Hot Stuff: Resources for Teachers

Credit: William Duke

Teaching The Levees [1]

Rockefeller Foundation; free

Katrina's floodwaters may have receded, but the cultural, social, and political damage remains -- and needs to be explored. This curriculum package, designed to accompany Spike Lee's powerful documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, will carry the cultural debris of Hurricane Katrina into the classroom. A media-literacy component teaches students how to steady themselves against media spins and biases, and helps them examine the failure of government officials to act decisively in Katrina's wake. The ambitious package, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, aims to rekindle the fading questions the survivors and victims of Katrina have left for us -- namely, "What kind of country are we?" and "What kind of country do we hope to be?" Release date: September 2007.

Credit: William Duke

PBS Teachers [2]

Public Broadcasting Service; free

The site offers teachers in grades preK-12 rich passageways into the arts, health and fitness, math, language arts, and social studies, and pays special attention to early-childhood educators, library media specialists, and technology coordinators. Though the lesson plans are free, the site also offers the option of purchasing award-winning PBS documentaries -- with curricula -- such as Eyes on the Prize, seven discs of America's civil rights story. A hearty "Hurrah!" from teachers for PBS's effort.

Credit: William Duke

TeacherTube [3]

Free

It had to happen: the extension of the YouTube model to YouTheTeacherTube. This site, unaffiliated with the online video-sharing powerhouse, is a Web bazaar for teachers to browse and post professional-development videos. Viewers can learn everything from how to teach electromagneticism to the best tips for creating an in-class laser show to the mathematics of musical-instrument strings. One of the most popular videos is of Mrs. Burke rapping a math lesson. In garb that would please the Sugar Hill Gang, she breaks down the two most important principles of geometry in rhymes and signs (it's more entertaining than it sounds). TeacherTube doesn't have the expanse of YouTube (yet), but at least you won't have to weed through endless clips of kittens chasing string.

Credit: William Duke

InterWrite SchoolPad [4]

GTCO CalComp; starts at $479

Until now, the chalkboard or the whiteboard has been the gravitational force of the classroom. Enterprising teachers will occasionally shift their teaching to a back-of-room slide projector or make quick forays to student tables or groups, but the inexorable tug of the board invariably brings the educator to the room's fore. No longer. With the InterWrite SchoolPad, the first interactive Bluetooth-enabled wireless pad for the classroom, and the companion InterWrite SchoolBoard (price: about $1,100), teachers can flee from their lecturing pulpit and write notes, draw, and lead discussions from anywhere in the room.