1. http://www.collegeboard.com/
This site is offered by the maker of the major standardized tests (AP, SAT exams) and offers students resources on applying to colleges and preparing for the exams. While it is a commercial site, since students are beholden to its tests, the resources the site offers are valuable for students who need calendars for testing/college applications, sample tests for the AP and SAT exams, and helpful hints about financing college. My students used this site to prepare for the AP Literature exam. The site also offers an email service to remind students of upcoming deadlines/important dates.
The Public Broadcasting Service offers a site with resources for people of all ages/interests. Of use to students are links to recent programs and history/literature links, as well as newslinks that are not major-network sponsored. Kiersten used this site when her students studied Huckleberry Finn-there are interactive links on censorship, etc. that her st¬dents accessed. The site has "Culture Shock" sites (such as the one for Huckleberry Finn) which are interactive and available to students of all ages.
Sparknotes is an online "Cliff's Notes" which offers students background information and analysis on major literary works. While we discourage our students from relying heavily on its interpretations of literature, we know that students benefit from the plot summaries and character descriptions. The site enables students to research "around" the works they are reading, and to also determine the bias or mode of literary criticism used by the authors.
4. http://www.bibliomania.com/
Bibliomania is a great resource for students who have forgotten their books; it has a wealth of literature (fiction, poetry, plays, etc.) online with the text in its entirety. Teachers can also use this source to print off excerpts from literature, or cut and paste and insert commentary. In addition to its online texts, the site offers study guides, thesauri, research links and how-tos, and more obscure resources such as interviews, with authors and literary critics.
5. http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/
The "Internet Public Library" offers a "teenspace" link with lots of advice on completing a research paper. In addition, there are reading recommendations, career path suggestions, and special links for girls and students looking for resources on specific subject areas. This is an exemplary site because it breaks down the research process into manageable (and logical) chunks for students, helping them frame a paper, formulate a thesis, etc.
Subject: Cristy McConahey & Stephanie Lessman
Student websites:
1. http://www.learningplanet.com - At this particular website, you can enter the specific grade level, by subject as well as by category. Students can engage in math activities, phonic games, news links, extra worksheets, etc. There are also interactive opportunities for students to be immediately assessed.
2. http://school.discovery.com/students/ - This is a great website for students to receive homework help and brain boosters. There is also a link for parents to be able for parents to connect with their child's learning. There are references for good software. This is opportunity for students to complete webmath activities as well as science fair activities. Students can play games in addition to getting study tips. This site is appropriate for students for grades k-12.
3. http://www.funbrain.com/ - This website allows you to enter by grade level. There are fun games as well as educational games. Students can engage in number activities, word activites, cultural activites, and downloading printable books. There are also chances for students to assess themselves by taking teacher designed quizzes. Word games include grammar, spelling and various types of order of operation practices.
4. http://www.op97.k12.il.us/instruct/ftcyber/index.html - This is a great website for students to publish work that they have done on fairy and folk tales. The cyber dictionary tells about familiar tales using aphabetical order to organize key features. The projects reinforce comprehension as well as vocabulary and phonics. Students can add their own entries to the websire, making it a valuable tool for both learning and idea sharing.
5. http://www.gameskidsplay.net/ - This site is a wealth of resources for students to learn both educational and recreational games. They are also categorized efficiently, making it a useful to teachers and parents.
From: megan ryan <megryan5@yahoo.com>
Websites for our students to use:
http://www.upenn.edu/museum
1. This site puts a museum of archeology and anthropology in the students fingertips. It provides an opportunity to tour their resources, research, gives students the terms associated with fossils. The visuals are what make this site great, as well as the updates on fossil findings and the pictures of items uncovered. It is the feeling
of history being uncovered.
http://www.beritsbest.com/
2. Website for kids. Allows them to "search" and teaches them search to answer a homework question. Also has resources for parents. This site is attractive because its written information and visuals make it very easy to understand for all. It also is attractive to more people, as it has sections for parents as well.
