Teacher Resources

Resources from Louisiana Department of Education

Classroom Teacher Support Toolbox to help you navigate LA's plan for student achievement.

COMPASS or TAP the Louisiana teacher evaluation programs

Archive of bi-monthly newsletters from the Louisiana Dept of Education

Louisiana Board of Secondary and Elementary Education (BESE)

Helpful Tools to Make your Job Easier 

Convert Word documents to PDF format. Use for sending recommendations to students.

PDF Candy has tools to convert documents and other media to needed formats. 

More tools from Investintech.com to make conversions from one format to another.

The Learning Network blog from The New York Times offers many useful teacher lessons, resources and activities (free on campus until 12/31/21.)

At CoolTools.net you can create activities, games, quizzes and diagrams in seconds.

Web 2.0 Tools and More Technology Aids for Teachers

The Epic eBook of Web Tools and Apps published in August 2020. 

Commonsense Media has collected a list of best tools for distance and remote learning

LwDT Support  is a website  compiled by Lenva Shearing with 100's of web 2.0 tools organized efficiently. (blocked on school campus)

Create an Animoto education account so you or your students can create videos with music.

Use Diigo to organize all your bookmarks, screenshots, etc; you can get an educator account without ads.

You can find links to many more web tools in Ms. Kahn's Diigo.

Technology  blog by teacher Richard Byrne with free resources and lessons; this blog offers amazing tools for teachers to use.

Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ELL teacher, collects the best websites for teachers on his blog.

Create a screencast to create on-demand mini-lessons for your students. Use Screencastify, Screencast-O-Matic, or Loom. 

Collaborize is a free site designed for teachers to extend the classroom walls within  a private online community.

4Teachers offers online tools and resources to help you integrate technology into lessons.

Catpin will create a test sheet with bubbles, just like the standardized tests or try ZipGrade to scan answers on your phone for $6.99/year.

Online Teacher Communities

Teacher Cast is a community of teachers for 21st Century learning with many resources created by teachers for teachers.

TES Connect is the largest teacher network in the world. 

Share My Lesson is sponsored by AFT and allows all teachers to register for the free resources. 

Connect with other teachers on Classroom 2.0. The social network for teachers.

Guidance in Writing Outstanding Recommendation Letters for Students

Have you been asked to write a recommendation letter for a student?

Words to use in recommendation letters with examples:

Passion: devotion, commitment, enthusiasm, energy, dedication to learning

Perseverance: follow-through, ability to overcome obstacles, fortitude

Compassion: kindness, humanity, generosity, selflessness, community awareness, tolerance

Interpersonal skills: leadership, teamwork, cooperation, sense of humor

Creativity: entrepreneurism, originality, innovation, imagination

Maturity: independence, judgment, thoughtfulness

Honesty: integrity, honor, morality

Curiosity: adventurousness, willingness to take calculated risks, inquisitiveness

(these words and more can be found on The Virtue Project website.

Superlatives to use when writing recommendation letters.

150 words that you might use when writing recommendation letters from The Huffington Post. 

Tips on writing quality recommendation letters from OWL at Purdue.

Tutorials and Videos for Teachers

How to create interactive worksheet/s in Google Slides.

Set up a project inbox in Noodle Tools to view students' projects.

Find guidance to using Google Classroom in the Google for Education Teacher Center

Mr. Campbell Rocks has many short videos explaining Google and tools for remote learning

Here is a user's guide for Flubaroo which is integrated into Google Docs. 

Use videos from Ted Ed that were created in all subject areas with your students.

Grant Sources 

Get Ed Funding is brought to you by CDW-G. Register for the site so you can save grants of interest.

Donors Choose, an online charity that connects donors to classrooms in need.

Use this tool from Perma-Bound to seek out specialized grants for your program.

Digital Wish is a program set up to get classrooms needed technology.

Collection of links to grants from 4teachers.

Non-Fiction Narrative Texts 

Find all these works online:

Newslea was designed to help students improve literacy skills with relevant non-fiction texts, in other words, daily news.

The Best Science and Nature Writing Series has been collated since 2000 from various magazines. 

Here are 100 pieces of the best in journalism brought to you by The Atlantic magazine as of 2017.  

Longform.org posts new and classic non-fiction articles, curated from across the web.

Online Educational Journals and Blogs Promoting 21st Century Learning

the Journal offers resources to help teachers transform education through technology.

Edutopia is dedicated to transforming the learning process by helping educators implement 21st century strategies.

EducationWorld provides online teacher resources, community and professional development.

Find a list of over two dozen educational journals with free content online.

