"Education is not the filling of a pail, but rather the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
Introduction to Professional Development
The goals of this professional workshop are:
[1] to acquaint you with some useful web resources links and sites. This page provides the basis for review or introduce you to some professional development sites. The purpose here, also, is to offer some links tot areas that may not usually be on your own surfing agenda.
[2] The second major goal is to help you integrate your curriculum standards with some of our existing technology tools, including web page development with Powerpoint. You will be taught how to use Powerpoint to design web pages, and link them with your existing homework and or class websites.
[3] Exit Strategy: Upon completing this workshop it is the intended goal that you build additional resources or materials for your classes and curriculum.
To be consistent with district, building and personal professional development goals, we will start with sites for the various national and state content standards. The OGT and proficiency tests require us to teach in alignment with these standards. Links to aligning with standards are offered. There are several standards bodies out there, including materials from our own state site. Take time to look into your area and grade level. On a larger scale are sites that are web portals [sort of "internet wallmarts" ]just about everything is found at a portal.
Additionally there are links to DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act ] and fair usage rules. Some confusion exists over citation, usage and piracy that these sites address. There are some web and resource online evaluation tools for teachers and students. Ithaca College's John Henderson has provided some very useful tools to examine the content and validity of web based information. Take a tour of this section! For those of you who are looking for some inquiry based links, they can be found at the WebQuest sites.
In the content section I have provided some links to the various disciplines or grade levels,
Part of this listing is to provide you with info about the info! What are some things you need to know about searching? Offered at the bottom are some other evaluative tools about search engines themselves, a chart on engines and indexes, and some pointers about these resources as well. Below find 8 sections in the index, before you leave peruse each one for a few minutes. This web site is linked off the district site, http://canfield.access-k12.org
*Click here for the direct link to our IPDP site, to update or create your IPDP.
Disclaimer: I can not verify that all links here are live or updated, and in advance offer this disclaimer. Notify me if you find such bad links and I will try to verify their status, redirect the links or remove them.
ODE/Ohio Links
At the federal/national level the Department of Education is a good starting Point for National Trends and Resources, as well as links to professional development and teacher, student and parent information. In many ways it is a portal.
Professional Develop from DOE this site offers resources and links to a variety of areas K-12, for example NCREL offers "a comprehensive Web source on school professional development (PD). You will on their web site find a full range of information geared to help you make professional development a bedrock of excellence in your school or district. This site is designed for school and district-level teachers, administrators, and others interested in improving professional development.
Educational Resources for Ohio ...This web site contains hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for the user's convenience. The U.S. Department of Education does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to particular items in hypertext is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed, or products or services offered, on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites.
*You can also find out "who's who" in the state in terms of directors of agencies, organizations, for example who is the head of the state council for humanities, or director of special education. Very useful directory!
Academic Content Standards: ODE [Ohio Department of Education ]
Mathematics Foreign Language | Foreign Language
Science Technology | Technology
Social Studies Library | Library
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A 'David Letterman approach' to the Top Ten Teacher-Web Sites and more; this site [TeAch-nology.com ] is one of many that attempts to rank, like TV ratings, the top teacher- friendly sites. There are 200 top sites listed and annotated. Portals:Another site learningPage.com also ranks top sites. Either site can take a lot of time to explore and a very rich in links, content and resource s.
Lesson Plans at LessonPlans.com "...cordially invites you to become a member of LessonPlans.com. In co-ordination with The Educators Network, we send out a weekly newsletter that contains Lesson Planning Ideas and Resources, along with a variety of other Theme Units and Teaching Tools. In addition, all new members have the option of choosing any 1 of 3 FREE Educational CD-Rom Titles. " This site offers lesson plan generators, searches, and encourages you to build and archive your work for others as well.
Also here's a great listing of portals by subject/content area.
The National Endowment for the Humanities offers its Edsitement portal to resources and materials for classroom and professional development. It is worth a visit!
The ***Gateway to Educational MaterialsSM is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. This is as good a starting point for an educator as there is!
GEM is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
Kathy Schrock's DiscoverySchool.com offers a portal to the web as well .Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning. This site is really loaded with professional quality materials and presentation.. She's one of the web's originals.
And finally, our own InfoOhio resources, including bigchalk resources, EB is at ACCESS. The InfoOhio resources really can be useful.
First Gov - official portal for U.S.government, with links to state and local governments. Search by keyword, or use subject tree directory.
