ETIPS - Make Thinking Visible
Professional Development
Professional development is targeted at successful technology integration. Professional development is an essential component in the process of teachers learning to effectively integrate technology in a classroom environment. This training can take many forms and should include a wide variety of skills beyond the operation of specific software. This resource area provides resources for professional development opportunities that exist across the country.
Professional Journals for Special Education- General
Chronicle of Higher Education
DESCRIPTION: The Chronicle of Higher Education, one of the most well respected industry publications, offers access to past and present issues of its weekly and daily news briefs. There are plenty of detailed sections: information technology, distance education, publishing, jobs and more; there are special features, such as a reader for related magazines and journals and a list of Internet resources.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Chronicle of Higher Education
Literacy and Technology
URL: http://campus.fortunecity.com/newton/40/home.html
DESCRIPTION: This site is designed to assist teachers, students, parents, and others, with the integration of curriculum and the Internet in order to promote student literacy. It offers a large variety of links to a number of sites including: educational support, lesson design, teaching tips; computer and technology, on line tutorials and information; government links, public policy making; media and reference, research support; and virtual field trip links.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Dr Joyce Hinkson, teacher
The DRM Regional Resource Directory
URL: http://www.disabilityresources.org/MINNESOTA.html
DESCRIPTION: This web site helps to promote and improve the awareness; the availability and the accessibility of information to help people with disabilities lead more independent lives. It offers a rich database of disability related resources and an on-line guide to disability resources on the Web.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Verizon Foundation
NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc)
URL: http://www.rarediseases.org
DESCRIPTION: This website features a unique array of diseases. It has a database in which to search out rare diseases, an organizational database, and an orphan drug designation database. It also has a wonderful newsletter that gives updates on orphan diseases.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc
Idea Partnerships
URL: http://www.ideapractices.org
DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this site is to help educate and deliver a common message about the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The site contains information on the law, how it is implemented, projects that are supported and a wealth of resources, online documents, books, articles, associations, organizations, and web sites that focus on the education of students with disabilities.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: 4 National projects funded by the U S Dept of Ed
Family and Advocates Partnership for Education
URL: http://www.fape.org/
DESCRIPTION: This web site partners with PACER in a project that attempts to inform and educate families and advocates about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997). The site discusses issues surrounding a wide variety of topics including transitions, culturally sensitive curriculum, juvenile justice, best-teaching practices and current legislative policy.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: PACER Center and 11 core partners and their respective coalitions of more than 500 grassroots family and advocacy groups
ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology
URL: http://www.askeric.org/ithome/
DESCRIPTION: The ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology (ERIC/IT) is the arm of the National Educational Resources Information Center that specializes in library and information science and educational technology. At the site, you can search abstracts of documents and journal articles in the database, access ERIC/IT digests, get an introduction to ERIC/IT publications, get lists of links and associations, and more.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: U.S. Department of Education
From Now On: The Education Technology Journal
URL: http://www.fno.org
DESCRIPTION: This e-zine publishes articles on education issues. The large text is easy to read, and interspersed with pictures and other graphic images; the articles also enumerate pertinent resources that are available. Issues can be accessed by the month in which they were published, or with a useful subject index. Check out the cartoon gallery, too.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: The Education Technology Journal
Special Education News
URL: http://www.specialednews.com
DESCRIPTION: This site answers a need in special education for in-depth, timely news related to educating students with disabilities. The Web site and newsletter are journalistic publications centered on the news of the special education field. The Web site is also designed to offer unique resources to special education professionals in one convenient place. These include places for educators and others to exchange their views, find links to important information at other sites on the Web and keep track of news and events across the country.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Special Education News
U.S.Dept. of Ed. Office of Educational Technology
URL: http://www.ed.gov/Technology
DESCRIPTION: The OET's aim is to improve education by enabling access to available technology resources. The site provides information on grant programs, links to federal and non-federal resources, access to state and regional contacts, information on conferences and speeches, and related articles and the publications in which they can be found.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: U.S. Department of Education
Education Index
URL: http://www.educationindex.com
DESCRIPTION: This guide to education resources on the Web is a comprehensive starting point. Sites are organized by stage in life (preschool, primary education, college education etc.) or by subject (from agriculture to women's studies; education is one area). Lists are well spaced and easy to read, and a brief description of each site is provided. There's even a clever little tour guide--the Web weasel.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Education Index
Education World
URL: http://www.education-world.com
DESCRIPTION: This neat, well-organized site offers an archive of articles about issues facing educators and administrators, curriculum resources, news, lesson plans, job postings and more. The site houses an extensive database of education-related links and information; a search engine is provided to scour categories ranging from Arts and Humanities to Special Education to Parent Resources.
Technology and Learning Magazine
URL: http://www.techlearning.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site is contains database lists of more than 1,300 instructional software reviews and can be searched by subject, including reading, special education, and early childhood; grade range; article type, including award winners, comparative review or product announcement; and format.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Technology and Learning Magazine
The DRM Guide to Disability Resources on the Internet
URL: http://www.disabilityresources.org/DRMabout.html
DESCRIPTION: DRM disseminates information about books, pamphlets, magazines, newsletters, videos, databases, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, telephone hotlines and on-line services that provide free, inexpensive or hard-to-find information to help people with disabilities live independently.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Avery and Julie Klauber, Communication Specialist for Nonprofit Organizations
National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities
DESCRIPTION: NICHCY is the national information and referral center that provides information on disabilities and disability-related issues for families, educators, and other professionals. Our special focus is children and youth (birth to age 22).
