Great Instructional Websites

Blue Web'n is an excellent beginning place for thinking about the different educational uses of the internet. It is based on a useful typology of web-based tutorials, activities, projects, lesson plans, hotlists, resources, and references and tools; see its quick definition page for an elaboration of these distinctions. A more elaborate elaboration and discussion may be found in Tom March's "Sorting Strands of the World Wide Web for Educators" and in his "Working the Web for Education." The selection of teaching-oriented sites, subdivided by subject area, is particularly fine and is kept up-to-date. This is very likely the best education site on the internet.

Math and Reading Help for Kids is a user-friendly directory of hundreds of articles and resources to help parents and children make informed decisions about school related issues. This website also recommends children's tutoring and educational games to help kids improve math and reading skills. There is a wealth of practical advice and information here, useful for teachers as well.

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is hosted by the California State University Center for Distributed Learning and offers a growing collection of online teaching resources from around the world. While anyone can view the online collection, membership (available for free upon registration) gives users rights to post new resources and to comment on existing ones. The focus is on university-level teaching, but many of the resources could be used at the secondary level as well.

EduHound is maintained by T.H.E. Journal (Technological Horizons in Education) and provides a useful classification and listing of a broad range of educational sites. Teacher-related topics such as standards and assessment and educational software are included. T.H.E. Journal is available online and also by free subscription.

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators provides an easy-to-use, subject-based list of sites on the internet that can be used to enhance both classroom activities and professional growth. There are a lot of very nice websites collected here, as well as useful "slide shows" for teachers about using the web.

This History/Social Studies Web Site includes humanities as well, and has a large collection of relevant links. The size of the collection here can be daunting at times and not all links are annotated, but there are many gems to be found. The websites in the Creative Applications section are chosen for the way they creatively utilize the web's educational potential; check them out!

EdHelper.com provides links to a large number of online lesson plans organized by subject. It also includes on its entry page a useful set of links to recent articles on education-related subjects.

The Busy Teachers' WebSite K-12 offers specific lesson plans and projects for many subjects, as well as opportunities for classes to participate in ongoing "interactive web projects."

EDSITEMENT: The Best of the Humanities on the Web is sponsored by the National Endowment of the Humanities and includes an excellent array of NEH websites under the categories of Art and Culture, Literature and Language Arts , Foreign Language, and History and Social Studies.

Educational Resources and Lesson Plans includes just that, including lesson plans designed to make use of the internet and a variety of other useful resources.

180 Technology Tips for Educators provides 5-minute instructions on how to do all sorts of useful things with computers and the internet.

Room 108 contains links to all sorts of online educational games and interactive sites in the music, science, math, social studies, and more. An unusual and very entertaining set of resources.

The New York Times Learning Network offers a lesson plan related to a current news story as well as a very useful archive of previous ones, along with news quizzes and other teaching resources. The Times also maintains a useful general purpose page used by its newsroom to navigate the web.

Free Powerpoint Presentations on all subjects. Great for Math and ELA but also some great ideas for Science and Social Studies. Also, take a look at the games. Great for all ages!

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence provides long lists of educational resources from government agencies and government-funded projects by subject area. The lists are not annotated, but there is an abundance of excellent resources here.