Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Expand your technology library for free at Free Tech Books! Find a variety of ebooks with topics such as computer science, math, operating systems, programming, scripting, web design, electrical circuits, and engineering. Join the RSS feed to keep up with the latest new additions. Although this site is plain vanilla in appearance, it is full of "sprinkles" of information!
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tag(s): book lists (161), STEM (263)

Provide the best literacy program for your students by implementing ideas and assessments from Reading and Writing Resources Project. Find high quality, research-based reading and writing resources developed by a Teachers College, Columbia University and Lucy Caulkins. Assessment information includes running records, the concept of print, letter/sound information, high-frequency words, and independent reading benchmarks. Additional Assessments include Independent Reading Books, Comprehension Proficiency, and Monitor Reading Volume and Stamina with book logs and daily reading examples. Under Book Lists find units of study for teen readers with titles and authors categorized by genre with quality literature suggestions. Many videos depict classes in action discovering Narrative, Informative/Explanatory, and Opinion/Argument writing. One video series shows Danielson's Framework for Teaching evaluations, with classroom teachers being observed using reading/writing workshop. This includes PDF's with the notes and scoring. Find a baseline of excellent student writing sorted by grade level using Readers' Notebook and student writing samples. Nonfiction text sets give examples or resources for you to use in the classroom. Find text examples to use with your students featuring health and consumer science topics.
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tag(s): assessment (146), book lists (161), reading comprehension (143), reading lists (80), science of reading (33), writers workshop (31), writing (315)

edX offers access to many of the best courses offered at top learning institutions - for FREE! Institutions include MIT, Harvard, and Berkley. Classes are available to complete for a Certificate of Achievement or as an audit. Choose from courses with topics in many areas including computers, literature, and humanities. Each course listing offers a short description of the course, details about the university offering the course, estimated time involved, course staff, and available options for taking the course. Start any course at any time. Take the edX Demo course to get a good idea of how courses work and find out about the online learning experience.

tag(s): aeronautics (9), architecture (64), artificial intelligence (101), china (62), circuits (20), civil rights (194), computers (106), electricity (60), engineering (119), environment (240), evolution (85), folktales (34), greeks (31), magnetism (36), medicine (55), nutrition (134), poetry (189), psychology (67), religions (75), shakespeare (93), solar energy (34), speech (66), statistics (114), terrorism (41)

Duolingo is a free, online language learning class. Sign up with email. Make a selection from Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, and many others. Earn points on different levels as you work towards mastery. Practice provides both seeing and hearing the words. Your responses require choosing the English translation and also spelling the words in the "new" language. Put your knowledge to work in the immersion section and translate a document or even upload a document of your own. Check the vocabulary you have learned and your progress toward mastery. Track your weekly progress. The discussion section answers individual questions. Duolingo is free for schools. There are free iOS and Android apps for Duolingo.

tag(s): arabic (13), chinese (44), DAT device agnostic tool (143), french (74), game based learning (171), german (48), hebrew (16), italian (28), japanese (47), multilingual (66), OER (43), Online Learning (40), portuguese (22), russian (24), spanish (105)

Looking for review materials for a variety of classes? Use for a wide range of curriculum topics. (A "learning object" is any kind of interactive activity, animation, video, audio file, etc, that can be used for learning.) This site is great for introductory, reinforcement, or review materials. Find most of the relevant topics by using the search bar. Choose from many subjects such as biology, biochemistry, chemistry, math, sociology, world languages, and written communication, among others. Gifted students or those who learn well independently can study Chinese and other topics not easily available in their school using WISC-Onkine.

tag(s): animals (281), business (47), cells (80), chinese (44), grammar (133), grammar review (31), life cycles (22), microscopes (10), plants (145), psychology (67), sentences (22), sociology (22), speech (66)

Promote environmental citizenship through this site's "green learning" units. The curriculum ranges from examining how electricity works, understanding the balance of ecosystems, to a high school unit on sustainable futures. Enjoy the interactive wind turbine and carbon calculator. The animation for grades 4 - 7 is engaging, and the video presentations for high school students on sustainability is powerful. Green Learning provides educators with an array of hands-on activities, online learning opportunities, printable materials, assessment tools, and valuable resources such as environmental experts to contact. Each environmental concept taught provides opportunities for real world learning, encourages social action, and advocacy. Teacher friendly planning tools can help meet instructional time constraints, students learning styles, and promote cross-curricular connections. The site is free but requires registration. Membership provides access to additional educational materials and a monthly newsletter. This program comes to us from Canada.

tag(s): climate (80), climate change (87), conservation (83), ecosystems (73), electricity (60), energy (130), environment (240), natural resources (37), OER (43), persuasive writing (55), solar energy (34), sustainability (44)

There are plenty of helpful sites to learn content. What makes this so special? Created by an uncle wanting to help his nieces learn material, Khan Academy has grown into a Creative Commons attributed site for helping all students. What information is available? Maybe one should ask: What are you looking for? View a vast array of videos on many topics: SAT prep, Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry, Biology, History, Trigonometry, Calculus, Economics, Brain Teasers, Banking and Money, Statistics, Finance, Physics, and more....Whew! The only problem? The videos are hosted on You Tube. If your district blocks You Tube, then they may not be viewable. Ed note: An alternative is to access Khan Academy through iTunes U FREE downloads, assuming you can load and access iTunes!

tag(s): atoms (42), cells (80), energy (130), functions (52), homework (34), matter (47), molecules (40), photosynthesis (20), respiration (10), structures (18)

This site offers free courses with a great deal of depth on topics featuring modern European languages and English. It is a not a site for beginning language learners or low-level ESL and ELL students. Courses explore language topics, mostly with textual readings. Some of the featured units follow language textbooks. In addition to language topics, there are several offerings in business English. Students can choose what to study in a variety of ways: by topic, time of course, and course number or code. You can put this in your RSS reader.

tag(s): business (47), french (74), german (48), italian (28), spanish (105)

Find multimedia content and lessons ready to go, and customizable by your preferences on this incredible, free, online learning site. Whether you need a comprehensive curriculum for selected high school courses, a way to differentiate instruction, or materials to reinforce challenging topics, this site has it. The current subjects include Algebra, American Government, Biology, Calculus, Environmental Science, Physics, English, Religion, Economics, U.S. History, among others. The subjects extend through high school and into AP and college level material. Open a course at the left and browse the topics, especially the multimedia offerings. A free instructor account allows you to select the modules you want your students to see and share them via a unique URL for assignments or at-home review. Since the content is offered collaboratively from multiple sources, the courses each have their own "look." The ones our review team explored all included audio-- a real plus for ENL/ELL or low level readers.

tag(s): environment (240), OER (43)

Complete a free online registration and begin to explore an impressive collection of learning modules that address chemistry, general science, physics, math in science, process of science, earth science, and scientists and research. Many modules contain interactive animations, a glossary, related current events, practice exercises, and biographic information about scientists who worked with that particular concept. Members can personalize each module with comments, links, or notes.

tag(s): acids and bases (7), carbon (15), cells (80), darwin (13), earth (185), energy (130), gravity (42), light (52), matter (47), molecules (40), optics (12), paleontology (28), periodic table (44), photosynthesis (20), planets (112), reading comprehension (143), rock cycle (12), rocks (36), scientific method (47), scientists (62), space (213), water (102), waves (15)