Teaching Content With Online Lesson Formats

English Department Professional Development
 New Bedford High School Whaleman logoProject MEET

 
MEET Content Specialist-Debbie Borden
MEET TPD- Cindi Tougas
October 2001
Searching

Basic Searching Techniques

Using Search Engine Math

Use a (+) or a (-) sign whenever you use more than one keyword.

architecture +american

architecture +american  -victorian

A plus sign is attached directly (no spaces) to the word or phrase you want to include in your search.

A minus sign is attached directly (no spaces) to the word or phrase you want to exclude in your search.
Quotations

When searching for topics with words that must be kept in an exact order, such as a phrase, or a name made up of two separate words you should use quotation marks.

Examples:

"white house"

shakespeare +"midsummer night's dream"  

For further assistance on searching:

Searching the Web

http://www.newbedford.k12.ma.us/srhigh/tougas/techbits/searchweb.htm

Best Practices

Aligned to the Curriculum Frameworks
Active ("Hands-On", Interactive, Kinesthetic Learners)
Collaborative (Grouping)
Constructive (Applying new knowledge)
Reflective (Good way to assess individual knowledge with collaborative learning.)
Accessible Content to All Students (Universal Design)

Sample Spotlight Lesson 

The Realm of Arthur: A Glimpse Through Time-Created by Debbie Borden

Links 

Week One
TrackStar (http://trackstar.hprtec.org/)
A simple to use tool for creating online lessons such as scavenger hunts. You provide the Web sites and some "fact finding" or guiding questions and your lesson is near complete.
Filamentality (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/) This tool allows you to create a variety of lesson formats. A whole spectrum of online formats from a very basic "Hotlist" to a more involved "WebQuest" are available to you for lesson plan creation depending on your instructional objectives.

 

Virtual Education Space logo

 VES (http://www.ves.ws/portal.html) This is a free set of interactive tools and resources. The Massachusetts Department of Education is promoting the use of VES by educators as a productivity and communication tool. One of the more helpful components of VES is the Digital Drop Box. Basically the Digital Drop Box gives you your own online storage space for documents and files. Currently each VES user has 50 MB of storage space. Try it! It's easier than you think.

Week Two
Marco Polo (http://marcopolo.worldcom.com)-A database* of quality lessons for teachers. Emphasis is on quality not quantity.
GEM (The Gateway to Educational Material) (http://www.thegateway.org/)-Another site providing resources for educators. This may or may not have information on your particular topic.
RubiStar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/)Online tool for creating general rubrics for a variety of topics.
Teacher Web (http://www.teacherweb.com) An online tool for teachers who want to create their own basic Web pages. Limited choices, but E-A-S-Y!
Babel Fish (http://world.altavista.com) A free online translation tool can be helpful in making content more accessible to students whose first language is not English. The downside is that the translation is a word for word translation.
 

*Database- A searchable collection!

Additional Links 

Adobe Free Acrobat Reader for PDF files
Universal Design
CAST  -Provides resources for understanding Universal Design
ReadPlease-A free downloadable program that provides text-to-speech.
Massachusetts DOE
Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks-This link will take you to the most current state frameworks.
DOE Tech-DOE's site regarding technology in education for the commonwealth.
Massachusetts Recommended K12 Instructional Technology Stds.. Teachers in grades K-12 will be expected to assist students in acquiring this range of technology competencies.

 
Teacher Technology Links
www4teachers.org -Excellent tech resources for teachers
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators - One of the original "Gurus" in technology integration.
Teach-nology -Don't miss the "Rubric Generators" 
EdHelper- A large collection of lesson ideas
The WebQuest Page-The definitive WebQuest Resource
       -Cindi T.'s WebQuest Collection
Education-World - Terrific articles and resources on a variety of educational topics.

 

English Teacher Links 

English Writing Resources

***Purdue University Online Resources***
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Guide to Writing a Basic Essay
Successful Paragraph Writing
Writing Topics
The Biography Maker
Hero’s Journey

 

Professional
NCTE (Secondary) - (National Council for Teachers of English) This site offers links to quality information. They have some new links with good resources to authors. Currently their Teaching Ideas section is not available, but make sure to look for this in the future.

MLA Resources

Bridgewater State College: Sample Bibliography Entries

NoodleBib-"a free service that simplifies the process of creating and editing MLA-style bibliographies

Literature

Prentice-Hall School (http://www.phlit.phschool.com/)

Voice Of The Shuttle

Critical Literary Resources

English Server Fiction Criticism

English Server Drama Collection Criticism

Literature Study Guides

(Warning many ads!)
Classic Notes
Novel Guides
Pink Monkey: MonkeyNotes and Barron Notes
SparkNotes-Literature

Plagiarism

Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism:
Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism
Ethics 101:  Cheating, Plagiarism, Site Evaluation,
Copyright and Your Students

 

 

Created for New Bedford High School
Project MEET Dissemination Activities 10/01 - Last Updated 4/7/03
New Bedford High School Project MEET