http://www.scholastic.com/clifford/kids/school.htm
3. Bright, fun, educational site for primary children. Games, rhymes and story characters are used to teach and intrigue students to read. Excellent because it takes something directly related to their background knowledge, or intrigues them to learn more (about Clifford in books) and gets them to comfortable navigate on the computer.
http://www.bobsedulinks.com/mathematics.htm
4. Useful to all ages, and can help a variety of skill levels. This site has math games for all grade levels. Ability to work on a specific skill (ie, addition equations) contributes to effectiveness of sight.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
5. This "digital library of source materials" on the topic of the Humanities is useful to students doing research. Site is also very good because it lists some top articles to "hook" the student interests so they will be motivated to learn more! Site is supported/run by Tufts University.
From Ruthie, Becky, and Jill
Student Resources:
http://www.poetry.com This is a good website because it has student tests (multiple choice test on theme, for example). It also allows students to publish their poetry on the web. It talks about poetic techniques and it has many famous poems (some even on audio). The website is hosted by the International Library of Poetry.
This is a site geared towards high school students who are applying to college. There are links to college entrance tests, help to plan for college, college searches, online applaications for colleges, and scholarship searches. It is a good resource for high school students, to help them plan for, search, apply to, and pay for college. It is hosted the College Board.
This is the website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. There is a whole section of this site dedicated to education. There are teacher resources as well as student resources. For students, there are links to research and they can access the museum on-line. Thsi is a procatical web iste which is easy for students to navigate.
http://www.geocities.com/jacklondons
This is one example of a website for students to browse as they are reading works by a particular author. There are writing tips, author bios, photographs, and stories on-line. This is a good supplemental resource for students to access to gain background knowledge about a book and/or author.
http://www.press-enterprise.com/nie/
This is the Press enterprise's Newspaper in Education website. On this site, students can access homework help with links to sites chosen to help them with their homework.Students also can write letters to the editor. Therre are also fun educational games. This site is exceptional because it makes learning relevant by integrating it with current news topics. It is easily navigable.
Our Conclusion:
We, as English teachers, noticed that the websites the three of us agreed are "exemplary" are easy to navigate and are teacher friendly in that the resources could be implemented in our classrooms the very next day.
Sally Nguyen & Camille Gibson
Useful Student Websites
http://school.discovery.com/students/
Description: This website provides students with learning tools, fun activities as well as learning adventures.
Exemplary: Students can make use of tools such as Puzzlemaker and webMath to enhance their learning. Students also learn as the are playing the games found on the website as well as the learning adventures.
http://whyfiles.org/
Description: Students learn about science current news through a newspaper story format. Each story is readable, contains a headline science topic and good graphics.
Exemplary: For students who wish to learn more about current science topics or do research on science issues, this website provides readable and interesting articles. The stories also correlate to National Science standards.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobook.html
Description: This website is an animal information database. It contains information about many animals along with career information and weblinks to conservation groups.
Exemplary website: This is a good database for students doing research on animals and issues of ecology. Also, it has links to other websites regarding conservation and plants found in the different ecological environments.
http://www.noodletools.com/
Description: This website contains examples of bibliographies for different types of paper. Also, it contains a checklist that points students to the best web browser depending on their need. For younger students unfamiliar with creating references, Quick Cite is a program designed to help create MLA-style references.
Exemplary: Students unfamiliar with bibliography references can use the examples to generate their own references. Also, by creating this checklist, students are steered towards a web browser best for them instead of randomly searching through different search engines.
http://www.scifair.org/
Description: This website contains all necessary information for students to create a good science fair project.
Exemplary: It shows how to create a project, gives students ideas and how to best present their projects on the display board. The best thing about this website is the forum that allows students to post a project proposal and receive feedback about their project. Also, students can find out ongoing science research by subject area.