The Educators Network offers some very good features:for example it provides annotated links to resources on standards, citing and evaluating Web sites, and understanding copyright and fair use laws as they apply to the use and creation of educational materials on the Web. such as Citing Digital Resources,Copyright and Fair Use Information, Evaluating Digital Resources ,Standards-History and Social Studies FOR EXAMPLE find info on copyright and fair use, how to cite digital resources in various formats [Turabian,M LA-style Citation Format: etc. ] EXCELLENT SITE FOR COPYRIGHT IN GENERAL*
Try this link if you need to see how to reference any electronic or web based source, with great and quick examples.
Often the evaluation of a website or sources is a challenge, John R. Henderson, Ithaca College Library, maintains a site for training teachers or students on how to evaluate sites; he presents three challenges. One is on the sixties, and one on eggs and cholesterol. Very engaging and challenging. For this workshop I would like everyone to take his brief online quiz once you get to the website! also see National Endowment for the Humanities links to evaluating web sites.
Also for more middle school and high related evaluation go to history matters for some excellent pointers and sources on evluating websites and resources, priimary documents, etc.
Trying to sort out the gems from the junk on the Internet? Another useful site on evaluation is The good, the Bad and the Ugly. maintained by Susan E. Beck ,Head, Reference & Research Services Department,New Mexico State University Library.
Want to do an online exercize to test you or your students? Try this Lesley University activity--its fun too.
Finally, " Better Read that again" is an article that comprepehsively examines hoxes, urban legends, hacks, misinformation, malicious and other websites that studetns can be influenced [ "Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation", by Paul S. Piper, Librarian, Western Washington University ]
At the end of this article he offers a "Where to go for help?" guide for learning more about such misleading or counterfeit sites. Very consumer friendly!
Ask yourself, do: I need images and sounds (photos, art, designs, logos, videos, music, noises), media types (Java, .mp3) or file extensions [jpg or gif]. I need quality, evaluated pathfinders prepared by a subject expert. I need balanced information from verified sources for a school research project to take home. I need perspectives from other countries and regions. I need invisible web resources (access to databases not commonly indexed by search engines Need to get sojme quick hits? Or need info on a broad academi c subject? Try this "site adviser" site. The Noodle tools site is very very solid and as it says "NoodleBib is based on the guidelines presented in the APA Publication Manual (5th ed.) and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Gibaldi, 5th ed.). Citations generated by the tool should match the syntax presented in these books.
Try this link to see where you might want to start an intelligent search. Very useful tool.
NoodleQuest is based on Debbie's award-winning Web page, "Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need" (now available on the NoodleTools site as part of NoodleTeach). Selection of a search strategy in NoodleQuest is performed usi ng a non-biased matching algorithm developed by Damon Abilock. Choose the Best Search for your Information Need on this link.
For librarians or educators used to the older Dewey Decimal system of seaarching tyr Dewey Browse Created and Maintained by Gail Shea Grainger Web Sites Classified by the Dewey Decimal Classification Sys tem for Grades K-12.
What is a WebQuest? A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in whic h most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model was developed in early 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge with Tom March, and was outlined then in Some Thoughts About WebQuests. Try this site which offers a K-12 matrix of webquest activities.
An interesting example is American Dreams which describes itself as" ....[a] WebQuest [that]challenges you to investigate the American Dream ...look through the eyes of those who lived before us ...use the American Memory collecti ons, The Library of Congress, to visit America's past ...learn research skills and experience the richness of the library collections ...defend your ideas, create products that show your understanding of others' dreams ...then share your dream for America's future.
Note this project with its lesson plans is directly linked with standards, such as National Educa tional Technology Standards.
Very useful set of examples by grade-level of WebQuests, There is something here for K-12 in vritually all of the academic disciplines.
K-5: A neat example during baseball season is available for Language Arts. Also excellent is the NEH links to lesson plans for the various subject areas, linked here is an example of their lanugage arts matrix This is a really comprehehnsive list of excellent lesson plans, laid out and designed as well as any I have seen.
K-12 Language Arts, has about 122 links! In Global Languages the emphasis is on European languages. The site also offers Eurcocosm --which is a subscription site. Where Would You Move? A Webquest of Spanish Speaking Countries is a neat activity. This site offers neat themes, but some of the URLs appear not to work all of the time!
University of Oregon's Glob al Language resources,
Conjugate any verb in 100 languages.
Also try Blue Web'N --very well done, trained and juried resources, its got hundres of links.
