Links to Cool Stuff
Technology!
Create timelines at Time Toast
On-line teaching and learning at http://www.oercommons.org/
Prezi.com allows you to create pretty awesome presentations. Not the most intuitive interface, but once you have an idea of how you want your project set up and what it can do, it's pretty rad.
Google n-grams creates graphs of word trends based on Google Books data.
COHA is similar to n-grams, with more options, including collocations.
Edmodo, like Facebook for classrooms
Ning, even better.
MIT App Inventor: Write your own apps (attendance? grades? quizzes?) for an Android device (including the Kindle Fire).
Daytum: to create a quantified picture of yourself on the internet, kind of like this.
Toondoo: Comic strip builder.
Classroom Jeopardy (and other great Super Teacher Tools)
InstaGrok, search any topic and this site returns a web organized by subtopics and a sidebar organized by media type. I need to play with this more to determine its usefulness and when to use this vs teach internet research.
Blog, Wiki, or G-Docs: Which is right for the lesson?
Multimedia
PBS Ideas Network You Tube Channel: couple-minute discussions of cool, big ideas using lots of pop culture references, e.g., dub step and avant guard music, the post-scarcity economy and Minecraft.
You Tube in Schools: get set up in your school, allow only certain videos in your classroom
You Tube for Teachers: videos curated for education
Smithsonian Galaxy of Images: "The thousands of images on this site represent only a small portion of the more than 1.5 million printed books and manuscripts in the collections of Smithsonian Institution Libraries."
Keepvid: Input a link to any online video and this site will let you download a playable and portable video file.
Gorgeous color photos of the 1930s and 1940s war industries taken by the FSA and OWI. More FSA/OWI photos.
Texts: Free and Cheap! Online and otherwise.
Classicly: Classics online, free
First Book: Free and reduced priced physical books for, e.g., Title I schools
Lesson Plans
Oakland Unified Language Arts Lesson Plans
http://www.learner.org/amerpass/index.html
http://www.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/
ArtsEdge: lesson plans to integrate art into ANY subject.
Google lesson plans on internet research/search
Reading, Writing, Grammar, Style & Mechanics: Resources
University of North Carolina Writing Center: Handouts, explanations
How to do a close reading, Harvard
Lesson plan on creating characters in narrative from ArtsEdge
Bookish: enter a book or books you/student like(s), spits out a recommendation
Class Websites, Teacher Blogs, Etc.
Teach 4 Real: Peninsula teacher. Serious sh*t.
http://walkthewalkblog.blogspot.com/
ISEROTOPE: The website of a San Francisco high school English teacher. Wonderful musings on teaching.
http://englishcompanion.ning.com/
http://ubdeducators.wikispaces.com/
a wiki about backwards design
Miscellania
Finding Dulcinea: The internet, curated by topic
Daily Quotations & How to Use 'Em
You put in your questions, it spits out a test. You can have it make alternate versions, with the questions appearing in a different random order, to deter cheating (I think you have to pay, though).
A Clockwork Orange essay
School: The Story of American Public Education
History of Education - from PBS documentary series
Poetry out Loud, national recitation contest
"Long Day’s Journey Into Night was so personal and painful for Eugene O’Neill that he forbade the performance of the play until after his death. Does it stand the test of time?"