Student & Teacher Resources on the Web

ELA English Language Arts

• Paradigm On-line Writing Assistant-  This site give you practical advice for writing in different styles.  Step-by-step procedures allow students to produce better quality writing.

• Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL)-  This is a great resource for all types of writing.  Get advice where to start, what to consider.  Especially check out the "On-Line Handouts" section to help with those run-ons, apostrophes, or just to learn to become a better editor.

• Dictionary.com-  This website is great for looking up that word you've been wondering about.  Hmmmm.... What is an Interrobang? This site also has a so-so translator that lets you get an idea of what something might mean in another language such as Italian, French, Spanish or German.

• Merriam Webster Online- Don't wanna get up and grab a dictionary?  Looking for just the right word?  This site is a great dictionary and thesaurus.  It even lets you hear the pronunciation of the word.  A cornucopia for anglophiles.

• Thesaurus.com-  Online thesaurus, what else.

• Visual Thesaurus-  This has to be seen/experienced!  Type in a word and get an interactive, visual word web with definitions of related words and meanings.  You can only try a few words unless you want to purchase the software though.

• Encyclopedia Mythica-  A great reference source for heroes, beasts, gods and goddesses in mythology and folklore from around the globe.  Includes an extensive image gallery.  Want to know what a Centaur looks like?  You'll find it here.

• Looking for a new way to read a book?  Try an on-line version of a great book.  You can search for your favorite titles at one of the following:

  • Internet Public Library

  • Project Gutenberg

  • Bibliomainia

  • Classic Bookshelf

  • Net Library

  • Children's Storybooks On-Line

• Looking for a good book?  This site will recommend one just for you, just answer a few simple questions at  BookAdventure.org

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Career Preparation

• Career Self-Assessment Online- This is a great site to visit if you are unsure of what kind of job/career you are interested in.  This is a free on-line survey that will ask you questions to determine what career field is right for you.  After you're done, it allows you to do some research into that field and print out your results.

• A great way to get a start on that future career and build a resume is to volunteer.  If you are looking for a place in your community to lend a hand try VolunteerMatch. 

Health, Physical Education and Nutrition

• USDA Nutrient Database-    This database allows you to enter in many kinds of food and find out what nutrients make it up.  Did you know that there is a trace amount of ash in diced baby food peas?

• Fast Food Facts Interactive Food Finder-  This site allows you to see exactly how much fat, calories, etc in some of your favorite fast food places.

• Medline Plus-  This is a great site for learning about diseases,  treatments and procedures.  It even has interactive sounds and videos for about 150 different topics.

• The Diet Channel-  This site is a reputable source for nutrition and diet information run by a certified dietician.  You can calculate your BMI (Body Mass Index), calorie needs, calories burned during exercises,  fat, carb, & sodium needs, and even create a meal or diet plan.

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Science and Technology

• "Convert" This is a FREE online tool that you can use to convert all kinds of measurements (metric, angles, weights, etc.)

• Need a Periodic Table?  Want to learn about elements?  This site is interactive and will tell you information on any element you click on.

• Are you a star-gazer with a PDA?  Well check out this FREE software called Planetarium.  You can download it to your PDA and it will help you become an expert astronomer.

• Martindale's Reference Desk:  Calculators-  A great site with on-line calculators (18,550 to be exact) for more areas of science than can be imagined.

• Earth & Moon Viewer- Highly accurate customizable views of earth and the moon from space. Includes NASA imagery options.

• Sciences Explorer-   Great interactive science site for Biology, Chemistry and Physics with labs, facts, games and interactive tours.  Try traveling through a cell and manipulating the camera view.  You may need to download this free VRML viewer.

• University of Ottawa's BIODIDAC-  This site has digital images for teaching biology.  They are copyright free and include things like cell, animal and plant specimens along with descriptions.  

Modern and Classical Languages

• Want to learn American Sign Language?  Well start here!  HandSpeak has videos to show you how to sign some common words and phrases.

• Trying to get those weird symbols for foreign language (Á)  to show up on your Mac?  Well check out this list of simple commands from the Screen Savers on TechTV.

• Universal Currency Converter-  Has 180 types of currency to choose from and stays up to date with current markets.

• YourDictionary.com-  Great site for looking up words in several dictionaries including a variety of different languages.