AskEric Website for Lesson Plans
This collection contains more than 2000 unique lesson plans which have been written and submitted to AskERIC by teachers from all over the United States and the world. Contributions from individuals are essential to the collection; it is how it grows! If you have a great lesson plan you would like to share, please send it to us. Our lesson plans are also included in GEMwhich links to over 25,000 online education resources. Search the ASKERICLessonCollection!
Example: The Notion of Motion
Start with a site that is hard to improve on: the New York Times Learning Network!
Loaded with resources, lesson plans, links and materials, including reproducible maps.Resources are categorized by the ten themes of the Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.
Teaching about The Gulf [2003] War and war in general: good overall materials, elementary and secondary.
http://www.kershaw.k12.sc.us/resources/war.htm
Special for families and younger kids: PBS Parents - http://www.pbs.org/parents/issuesadvice/war/
Talking with Kids about War & Violence: Learn how to answer children's challenging questions by seeing the world through their eyes.
The State's Newspaper in Education (NIE) - http://www.niethestate.com/
Newspaper in Education is a program that makes newspapers available to teachers for use in the classroom. These newspapers serve as "real world" textbooks which can be used along with other textbooks or with NIE activity guid es.
SCETV's K-12 School Services War Resources - http://www.scetv.org/k12/warresources.htm
Resources for Teaching About: War, Terrorism and Conflicts
Open Lines: Kids connect on World Events - http://www.openlines.org/
SCETV web site designed for young people to share their thoughts, and connect with others around the world, about events that are happening
Looking for maps, resources, reference materials for you next geography unit: try Geography Site
Mathematics
K-4 Math
http://my.nctm.org/eresources/school_level.asp?lv=1
Teaching kids math
Teaching Children Mathematics (TCM) offers activities, lesson ideas, teaching str ategies, and problems through in-depth articles, departments, and features. Great resources for elementary teachers, preservice teachers, and teacher educators. Article downloads are free to individual members that subscribe to Teaching Children Mathematics.
http://my.nctm.org/eresources/journal_home.asp?journal_id=4
Neat site with "gamey" approach and problems:
URL:http://www.figurethis.org/
Baltimore CountySchools Esseential Curriculum porject is really very solid for all phases, including gifted programs resources. Its worht it just for the graphic layouts! This is a virtual standa rd for others to imitate.
The North Central Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Consortium (NCEMSC) is one of ten consortia funded by the U.S. Department of Education under the National Eisenhower Program. MSC works to advance systemic change in mathematics and science in a seven-state region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Founded in 1920, NCTM is the world's largest mathematics education organization , with more than 100,000 members and 250 Affiliates throughout the United States and Canada.
Middle School
Neat project using Inspiration [Pollution as the topic]
NMSA's Institute for Middle Level Leadership
Excellent sites for Middle School math resources, articles, lesson plans. All from the journal.
http://my.nctm.org/eresources/school_
http://my.nctm.org/eresources/journal_home.asp
Want to teach kids [and yourself] through a series of tutorials on all things-web related, try this site at Albany university.
Want to build links for your kids and do not know HTML? Try Filamentality. And also take a look at Blue Web'N
Elementary Sources
The ABC toon center has some interesting "fun" for younger kids, such as their "game room" center. along the same lines is Primary Games. For teachers looking for curriculum guides, see the in dexed section. The math section has pizza fractions game, which is a neat example of the type of activities on this site. There are mapped activities for Math | Language Arts | Science | and Social Studies.
Flashcard Eschange offers 498,208 flashcards!!! AIt is good for ALL levels, and is a huge site to preview. " The autho rs of the site say "The Flashcard Exchange is a community supported site where you, the user of the site, make flashcards for yourself, your students or your peers. It is this sense of community that really makes this site a valuable resource for all. Study to your heart's content, but also enter some flashcards before you leave"
I found some flaws and errors, and some problems with some of the sources --not untypical for many sites.
For 4-5th grades especially Learning Caliber has a good virtual library for teachers. Also very neat new site is 42xplore, lots of categorical activity ideas.
Neat project using Inspiration [Pollution as the topic]
How stuff works, acctually a K-12 resource, but still valuable for this level on certain subjects. An easy to use quick-find is at FactMontser, I did a search on SARS and found nothing, so it may not be real upto date.
Searching with Kids Sit down with your child, try a search at a few of these sites, then bookmark your favorites. Each of these search sites attempts to link only to safe sites, but ad ult supervision is still the most important key to using the Internet with children. For example Searchopolis is a filtered search engine for children and teenagers. Fast Find categories are especially helpful. ALFY is a new, graphic web portal targeted especially for children between the ages of 3 to 10. Everything is images -- no reading required. This site REALLY has a "flashy" home page, lot s of "bells and whistles". Very gamey! Very inviting!