Dr. Levin,
Following are the ranked websites for students:
1. http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/
This is a great website for students who would like to improve their
Spanish. Students read various stories that have a rich, cultural Latino
environment. They take a trip to Ecuador while reviewing the preterite and
the imperfect. They can click on more challenging vocabulary and they are
given pictures to aid in understanding. There are also exercises that they
can try along the way. This website also incorporates popular music (Man‡)
to engage students. It's a great, entertaining website.
2. http://www.clta.net/lessons/toppspanish.html
This website connects students with geographical guides, newspapers, foods,
sports, music, literature, and other really "cool" websites. Kids can
"travel," "eat," etc. All of these are links that lead you to many amazing
sites.
3. http://www.studyspanish.com
This is a great website for vocabulary development and grammar practice.
Students are given a lesson followed by practice activites and quizzes.
They can send their teacher the results of the quizzes. There are also fun
activities like word searches, concentration games, and flashcards.
4. http://www.tourbymexico.com
If students are doing any projects that have to do with Mexico, its culture,
and fun places to visit there, this is the site to visit. It's very
informative, full of pictures and interesting information. Students can
visit every state in Mexico and see the differences and similarities.
5. http://www.geocities.com/ico_sg/index.html
If you like to incorporate music into your Spanish classes, this is a good
site to begin with. There are about 10 little children's songs (the lyrics
and the music) and students can learn culture and vocabulary through this.
Adiós,
Kenia Milloy
Lilia Herrera
From: Kerry Ensberg <kensberg@mail.sandi.net>
Kerry's and Agustin's
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education/
http://www.askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/index.shtml
http://www.ascd.org/
http://www.pdkintl.org/
http://www.educationworld.com/
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/home.aspx
http://teacher.scholastic.com/
From: Jo Brinkman <jbrinkma@ucsd.edu>
Subject: URLs from Kim & Jo and why we chose them
Cc: ksharman@cox.net
Prof.Levin:
Revised and improved list of excellent URLs for both teachers and students:
For Students:
http://nasa.govwebsites.htm Outstanding website with lots of activities.
http://ueet.nasa.gov/studentsite/ This is a link from above. Excellent! Good for both teacher and student.
http://enchantedlearning.com This site has so much and many excellent resources for teacher and student.
http://berenstainbears.com Lots to choose from here. Students will love this link.
http://eduplace.com/tales/ I loved this site because the students have so much choice!
http://eduweb.com This site offers online activities in all subjects. Excellent!
Brooke and Christy's Web Site List
For The Student:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
Exploratorium: Science, Art & Human Perception
Good site for kids of all ages with several exhibit halls to enter:
games, cams, videos, experiments
http://www.cellsalive.com/
Cells Alive!
Excellent site for biology students with basic information and actual
photos of cells, interactive lesons, videos, downloads
http://school.discovery.com/students
Discovery Channel School
Good place for students to link to sites and exhibits for: homework help,
games, puzzles, science fair and learning topics (I liked the Salem Witch
hunt)
http://eduweb.com/pintura
A. Pintura Art Detective
Students (grade 4 and up) play an investigative game that allows them to
learn about art while investigating 'The Case of Grandpa's Painting" . . .
students learn art concepts while doing a noir-style hunt
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/authors.html
Children's Literature WebGuide
Lets students link to the websites of different authors, for learning
about authors, seeing more books by their favorite authors or doing
reports on authors
Barbara Edwards and Phil Ensberg
5 Sites for Students:
1. http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/ALSC/Great_Web_Sites_for_Kids/Great_Web_Sites_for_Kids.htm
American Library Association link to resources for kids of all ages,
organized by subject area.
2. http://www.starfall.com/
Games that help kids learn to read for elementary students.
3. http://memory.loc.gov
Online reources for teaching and learning American history for secondary
students.
4. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?page=student_competitions
Competitions and other news for secondary students of American History.
5. http://puzzlemania.net/1_1/frames.asp
Spanish page for Spanish speaking elementary or beginning Spanish
students of any age.