Favorite Web Sites for Educators: So Many Sites, So Little Time

By Mimi Gilman

The April 2006 issue of Edutopia magazine features a readers' survey. I just couldn't choose one favorite Web site for educators. I regularly visit more than forty sites, and I share them with my master's degree students. They find them helpful, and I hope you will as well! Yes, it's a smattering of odds and ends, and some with my personal notes:

• Pencils Down!: How Decontextualized Standardized Testing Can Destroy Education (Information Today)
• The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology (San Diego State University)
• Consider This Archive (PBS TeacherLine)
• Emotional Intelligence: At a Glance (Edutopia)
• Technology Integration: At a Glance (Edutopia) When effectively integrated into the curriculum, high tech tools can enhance and extend the learning process, in often surprising ways.
• The Journal of Technology Education
• MultiMedia & Internet@Schools
• T.H.E. Journal
• Technology & Learning (software reviews)
• Multiple Intelligences (New Horizons for Learning) The Tool Room contains an expertly delineated roster of subject areas such as multiple intelligences.
• Thinking Skills (New Horizons for Learning)
• Multiple Intelligences Resources (Theatre in Motion)
• Multiple Intelligences: H. Gardner (The Theory into Practice Database)
• Assessment Alternatives (New Horizons for Learning)
• RubiStar A tool to help teachers who want to use rubrics but do not have the time to develop them from scratch.
• DiscoverySchool (Discovery Education)
• Discovery Education Streaming (Discovery Education)
• Homework Helper (Discovery Education)
• The Kathy Schrock Guide for Educators: Teacher Helpers -- Assessment and Rubric Information (Discovery Education) This collection of assessment rubrics may be helpful for you as you design your own. Let me know if you have one you would like to share!
• Resources for Rubric Development (Intel Teach to the Future with support from Microsoft) This site will help you use rubrics to evaluate a presentation or activity.
• Knowledge Network Explorer The official Web site of AT&T's education program.
• Simulation and Discovery Learning in an Age of Zapping and Searching (University of Twente, Utrecht, the Netherlands)
• Digital Kaleidoscope: Learning with Multimedia (free registration required)
• A Friend for the Language Arts: How Technology Can Enrich Reading and Writing Instruction (the Electronic School)
• Media Smart (Cable in the Classroom)
• Television Goes to School: The Impact of Video on Student Learning in Formal Education (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting)
• The New Mexico Media Literacy Project
• I, Cringely (the Public Broadcasting Service)
• Classroom Strategies for Exploring Realism and Authenticity in Media Messages (Reading Online)
• Resources: Quick Facts (Just Think)
• Broadcast Media: Enhancing Literacy Through Student Production (Reading Online)
• The Media Literacy Online Project (the University of Oregon)
• The Center for Digital Storytelling
• Listen Up!
• The KQED Youth Media Corps
• The Center for Media Literacy