Portfolio Assessments can be found at abcteach directory, it offers templates, forms and r esources on how to contruct portfolios.
1. Most publishers that review search engines, either on the net or in print, have a financial interest or partnership with the search engines they review. So much for an unbiased opinion!
2. For a fee, some search engines allow certain web pages to come up more often when searching.
3. We find most people to have more successful searches with meta-searches. Meta-searches search multiple databases from multiple search engines. We really like goggle.com and c4.com.
4. Most web designers make sure to list their site with the 'big 3,' (Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Google), because these sites have the most extensive collec tion.
5 Some search engines are using monetary-driven tactics to return web pages. These sites require payment to become listed on their service. Companies bid on keywords, such as the word "teaching." For example, if I bid 50 cents for my web site to be listed every time the word "teaching" is entered and I out bid everyone else on that word, every time "teaching" is entered into the search engine, my site will be the first listed. A lot of web sites are not l isted with these services because of the associated costs. Using these types of engines only returns corporate web sites or people who are only interested in monetary gain. That monetary gain is from you.
6. Some search engines and indices totally overwhelm you with information. Recently, we took a look at a top-rated search engine. The home page alone consisted of over 300 words and 20 pictures. To newcomers it is comparable to a first trip to Las Vegas. This type of content can distract you. In most cases, the best search engines are also the simplest.
7. Speed- some search engines use slow servers and some servers are slowed down due to too much traffic. Most engines have addressed this and it's no longer an issue.
8.Meta-search engines are secondary tools that allow you to search several of the major search engines in one step. Different meta-search engines work in a variety of different ways, but each takes your search query and processes it through multiple search engines. Some will process the query through one search engine and then another. Parallel search engines process the query through multiple search engines at the same time. Some of these tools will then compile, sort through and reformat the data it compiles in an attempt to eliminate duplicate records or present first what it selects as the most appropriate records.
9. Many times, starting with a good annotated or evaluative subject index is more profitable than going immediately to a search engine. Search engines don't do anything more than compile lists, but subject indexes are created by people who have already worked for you by searching through a myriad of possible Web sites and select the relevant, reliable, and worthy sites. Especially, if the index or subject guide is specific to a subject or discipline, an expert in the field may be doi ng the selecting. Of course, an important element is that you have to be sure the people creating the guide are staying current and on top of things, or the new and most useful sites will be missed. Try this index for example,the Librarians Index to the Internet. One nice thing about the searching resources is that you can do news searches, library searches. Recommended site**
10.. What's the type of engine you are using? 1st or 2nd generation engines generate different results. Are you sing the right engine? For example with some 2nd generation engines you can first review concept categories retrieved by your search before examining the results within particular categories.
Adobe Acrobat PDF version - prints on 2 pages. See also Search Engines
Search Tools Chart
Selected Internet Search Engines
Search Engine
Database
Boolean
Other search ;options
Miscellaneous
google.com
Adv anced Search.
Subject Directory (enhanced Open Directory).Full text of Web pages, PDF, Microsoft Office, PostScript, WordPerfect, Lotus, and others. (about 3B 1B partially indexed U RLs)
Caches indexed pages - great for finding 404s
AND (default), OR.
+ only to include stop (common) words or to require specific domain in URL or on page (e.g., +edu).
- to remove.* a wildcard (replace word(s) in phrase).
Quotes for phrase.
Fields: allintitle:, allinurl:, link:, site:, more.
Uncle Sam (.gov & .mil)
Can search within subject directory categories.
Similar pages - finds related sites
Spell checker.
Groups: 700M+ Usenet posts 1981-date.
Images: 400M+
News updated hourly. 50+ languages. Translates 5 European languages.
International Searches.
AllTheWeb
alltheweb.com
Advanced Search.
No Subject Directory, but uses dynamic clustering based on Open Directory.
Full text of Web pages, PDF, Word, Flash (about 2B)
Plus: Real Time News Search a nd Pictures; Video; MP3; and FTP databases.
+ to require.
- to remove.
AND (default).
For OR, put words in ( ) w/o "or"
Advanced Search only: AND, OR, ANDNOT, RANK, more.
No truncation; Quotes for phrase.
Advanced Search template: limit by file format, language, date, text, title, link name, URL, link to URL, domain, IP address. Should include raises term in results ranking.
Advanced search for pictures & videos, allows limiting by media format; whether image transparent; whether audio or video streaming or download only.
