How can a teacher who only has a few minutes here and there in a busy day ever find and evaluate the best internet resources for teaching and learning in her classroom? Unless she is motivated to search for internet content sources outside her busy school day, she clearly has to rely on others to do this for her.
There are educational technologists out there on the blogosphere who create networks of educators to help identify those really salient online resources that will bring a classroom activity to life.
One such educational technologist is Kelly Tenkeley, a technology integration specialist from the Denver area and blogger. A week doesn’t pass that I don’t find a nugget worth exploring on her blog, iLearn Technology, An Edublog about Integrating Technology into the Classroom.
Each blog entry on iLearn Technology links to one online tool or website, describes what it’s about, and offers ideas for integrating it into the classroom. Kelly generally post 3-5 websites a week. Although she is an elementary educational technologist, many of her links are useful for teachers across all grades and content areas.
How to track postings
The best way to track additions to her website is via an RSS feed reader. I use iGoogle and Google Reader (see my post on this subject). Don’t forget to bookmark good websites she leads you to in your Delicious account!
Hi Todd,
Great post.
Twitter is another tool that educators need to be using. I find at at least 2 things a day that I can use in my classroom or contribute to my own PD in some way. I blogged about my 24 hour PD session in Twitter. (http://learnteachtech.com)
I also recommend http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
Great posts about classroom tech resources. (PS. I found this site via Twitter, can you see I’m plugging Twitter as much as possible?)