (iTunes) * Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (mp3 download)
- 5. * Silas Marner, George Eliot (mp3 download) * Shakespeare's Sonnets, William Shakespeare (mp3 download) * The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (mp3 download) * The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (rss feed) * The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (mp3 download) * The Art of War, Sun-tzu (mp3 download) * The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe (iTunes) * The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calveras County, Mark Twain (rss feed) * The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (mp3 download) * The Dungeon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (mp3 download) * The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (mp3 download) * The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (mp3 download) * The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (mp3 download) * The Invisible Man, HG Wells (iTunes) * The Lees of Happiness, F. Scott Fitzgerald (rss feed) * The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (mp3 download) * The New Accelerator, HG Wells (rss feed) * The New Testament (iTunes) * The Prince, Machiavelli (mp3 download) * The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe (mp3 download) * The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (mp3 download) * The Republic, Plato (iTunes) * The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (mp3 download) * The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (mp3 download) * The Tell Tale Heart, Edgar Allen Poe (feed) * The Turn of the Screw, Henry James (mp3 download) * The Warden, Anthony Trollope (mp3 download) * Time Machine, HG Wells (iTunes) * Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (mp3 download) * Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (mp3 download) * Walden, Henry David Thoreau (mp3 download) * War of the Worlds, HG Wells (iTunes) There are also text files accompany most of these audio versions. You might, for example consider projecting them onto an interactive whiteboard and using the sound files to narrate for your students. You could also use a voting pad system to ask questions about either the text or the sound files. I recently found a cable that will allow my ipod to be plugged into the “sound in “ port on my projector. Likewise, an Ipad can be plugged directly into a projector, with the proper adapter, and you could use the ipad to “bring up” these files. If you project onto a screen you can use a wireless tablet let students highlight a key passage, or ask students to underline parts of speech( Circle verbs, underline nouns). Being able to hear and see a passage of text could be very
- 6. powerful. This site has grown since I first found it 10 years ago, and has many new resources including videos. www.juniorgeneral.org A website with dozens of military history simulations. The neat thing is you can print out , on cardboard, the boards games and the soldiers, etc for playing these simulation games. The simulations go all the way back to the Battle of Marathon in Ancient Greece and up to the 20th century. You can also find templates for building a medieval castle . And there are lots of links from the simulations to websites with the actual history of the battle or event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources This site has links to thousands of public domain clip art and other images. These can be used with an IWB(Interactive Whiteboard) to import into CPS questions, or with the the CPS Chalkboard, Interwrite Mobi ( or other wireless tablet) . Here is a table of contents of the images to be found on this site: * 1 History o 1.1 Historical images o 1.2 Specific periods o 1.3 People * 2 Art o 2.1 Visual arts o 2.2 Music * 3 Logos and flags * 4 Postage stamps * 5 General collections * 6 Computer-generated public domain images * 7 Public domain image meta-resources * 8 Uncategorized links o 8.1 U.S. Government sites
- 7. http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/maths/dictionary.html An interactive math dictionary. No “math” is not mis-spelled. This site is in Australia, and people who speak British English called it “maths” . http://www.mrdonn.org/ This site has connections to more things that an average teacher could use than any other site I have found. It is worth checking out for the Clip Art and Powerpoints alone. http://www.sitesforteachers.com/ This site contains a list of Hundreds of sites. Most have free content, while other are ads for “for sale” products. In checking few of the hundreds of free sites, I found many free and useful resources This website has all kinds of games that can be used with either a CPS Chalkboard, or an IWB( interactive whiteboard or “smart board” I mentioned Sheppard software above. These are social studies activities. This site also has a lot of info about creating whiteboard movies with Camtasia Studio, as well as much useful info on Examview http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag- drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html Hundreds of topic-organized Powerpoints, all created and share b y teacher can be found at: http://www.worldofteaching.com/ Here is another website I just got from my friend and mentor, Dr. Kemble Oliver http://www.mapsofwar.com/ These are animated maps from world history. These are not “tactical maps”, but rather some very good animated and narrated maps that show the flow and