AltaVista
altavista.com
Advanced Search (Best to use).
Subject Directory (LookSmart).
Full text of Web pages (about 1B)
RealNames corporate, product finder.
+ to require.
- to remove.
AND (default).
Advanced Search only: AND, OR, AND NOT, NEAR, Nesting ( )< BR>Quotes for phrase.
* to truncate.
Case-sensitive.
Can use "natural" language.
Limit by date, language.
Fields: domain: host: image: title: url: link: like: anchor: applet:
Au tomatic phrase detection
Spell checker
Services: Image, Audio Video, & News Search.
Translates 8 European and Asian languages.
International Searches
Teoma
teoma.com
Advanced Search.
Ranks based on # of subject-specific pages linked from.
Full text of Web pages (about 1B)
+ to require.
- to remove.
AND (default).
Quotes to include stop (common) words (eg. "the").
No truncation.
Quotes for phrase.
Fields: intitle: inurl: site: geoloc: lang: last: afterdate: beforedate: betweendate: (also available via Advanced Search Template).
Clusters results: Refine suggests categories from search result; Resources provides expert pages and lin ks pages on topic searched.
Spell checker.
Selected Internet Meta-Search Engines
Meta-Search Engine
Database
Boolean
Other search options
Miscellaneous
Ixquick
ixquick.com
Searches AltaVista, Ask Jeeves/Teoma, MSN, Yahoo & more.
Uses whatever search operators engine searched uses.
Also has meta search for: News, MP3 files, Pictures
Great feature: Aggregates and ranks results. Eliminates dupl icates.
Vivisimo
vivisimo.com
Searches AltaVista, MSN, Lycos, BBC, & more. (Select in Advance d Search).
AND (default), OR, - to exclude.
Also searches subject engines on topics such as News, Business, Technology, & Sports.
Clus ters results.
Good for topical and current event searching.
Ask Jeeves
www.ask.com
Also has Ask Jeeves for Kids.
www.ajkids.com
Answers to millions of questions from evaluated sites.
Also searches Teoma.com.
No Boolean - use natural language.
Quotes for phrases is useful for Teoma search results.
Good for simple questions.
Use Remove Frames feature to see URL of search result.
Selected Internet Subject Directories
Subject Directory
Data base
Boolean
Other search options
Miscellaneous
Resources useful to public library users, evaluated & annotated by librarians.
(about 10K).
AND (default), OR, NOT, Nesting ( ).
Quotes for phrase.
Stems automatically (can turn off)
* to truncate.
Fields (Advanced Search only): subject; title; description; URL; author; publisher.
Entries Categorized:
Directories
Databases
Specific Resources
Browse topic pages or by subject headings used.
Yahoo
www.yahoo.com
Search defaults to Google if nothing found in Yahoo.
Advanced S earch.
Submitted Web pages (about 2M)
Topic & region specific Yahoos - Kids (Yahooligans), Japan, SF Bay, etc.
+ to require.
- to remove.
AND (default), OR (CAPS only)Quotes for phrase.
* to truncate.
Fields:
t:title; u:URL
News: hourly
Stocks: etc.
Sports: scores, etc.
Maps, Weather
Ratings:indicates best content.
Encyclopedia Britannica
www.britannica.com
Rated and annotated Web sites (about 100K).
Articles from 70+ magazines.
Encyclopedia Britannica (72,000+ article capsules)
OR (default), AND, NOT, Nesting ( ).
Quotes for phrase.
* to truncate.
Can also search Merriam Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus.
Uses British spelling.
INFOMINE
infomine.ucr.edu
Advanced Search.
< P>Scholarly Internet resources, selected and annotated by (mostly) UC librarians. (about 23K).
AND (default), OR, NEAR, Nesting ( ).
Quotes for phrase; pipes (|term|) for exact word or words;
Stemming (can turn on or off in Advanced); * to truncate.
Fields:
subject; title; author; keyword; or description.
Can search all Databases or by specific one.
Can browse by subjects in each Database.Academic Info
academicinfo.net
College and research level (also useful for high school) Int ernet resources selected and annotated by librarian Michael Madin. (about 13K).
AND, OR (default), NOT, Nesting ( ).
None.
Can browse by subject, reference desk, or student center categories.
© 2003 Infopeople Project, http://infopeople.org/search/chart.htmlby Carole Leita, leita at infopeople dot org. for the Infopeople Project, supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. This document may be printed or copied for non-commercial use without further permission of the author, provided this notice is present.
[http://servtlc.access-k12.org/professional development]