Most of the links below are from Classroom Flyer: Sponsored by The Learning Company's School Division
I choose the links that I feel can be useful as a teacher.

Integrationg Technology

Spreadsheet Lessons for Middle School A series of lessons on a wide variety of topics teaches spread- sheet skills to middle school students
Database Lessons: Grades 4 to 8 teaching database to your students.
Word-Processing Lessons Several lesson plans covering grades 2 through 8, will teach word processing skills to your students.
How to Weave Technology into any lesson you teach! By Marilyn Western of Kinney Elementary School. She starts with: Where to Start! (which is--at the beginning, with your curriculum). The suggestions assume some technology skills, but I like this seven-part, no-nonsense and goal-oriented plan to getting the technology in, now!
Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers A must for those who want to know how to use Claris Works, Hyper Studio, Kid Pix in their daily lessons. She also has AUP's,(contracts between you and the student) and other goodies. How to use the computer in the classroom... Tammy's site will give you tons to think about.

Internet Lessons

The Odyssey: World Trek: Follow along an actual global trek, now traveling from Mali to Cairo, whereby the educators/trekkers will share their observations about non-Western cultures and peoples as they travel around the world. Critical global concerns are addressed, giving students a chance to think about positive change from their own corners. Text, videos and audio are sent into the site at least twice weekly. You can view the agenda of this 2 year trek by looking at the orientation. It really is an incredible site, and provides an excellent opportunity for your students (along with 1,ooo,ooo others already joined!) to do some virtual traveling to places they may never see otherwise, and understand each place's historical and cultural context. Students can also do inservice training through this program. A teacher's guide is available at this site.
 A Day in the Life: Cross-Cultural Comparisons This ongoing project by iEarn allows students to interact with other international students and compare and contrast their cultures. The Teacher's Lounge will show you which countries are already involved in this collaboration.
Virtual Fish Tank.com: Created by Nearlife, Inc. at MIT for the Boston Museum of Science, students are able to participate in an interactive exhibit by building their own fish (a limit of 4 is imposed, but the young designers may change the fish features at any time), insert them into an online exhibit tank, and watch them interact with other virtual fish. Besides having a great deal of fun :-) students will also be learning group behavior and modeling. Your class pet could be an online aquarium...
The Module Maker Here is step-by-step instruction in developing an online research module for your students. It provides a solid base for outlining the research cycle, then developing it.
Rubrics for Web Lessons (WebQuest)This page on rubrics and authentic assessment practices has been updated by Bernie Dodge, the czar of webquest- ology, so you know it will contain a number of useful guidelines. It is formulated as a module for teachers to instruct you in good assessment practices, with exercises, samples, templates, and guidelines to help you develop your own solid rubrics foundation.
Web Evaluation Site Since anyone at all is able to publish a webpage, it is wise to know a few tools in evaluating the material you find on the net. Educators especially need to be concerned about content quality. This "tour" will address these issues, with an eye toward some basic principles in your own evaluations.
Internet Lesson Plans & Projects There are more than 20 brief, basic internet lesson plans at this site that can be used directly in the classroom by your students. Topics cover everything from history, email, keeping a log, transferring files, posting projects and identifying resources. Lessons are "take-out" style-- no teacher prep. required!
Internet Lesson Plans 22 detailed lessons on internet use that you can use directly in your classroom. They can be adapted and applied to almost any grade level. Start here with internet history, go through terminology, email, home pages, transferring files, Archie, collaborative learning, and more.
Guidelines for Preparing Student Internet Experiences This ten step, tip-oriented guide provides a framework for teachers planning on using the internet as resources, webhunts, teaching tools or research. Student Start Pages contain applicable bookmarks for elementary research.
TEEM  Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia is a response to teachers' desperate need for information about what works and why when they use multimedia in the classroom. This website started in January 1999 and will become more relevant as people enter more information about multimedia software.
Educational Projects, ideas for the classroom Ideas for using the Internet in your classroom

Online Tutorials

Introduction to Visual Basic (VB) 24 lessons, step-by-step, are offered online in this complete course in VB.
Visual Basic Explorer: a place for the VB newbie A starter tutorial on Visual Basic, as well as tips, tricks and downloads.
Course Technology is a producer of textbooks related to technology. If you register as a teacher, tney will let you order evaluation copies of their textbooks. If you go to their site and click "Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing " or "Multimedia" you may find some texts that will help you with your search. When I was creating the outline for my course I looked at their table of contents (and of course other sources) to get an idea of what I should teach. I also have purchased many of their textbooks. Their textbooks have many nice projects. (from Michelle Moore)
Office XP freely available tutorials designed to help teachers learn. The tutorials are in pdf format.
Tutorials for Office 2000 have been freely available for a while now.