• Babelfish-  This site translates words between languages (though it isn't perfect).  You can type in the words, cut and paste them or even translate a web page by typing in the www address.

Mathematics

Math Activities (INTERACTIVE)  These Require only a web browser and the ability to load Applets.

Other helpful Math Links.

• Need some Algebra practice?  Why not have fun too?  Try downloading this free game called "Hungry Frog Freeware Arcade Math"

• Need a calculator?  Well this site has it all.  Choose from over twenty on-line calculators and converters.  Scientific, financial and much, much more.

• Martindale's Reference Desk:  Calculators-  Another great site with on-line calculators (18,550 to be exact) for mathematics and statistics.

• Universal Currency Converter-  Has 180 types of currency to choose from and stays up to date with current markets.

• The Math Forum-  A great site for all math education resources.  There are on-line lesson plans, projects, activities, and assessments for all ages and topics.

Visual and Performing Arts

• Music education sites recommended by TechTV.

Social Sciences

• Try this interactive site on American history at America's Library.  http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi

• Education and Education Online http://www.WorldandISchool.com/ is a great interdisciplinary site covering Social Studies, English, Technology, and more.  There materials are aligned with state and national standards (including Maine's Learning Results) and have lessons that can be searched for by standard, region of the world, and content area.  View current issue of the magazine can be viewed here as well.

• Atlas - Xpeditions @ nationalgeographic.com  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/ This is a great site for getting atlases and maps for every region of the world.  You can customize your maps to have political names printed or not (great for map quizzes) and to remove borders.  All maps are FREE and can be printed for educational use.

• MapMachine--online dynamic atlas, street maps...  http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/   From National Geographic on-line, this "Map Machine" allows you to highly customize different types of maps. The maps are interactive (letting you zoom in and out, with legends, without legends, etc).  A great place for displaying U.S. 2000 Census data as well.  Even allows you to measure distances between points that you set on the map.

• Xpedition Hall - Xpeditions @ nationalgeograpic.com  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/hall/index.html?node=48
  This site from National Geographic o-line, is nothing short of FASCINATING!  It is an interactive virtual museum that explores geography in 7 different areas.  There are interactive modules that students and teachers can "walk" to on the screen and examine topics such as political and physical boundaries, uses of geography and more.  All are aligned with national Social Studies Standards.

• Marco Polo Internet Content for the Classroom  http://www.marcopolo-education.org/  This website is partnered with great professional organizations like National Geographic, Kennedy Center for the Arts, National Council for Economics Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, and many more.  The site features MANY teacher and student resources and provides a search engine that allows users to search all of the partner sites by grade level, subject area, keywords or a combination of all. Lesson plans and other resources can be found throughout the site and it's partner sites and you can even request e-mails and staff development for this site.

• Marco Polo Lesson Plans for Maine  http://www.actem.org/marcosearch.htm Although this site appears to be down currently, it is a searchable page of Maine Learning Results aligned Marco Polo Lessons and projects.  Worth checking out in the future.

• Gwen Christman's Teaching with Technology Subject Area Resources http://faculty.une.edu/cas/gchstman/teachtech/subject.htm#Social  This site, created by Maine's own, Gwen Christman of UNE, gives some great links and descriptions for sites important to Social Studies educators and their students.  There are some good resources for elementary and middle educators here as well as secondary.

• 1492:  An Ongoing Voyage  http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/ A great site for discovering on-line information and exhibits about Columbus and other navigators of his time.

• United States Library of Congress   http://www.loc.gov/ This site is the go to place for primary documents, on-line exhibitions, photos and even video and sounds of historical importance.  One could easily get lost here.

• The WebQuest Portal Search Page-    http://webquest.org/search/webquestquery2.php  This site, managed by Bernie Dodge, who coined the term "WebQuest" allows you to search the thousands of WebQuests submitted by educators by keyword or author.  WebQuests are a great way to do interactive lessons and projects with students of all grade levels and content areas.  Check out the list of top WebQuests of Social Studies in grades

  • K-2 http://webquest.org/search/webquestresults.php?grade=gradek2&curr=currsocial&statuslevel=3

  • 3-5 http://webquest.org/search/webquestresults.php?grade=grade35&curr=currsocial&statuslevel=3

  • 6-8 http://webquest.org/search/webquestresults.php?grade=grade68&curr=currsocial&statuslevel=3

  • 9-12 http://webquest.org/search/webquestresults.php?grade=grade912&curr=currsocial&statuslevel=3

  • Adult Ed.  http://webquest.org/search/webquestresults.php?grade=gradeadult&curr=currsocial&statuslevel=3

• A-Bomb Museum-  http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB  This site includes on-line exhibits of the Peace Memorial Museum, discussions of the bombing and it's effects and many more resources.  Located in Hiroshima Japan.