- 8. scope of history. Conflict is a key aspect of human history and this site would be ideal to use with a wireless table,IWB, or without. http://www.assortedstuff.com/top101/?page_id=2 This website, created by a teachers lists what he thinks are the top 101 websites with useful information for teachers. They are broken down by category http://www.lexington1.net/technology/?page=instruct/powerpoint.htm A school district website right here in South Carolina that has a lot of really good powerpoints. http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/teacher/kara%20leonard/Mini%20T's/March %20Mini%20T-Games/Games.htm A Georgia site with templates for LOTS of educational Powerpoint games and other great resources http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html This NASA website has all kinds of materials on science education that are free to download, along with links to many good science education web sites. http://i.usatoday.net/tech/graphics/iss_timeline/flash.htm Speaking of NASA, this site is an amazing animation of the International Space station. http://www.pppst.com/themes.html Another site with dozens, if not hundreds of Powerpoints. This site is well organized . There are also Lesson plans to go with many of these Powerpoints! http://boonehallplantation.com/cms_pages/gallery.php If you would like to take a “virtual tour” of an authentic antebellum plantation, then check out this page at the Boone Hall website. I have been friends with the McRae family that owns Boone Hall for many years, and “rode out” Hurricane Hugo there in 1989. I have quite a few pictures of Boone Hall in my personal collection I would be glad to share. http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374
- 9. This is an amazing photo of President Obama giving his inaugural address. This site posts photos that allow you to “zoom” right in and see very small details. For example, you can zoom in this photos and see all the dignitaries on the platform. There are more photos on this site as well. www.making-history.com. This website contains info on a very good historical simulation, the Calm and the Storm, about the events leading up to World War II. You can download the demo version for free. The full working version is reasonably priced. Also, many users have written “Mods” ( Modifications) that can be downloaded. Several of these Mods deal with Alternative History: What if Hitler had won? What if there was a nuclear war? Great stuff and this program lends itself to use with an Interactive whiteboard or wireless tablet This program would work especially well with the Mobi, since you can have more than one Mobi( up to 9) inputting on the same computer at the same time. So you could have each “team” or Country with their own Mobi. http://alltop.com/ This site is the brainchild of my friend, Guy Kawasaki. Guy was part of the original Macintosh evangelist team. He has gone on to write “amazingly great” books about a variety of topics. The idea of this website is simple but brilliant: Alltop is an “online magazine rack” of popular topics. We update the stories every hour. Pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and we’ll deliver it to you 24 x 7. All the topics, all the time So if you have a special interest like sports or education, you can find a collection of the latest files here. www.slideshare.net This is a site where members( it is free to join) can post and share Powerpoints. It is searchable, so you can find useful Powerpoints there. I have already posted a couple about CPS. www.teacherspayteachers.com This website allows teachers to post files they have created and either give them away or sell them. A membership is free. There are several thousand FREE downloads , including many powerpoint files.
- 10. http://www.yourchildlearns.com/owlmouse.htm Free maps, ideal for use with a interactive whiteboard or wireless tablet. http://www.animatedatlas.com/movie2.html Euducational Sims : http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new This site has free “quick reference guides for Windows, Microsoft Office Programs, and Adobe Programs. These are free , handy “cheat sheets” for the software most people have on their computer. http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm The Natonal Library of Virtual Manipulatives has animated graphics GREAT for teaching math. http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html If you have a site you want to share, let me know and I will add to the list. I have posted this file to www.scribd.com where it can be downloaded freely. www.scribd.com is free to join and allows users to post any file they want. It is also searchable and you can find files and even books on almost any subject. To find my files, search :WKMcIntosh , my user name on this site. I am also using www.docstoc.com . I am posting the same info to both sites. And I also use slideshare.net This site organizes the files I post into either
- 11. presentations or documents, which makes them easy to find : http://www.slideshare.net/WKMcIntosh/presentations http://www.slideshare.net/WKMcIntosh/documents By the way, there are materials of all kinds , on any topic you can name, from cookbooks to computer books and lots of education related materials on these sites. You may find information other than that related to eInstruction products. These sites are basically on-line libraries, where anyone can post a document to share. Thanks The sites I have posted here can be used with any projector/whiteboard/student reponse system. I AM a consultant for Dukane, and they offer products in all of these categories. Dukane offers an industry leading FIVE year warranty on most of their products. Please let me know if you would like additional information. Bill McIntosh Authorized Dukane Consultant Phone :843-442-8888 Email :WKMcIntosh@Comcast.net You can find information on all of Dukane products here http://www.slideshare.net/WKMcIntoshIII/documents http://www.slideshare.net/WKMcIntoshIII/presentations http://www.slideshare.net/WKMcIntoshIII/videos.
- 12. As well as on the main Dukane website www.dukane.com/av