Fishing For New Ideas---Lesson Plans and Projects
All of these sites post new projects, curriculum, and lessons on a regular schedule--usually weekly or monthly but sometimes daily...
Links
All of these sites post new projects, curriculum, and lessons on a regular schedule--usually weekly or monthly but sometimes daily. Speed of reaching the Web is the primary driving force. These new ideas cover a variety of subject matters, though some might specialize in science (the topic most richly supported in these early years of telecommunications). After a while these ideas are placed in archives at the site. The site managers exert some quality control over the selection. The projects themselves vary in duration--from a short 15 minute newsbreaker to a 6 week unit.
America's Story, published by the Library of Congress, posts significant historical events by person, state, and time. A good jumping-off point to in-depth exploration.
The Last Word varies slightly from the above sites. Rather than offering lessons per se it contains an archive, courtesy of the magazine New Scientist; it answers questions students delight in pursuing, such as why is the sky blue and why is a yawn contagious and why do pigeons nod their head while walking about. Domains include physical and biological science. Some links to current news stories have been inserted.
ThinkQuest illustrates entries and winners of student contests. This program which includes extensive staff development has resulted in some of the most innovative and substantial "units" on the Web. Many are inter-disciplinary, and the whole corpus is very diverse. Take a look..The challenge is yours...
PBS has created a separate resource for teachers with 1200 lessons which are linked to its media programs as well state and national standards. A planning calendar and special features section are included also.
Teaching N'Technology (TNT), a database of over 400 technology-related lesson plans matches the Florida state standards, is keyed to subject, grade and other key words.
Scholastic has a number of lesson plans that can be searched by grade level and subject area.
The Science Spot,a set of lessons and fun things by one teacher, adds new twists to old experiments.
Connexions, a new portal at Rice University, enables any teacher to create, share and modify course materials. They may be grouped into chapters with annotations. 1600 modules include music, engineering, and psychology, to name a few.
Thinkfinity has incorporated its own content, such as a calendar, and also points to a core list of links in art, economics, literature, math, and geography.
The Exploratorium has an incredible array of learning tools and classroom ideas.
LETSnet has organized teaching resources around classroom teachers' stories, including lesson plans, curriculum standards and guides.
The Community Learning Network has resources organized by theme pages.
Skoolaborate is a hub for user-produced global collaboration projects.
Annotation
Longer and in-depth projects have been placed elsewhere in this Instructional Media Center so the BEST uses of this collection are to find a new project which you build upon or to explore a topic within a short timeframe or to just keep up-to-the-minute about new projects. These sites complement your daily online newspaper.
Since the Web is a participant-driven media, you can build upon the contributions of others, such as indepth coverage of a short, fast-breaking news story, or a math problem of the week or a new online museum exhibit.
During the past year usually five Web sites appear online within a day in response to a major world happening. Share them with your school librarian.