• Anatomy of a Murder-  http://library.thinkquest.org/2760/  An online walk through the federal criminal justice system where the student plays the role of a defendant in a murder case.

• The Smithsonian Encyclopedia- http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/  The Smithsonian has long been an institution central to preserving history, an the website is no exception.  This encyclopedia has simple explanations of popular topics with pictures, timelines and collections from the museum.

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum-  http://www.ushmm.org  This site is an unbelievable resource.  It has thousands of primary documents on the subject, searchable collections of documents and photos, collections from the D.C. museum exhibits and even links to modern "Genocide Watches" around the world today.  There are teacher lesson plans for different subjects and grade levels with free on-line materials.  Due to the graphic and mature subject matter on this site, teachers SHOULD review materials before sending students to the site.

• Old Time Radio-  This site has a links to radio and print ads from the 1920's to the late 50's.  The Real Audio files can be played on-line or downloaded for use in student projects.  Click here to listen to a sample Phillip Morris Cigarette commercial.

• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection- Great list of historical, world, topographical, and political maps.

• FedStats-  Great site for census, economic and crime data.  This site is a compilation of 10 federal agencies and provides too much information to list here.  The great thing is, you can get local (county or state) data on everything from population make-up to % of businesses owned by women and minorities.

• United States Historical Census Data Browser-  Just what is says, going from 1790-1960.  It is easy to use and allows you to add several variables.

• University of Michigan Documents Center-  Links to many stats around the world.  From Agriculture to Energy to Weather, you'll find more here than you can shake a stick at.

• The World Fact Book-  This site has facts, stats, flags, and maps of all countries on earth.  This site also carries U.S. CIA intelligence data.

• Historical Atlases of the 20th Century-  This site has easy to use controls and has several interesting maps displaying data like death tolls in war, border changes, and even trends in art in the 20th century.

• Map Collections-  1500-1999, quite a time span organized by theme.  Great collection, including sketches of Maine towns.

• AlternaTime-  A great list of links to timelines of historical, literary, scientific and pop-cultural events, places, and people.

• Biographical Dictionary-  This site offers short, searchable biographical information on MANY people--even has a quiz to challenge your bio knowledge.

• HyperHistory Online-  This site has a great, interactive timeline that is color-coded to show different chronological themes like culture, literature, history, etc.  Very interesting, extensive and accessible.

• Lives-  This site provides on-line searchable biographic materials including primary documents like letters, diaries, and oral histories.

Miscellaneous Categories

Writing/Research Help:

• Easybib-  Need to cite that resource for your research?  Of COURSE you do.  Try EasyBib.  It will walk you through the steps and help you create a Works Cited page.  You can save and print the page right on-line.  The MLA format (required in most English classes) is a free service.  Check it out.

• Nashville Schools Research Techniques Page-  Great site to help you with the "how" of your research project.  Includes worksheets for note-taking, questioning, topic selections, outlining, and many other skills with examples of how to use them.

Multimedia Sources

• Find Sounds.com-  Are you looking for a sound effect to jazz up that web page, Power Point, or HyperStudio presentation?  Then you have to check out this site.  It allows you to search for sound files.

• Pics 4 Learning-  This is a site where you can find copyright free pictures for your presentations.

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Teacher Resources on the Web (Lesson and Activity Resources)

Marco Polo- This is a searchable database of on-line k-12 lessons and activities including Math, Economics, Arts, Foreign Language, Language Arts, Science, History, Music, and Humanities.  You can customize your search by subject and grade level or search the contributing sites which  include National Council on Economic Education, National Council on Economic Education, National Geographic Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Kennedy Center.  All resources are created for and often by teachers.

Bernie Dodge's Web Quest Page-  This page is full of great on-line activities for all content areas and grade levels.  This is the premier site for finding web quests, which will keep your students focused, engaged and using their brains to complete the task at hand.  All web quests are made by teachers for teachers and students.  Don't know what a web quest is?  Click here to find out.

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