TeachThought is a blog that explores the best in learning innovation that connects K-20 educators with resources, ideas, models, frameworks and curricula.

Apps in the Classroom

Kathy Schrock's Guide to apps to support Bloom's revised taxonomy.

American Association of School Librarians (AASL) recommends the best digital tools for teaching and learning.

General Resources

The The Mindset List was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect the world view of entering first year students. It started with the members of the class of 2002, born in 1980.

The 40 Developmental Assets of Teenagers from the Search Institute

The Futures Channel offers videos from the scientists, engineers, explorers and visionaries who are shaping the future for today’s learners who will one day succeed them.

PBS Learning Media designed for educators with lessons, videos, images and more. 

Try the Smithsonian Learning Lab to inspire the discovery and creative use of its rich digital materials.

Register for the Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) service with links to educational videos.

Study.com: The Benefits of Gamification in Education 

Need an Assessment or Rubric?

Here is a link to dozens of sample rubrics from Kathy Schrock.

Here is a link to dozens of sample rubrics from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, College of Education.

Varsity Tutors has created a free tool to help you create assessments including practice tests and flashcards. 

RESOURCES by Subject Area

English Resources

English Companion Ning is a site where English teachers can communicate virtually for sharing and learning.

ReadWriteThink is sponsored by NCTE, IRA and ThinkFinity. 

NoRedInk can be used to help teach grammar and writing. 

ReadWorks provides CCSS aligned lessons to help build literacy in students grades K-8. Lessons are all free. 

Shmoop has literature learning guides for you or your students.

Internet4Classrooms offers ideas for teaching English language arts in middle and high school.

A writer's handbook from the Writing Center at the University of Wisconson.

Help with writing thesis statements from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina.

Ad Lit is a resource for teachers and parents dealing with reading and writing ro adolescents. 

Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. 

Scholastic created this site for authors to teach the art of writing for middle school. 

Find a collection of resources for teaching William Shakespeare from TES.

Math Resources

Mathalicious lessons teach standards-based math through real-world topics that students care about.

Watch, practice and learn almost anything math related and more at Khan Academy. 

Calculation Nation is a collection of math games for various grade levels from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives allows you to engage in hands on math online.

Mathway is a tool teachers and students can use to set up and solve problems.

The US Census Bureau has lesson plans and teacher resources. 

Social Studies Resources

ABC-CLIO offers free resources through the community tab on their support website. 

Finding Dulcinea has curated a list of 101 websites for social studies. 

iCivics is a site that offers interactive and engaging resources to help you teach civics. 

Teaching history with technology from EdTechTeacher.org.

Do you need maps and statistics? Try the National Atlas of the United States created in 2020.

Free video-based materials for teachers provided by C-SPAN.

TeachingHistory is a National History Education Clearinghouse.

Ideas for teaching social studies to gifted students from Laura Compton Circe Bridges.

Teacher resources from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

The Science and Technology of WWII presented in an interactive website with lots of resources. 

American history resources and lessons from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. 

Smithsonian's History Explorer with lessons, interactives, museum artifacts, etc.

The NewseumED offers EDCollections on its website that provide high-quality digital media content to use in the classroom.

Need videos to help you teach economics? Try We the Economy. 

Newsela has non-fiction articles about all kinds of topics that are currently in the news. 

DocsTeach is from the National Archives and designed to help you teach documents.

Science Resources

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) will lay out the core ideas and practices in science that students should master in preparation for college and careers.

Free science resources at Science Netlinks.

The National Science Digital Library is a national online portal for education and research on learning in STEM.

Virtual frog dissection right here.

Track animal migrations  through the Journey North project from University of Wisconsin.

Find out how rain forests contribute to our collective well-being.

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

The Encyclopedia of Life has a resource just for teachers. 

The KQED Mindshift Blog has a strand for STEM news and info.

Secrets of the Sequence, video series on the life sciences, created at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Nature Works Everywhere presented by The Nature Conservancy and Discovery Education. 

Teach Thought offers 50 awesome chemistry videos. 

The Arts Resources

Art History Teaching Resources offers lesson plans, AP art guidance, and many other art related materials. 

SmartHistory offers information on art history by period and genre. 

The National Gallery of Art Learning Resources offers online teaching packets for teaching visual art. 

ArtsEdge is the Kennedy Center"sand offers free digital resources for teaching through and about the arts.

FYI: You can use Twitter to build your Professional Learning Network.

​Search these hashtags and more  for PD: #edchat, #edtech, #engchat, #elachat, #mathchat, #scichat, #sschat, #gtchat, #mschat, etc.