Software for teachers to use for teaching or to make teaching easier

Teacher's EBoard: Educators can create a free eboard with class assignments, notes, recommended URLs, etc. The service is free, but ads are placed on the pages--they are apparently screened to be inoffensive to children and families.
Quiz Lab free service creates online quizzes for your students. Use the database of ready-made quizzes, or create one of your own according to your needs. Students can take the quizzes online in class, in the library, or at home, and have them automatically graded; these grades are then emailed to you. The quizzes can also be printed. A handy little web tool for teachers.
Quiz Center :free and easy to use. This site is from Discovery ChannelThere are more options for quiz creation than in Quia, and you can have the site email you the students' scores. Disadvantage? Discovery's site goes down a lot (it's so busy that you can't get the site to load)!! If you don't test a lot or can punt with pen and paper, use it. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd trust it to be ready when I needed it.
Halfbakedsoftware - This is Hot Potatoes, a more bare-bones but still free site. You will need to spend more time making your quizzes, but you can create modules (quizzes, activities, etc.) to bundle together. Not for the beginning computer user, but well worth it for you tech fans.
Kidlink Home Page A safe and productive Internet Relay Chat(IRC). Kidlink has united more than 37,000 children between the ages of 10 and 15 in over 71 countries.
Puzzlemaker The Puzzlemaker is a cool tool to create math blocks, word searches or crosswords (you just submit the words), letter tiles, cryptograms and more. These types of puzzles could be very useful in math, spelling and vocabulary instruction. Wordsearches, as well as mazes, number blocks, crypto- grams, letter tiles, and more--are all available with- out registration at this site. Tailor your wordsearch or use vocabulary lists; add clipart; save your puzzles-- a great little teacher tool.
Interactive Test.com With this free application, you can create multiple choice examinations online. Step-by-step instruction takes you through the process.
Designing Test Questions: Find a rundown on most testing formats, with the pros and cons of each and tips to help create that particular type of test.
Computer Curriculum While this page provides more of a resource than an actual lesson plan, nevertheless it can be used as a curriculum outline for grade 4 up. Key skills are addressed towards having your students become computer-proficient, such as keyboarding, identifying major parts of a computer, understanding common uses of a computer (spreadsheets, databases, graphics, etc.), file folders, commands and more.
Research It! Here are a few of just some of the things you are able to accomplish at this site: use a currency converter or search through stock quotes; use a standard language dictionary, a rhyming dictionary or a law dictionary; identify a language, translate from one language to another, find an acronym or anagram, conjugate French verbs; search for biographical info or quotations; or find maps, postal information--and more! This little site can prove itself useful in many situations.
GEOMVIEW! You can download this 3D Visualization Software for free. Geomview is software designed for manipulating and viewing 3 dimensional objects. Instruction manual, support and a tutorial are all available here. From the Geometry Center Projects.
Thinkwave Educator A handy-dandy tool to download for free! The Thinkwave Educator is a gradekeeper, with curves, email (for sending progress reports to students and parents), attendance etc. It now works in concert with Thinkwave.com for additional features: lesson plans, calendar, seating chart, assessment, more. Many of you have been asking for these tools; try this one out.
Blender3D Sophisticated 3D animation software package available free for download.

Staff Development

Policy Issues in using technology for engaged learning To support engaged learning, policies--especially at state and local levels--must effectively and equitably integrate technology and instruction. Policy must also overcome barriers of finance and high-risk schools; it must be coordinated and committed and provide effective workplace training. This excellent article directs, addresses and assesses all these areas of policy making.
Improving Teaching and Learning in Australian School Education through the use of Information and Communications Technologie
INfoTech New Zealand- a magazine that went online. Current teaching issues are discussed. I feel though that the online magazine isn't as good as the hard copy.
TCWORLD Technology Ideas and News for Schools and Teachers..... The name says it all !
North Carolina Info Tech Dept A Recommended site.  
WebtoWeb: Writing in HTML This article illustrates the integration of technology into the curriculum. It moves from the idea generation stage (web, mind map, clustering) for a class/individual project to presenting the finished project as a website. The underlying technology is Composer, which is free and easy. I tried to use this technique to set up a website during a 20 minute presentation. I almost got it done. Unfortunately, I didn't know where the computer stored my files.(Larry Phillips)
Massey ICT Education The mission of ICT-Online is to provide a "NET of Knowledge" that links critical pedagogy to the use of new educational technologies in school--for better and worse.
The Journey Inside A fascinating look inside a computer. Online videos, and curriculum lessons. Upto date info as it's Intel.

Ideas for the One Computer Classroom

How to set up computers in the classroom This website addresses the problem of a one-computer classroom, and offers several practical suggestions.

Some suggestions are:

• Use the computer as a Learning Station/ Workstations: Create class projects with all students participating. Give a short and simple assignment in order to get all students through quickly. An example of this might be to create a graph of students height and stride length. Each student enters their own information and a graph is created. The computer becomes a tool for a larger project.
• Use the computer as a Reference Center: The internet and CD encyclopedia's are great tools in the classroom.
• Get a cheap adapter and plug it in to the Television or a LCD Projector. Connect the computer to the projector and use it for whole class instruction. Let everyone see what is happening on the computer at the same time. Use it to find answers to questions students come up with in class. Also, it is a great way to explain computer assignment to the students.
• Schedule times for cooperative groups to use the computer. Make sure each person in the group gets a chance to use the computer. For example, have students take turns using the computer to determine the weather in several cities around the world. Choose cities that you will be studying this year and plot the temperatures on a wall chart.
• If you have access to a large television, you can purchase a scan converter. This will also allow for large group instruction.
• Team teaching is a good way of having more than one computer in the classroom. You can decide which classroom will house the computers, or you can place the computer on wheels (carts) to transport from one classroom to the next.
• Classroom to classroom communication. Send and receive email from classrooms around the world. An interesting twist on this is the Teddy Bear project. Find a classroom mascot and mail it to friends and relatives around the world. They can take pictures and send back email explaining where it is and what it has been doing.
• Visit authors web sites as you are studying the novel. Showing it on the TV makes this easier.
• Listen to audio files of historic events, like to moon landing, famous speaches, or you can also hear many authors read portions of their work.

From Great Teaching in the One-Computer Classroom by Tom Snyder Productions.
Order the catalog from www.teachtsp.com

Kid Pix Learning Ideas, Grades3-4 In a series of 6 sessions, grade 3 teacher Joan Hamilton shows how to integrate technology into your curriculum with KID PIX. Students will also get a chance to be the teachers, showing other students what they have discovered in their own exploration time. File-saving is covered, as well as responsible use of technology.

Email the Crumbmaster is you have any questions