Teacher Resources

Thirty-Six Education Related SitesCTC/ & Common Core

• The Common Core website breaks down the Common Core Standards by grade level and academic subject. It is a critical resource for aspiring teachers.
• The CTC website is a clearing house for all things related to teaching. It is also where aspiring educators will find the Teaching Performance Expectations, to which all their learning maps and lesson plans should be aligned. 
• Study.Com is a website that has interactive lessons on virtually every subject. It's similar to Crash Course, but more interactive and covers subjects in much more depth. It will also aid teachers in preparing for critical exams like the CBEST, the CSET and the Praxis. This is the site I used to pass the English CSET, which is incidentally one of the least passed CSETs aspiring teachers can take.
• Teacher's Test Prep: Teachers Test Prep serves the same purpose as Study.Com with educators. It helps them prepare for the tests they will need to become teachers. Unlike Study.Com, the practice tests here mimic the actual tests a little more accurately. The site is also a little more expensive than Study.Com.

UDL (Universal Design for Learning)

• Gardener's Multiple Intelligences: What we once viewed as intelligence is not quite so simple. In the most basic form people are either visual, audial, or kinesthetic learners. Gardner was the first person to break this down further, and allow us to truly see the complexity of intelligence. 
• CAST: This is the go-to website about UDL or Universal Design for Learning. UDL asks that teachers give students several paths to engage in learning, several representations of the material, and several ways of expressing what they have learned.
• Five Examples of UDL in the Classroom: This is a basic list that gives instructors a few examples of UDL in action. The article is a great starting point if you are not sure what UDL is.
• National Center for Assistive Technology: The NCAT specifically provides learning opportunities for students with disabilities through technology. It is also listed as one of the premier UDL websites.

Academic Websites: 

• Bright Education is a hub for teaching resources for elementary, middle, and high school teachers. Its resources include premade lesson plans.
• Sadlier is a small publisher that specializes in academic vocabulary and progress in mathematics. Their lessons are customized for many types of learners.
• ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. The ASCD is made of 113,000 members including superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates from more than 129 countries.
• Reading Rockets is a collection of resources to help struggling readers build phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Included in their content are resources to help struggling readers.

Typing Websites

• TypingWeb is a popular tool for teaching typing to grades K to 12. The site offers typing lessons, certificates, problem key exercises and typing games. Most students know the site as Typing dot Com.
• Typing Club is similar to Typing.Com. However, students only need to create a profile if they want to save their work. Also moving on is a little more challenging at this site.
• Nitro Type is a unique typing program in that it allows students to compete against each other as if the speed of their typing were powering the engines of a race car. It;s similar to Typing Web and Typing Club with a very competitive slant built in.
• Dance Matt Typing: While Dance Matt Typing does not incorporate any games, it does make learning to type a very colorful and animated experience. Thus it has become very popular among younger grade levels.

Video Learning

• BrainPop is unique in that it really narrows down the focus of the content. The lessons are always discussions between a boy and his robot Moby. Through those discussions kids will learn about history, science, math and all sorts of other subjects.
• Crash Course is a unique website that has quick lessons on every subject you can imagine from World History to Astrophysics. The course is meant to be quick and engaging. In a lot of cases, it makes good supplemental material for information educators will find in a text.
• CNN Ten allows students to get a ten minute update on current events. It is very much tailored to the middle school level, where the videos tend to be popular in history classes. 
• Teacher Tube is an instructional community for sharing educational videos. The videos themselves come from various sources. And often times after locating the video on Teacher Tube, it's best to track them to that source.

Literacy Sites

• Raz Kids is a site meant to help younger kids become proficient in reading using tools like interactive eBooks. The site will come off as a little dated, and is likely not the best choice for middle or high school. Though it may provide some additional support to ELL students learning English at later stages in their lives.
• Time for Kids is journalistic content targeted to students in grade K to 6. Though it is often also used for much older grades. The site boasts age appropriate, high quality information that explains to kids the world around them.
• Scholastic is more than a book club. It's also a popular set of classroom magazines with authentic stories that explore the students' world. Scholastic is similar to Time for Kids, except the stories have more of a news/ feature slant.
• Read Works is a a standard aligned literacy program to support differentiated reading instruction in any classroom. Any lesson can be assigned, digitally or projected.

Making Learning Fun

• Kahoot! is a web based application that allows teachers to create simple quizzes. Each question contains between one and four answers, marked by separate shapes. Students try to quickly guess the correct answer to each question. Kahoot awards points for both quickness and accuracy. It's a very good way of keeping students engaged.
• Quizlet is a mobile and web-based study application that allows students to study information via learning tools and games. It is currently used by two-thirds of high school students and half of university students in the United States. Unlike Kahoot!, Quizlet allows for the creation of about seven different kinds of interactive games using the teacher's target content.
• Jeopardy Labs is basically an online version of a interactive Power Point file. That file takes the form of a Jeopardy game. The content can be related to categories in any academic subject. For instance, a Jeopardy Template on ancient Egypt might include categories like casts, religions, and farming.
• PBSKids features both original games based on popular several PBS series. There is a balance between games that entertain and ones with educational value.

Class Management Sites

• Class Dojo is a great application for keeping track of positive and negative events in the classroom. The expectations can be tailored to the teacher's needs. Additionally, parental contact options are built into the feedback options.
• Google Classroom is a great way to assign work to classes. It allows for connections to other programs like LBUSD's school loop. Also, attachments can simply be added to the assignment and completed on Chromebooks, meaning there is significantly less paperwork.
• Khan Academy is a tool used by LBUSD for credit recovery. It also includes videos and quizzes instructors can relate back to the content they teach. Unfortunately, Khan Academy is a little more useful for math or science teachers than English teachers.
• Remind reinforces efficient communication using tools like a class blog, learning management system, or student agendas. Instructors can schedule a text message (including attachments) to remind students and families about important due dates, upcoming tests and quizzes, and schedule changes.

Videos Related to Teaching Literature

• What is Theme (Cinderella Version): This video breaks down what a theme is and then practices finding it using the popular narrative Cinderella. The video is well presented and is pretty good at articulating what educators mean when they ask for a theme and what they do not mean.
• Story Elements: Plot to Theme: This video teaches the basic key elements of any story including plot, characters, setting, conflict, climax and theme. The video includes no speaking, so students will need to read to get the gist of the content. One of the things this video does well is show the importance of each element.
• What is a Genre: Genres are types of narratives with similar characteristics. Knowing genre helps students navigate the kinds of text they will read. The video starts with the two main genres fiction and non fiction and break down from there.
• Six Types of Figurative Language: breaks down six kinds of colorful language techniques to paint pictures in the readers mind. This is a skill all readers will need when looking at poetry. This specific video looks at the properties of similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and alliteration.