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Academy for Educational Development, Office of Special Education, US Dept. of Ed
Total Special Education System (TSES)
URL: http://www.asec.net/tses/intropage.htm
DESCRIPTION: This website is a search engine for the Tatla Special Education System Generic Policies and Procedures manual published by the Minnesota Department for Children, Families & Learning.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Minnesota Department of Children, Families & Learning
Advance Ability
DESCRIPTION: A very interesting sight that covers the "process" of learning to read. This site also contains information about common language development problems and some ideas on how to remedy them.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Ruth Alice Jurey, a practicing speech and language pathologist
Business & Marketing for Special Education- General
Internet4classrooms
URL: http://www.internet4classrooms.com
DESCRIPTION: This site provides teachers with activities designed to be used on a daily or weekly basis in any classroom, along with links to Internet sites for teachers to use when planning units or projects. It also has a wide variety of on-line learning modules for the most common software applications. These are available to school level trainers, professionals, classroom instructors teaching an application to students or to any person wanting to learn an application.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Susan Brooks and Bill Byles
CompuPlay
URL: http://www.pclink.com/eaz/courage/links.htm
DESCRIPTION: As a family computer resource center for kids with disabilities, this site provides a variety of learning opportunities that are available either at the site or at the Courage Center itself. It also provides a number of links to other sites of high interest for this range.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Courage CompuPlay Center, Golden Valley, MN
AssistiveTech
URL: http://www.287assistivetech.com
DESCRIPTION: This site contains wonderful descriptions of a wide range of assistive technology tools. It is a database that contains products commonly used with special need students. It offers on-line product descriptions, manufacturer information, and appropriateness of the item as an accommodation for the eleven learning areas of the Minnesota Graduation Rule Content Standards
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Intermediate School District 287
The Learning Network
URL: http://www.familyeducation.com/home
DESCRIPTION: This site contains thorough content, resources and shopping for parents, teachers, and students with disabilities. It provides tools that help students take control of their learning and make it part of their everyday lives
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: The Learning Network
Inclusion in Science Education for Students with Disabilities
URL: http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/
DESCRIPTION: This web site includes a series of information on how to teach including: general courtesy, teacher preparation, testing, research and field experience for a variety of disability areas. It shows accommodations involving strategies, learning environments, and technologies that will assist students with disabilities both in the classroom and outside.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: WV Dept of Ed; National Science Foundation; Eberly College of Arts & Science, WVU
StudyWeb
DESCRIPTION: The site calls itself ""The Learning Portal,"" and it is simply that: a jumping-off point to thousands of online resources. The home page is very easy to use; simply pick a general category from a list of about 30 and narrow your choices from there. Be sure to check out the education and/or teacher resources categories. You can also view a full table of contents in alphabetical order. Under the name of each link you will find a brief description, a URL address, source/contributor information, a visual content rating and an approximate grade level to which it's geared. There are a few dead links, however.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: StudyWeb.com
Gateway to Educational Materials
URL: http://www.thegateway.org
DESCRIPTION: A Department of Education consortium created this site to help teachers access lesson plans and instructional material available on the Internet. The targeted search engine allows teachers to select a grade level as well as a type of search (simple, or browse lists of subjects or keywords); the search plumbs the teaching resources of federal, state, university, commercial and nonprofit organizations. Individuals and organizations with sites that have lesson ideas and materials are invited to submit their resources for possible inclusion in the database.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Department of Education Consortium
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
DESCRIPTION: FREE is the centralized location for teaching and learning resources that are supported by various agencies of the federal government. Unlike the Gateway to Educational Material, which conducts a broader search, this portal will deliver only federally supported education resources. That said, it's an excellent way to search Uncle Sam's house. The list of links, which is arranged by subject, includes the name of the government agency that sponsors the site.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: U.S. Government
EdWeb
URL: http://www.edwebproject.org/
DESCRIPTION: Ed Web was created by Andy Carvin and explores themes of educational reform and information technology in short essays. An abundance of hypertext links allows you to jump around the site with ease and seek out answers to the questions that specifically interest you. The site offers numerous links to education resources, and it is also the home base of WWWEDU, which touts itself as the Internet's largest forum on the use of the World Wide Web in education.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Andy Carvin
The Library in the Sky
URL: http://www.nwrel.org/sky/
DESCRIPTION: This site, created by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, is a starting point for educational resources on the Web. Choose from teacher resources, student resources, librarian resources, parent resources or community resources. Lists get very detailed by subject and type of resource, and a handy breadcrumb shows where and how deep in a given resource section you have traveled. With the more than 10,000 links the site claims to house, it's not surprising there are a few dead ones, as well as some redirects. Check out the former Picks of the Week section; there are some interesting and fun sites here.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory
Kathy Shrock's Guide for Educators
URL: http://school.discovery.com/shrockguide
DESCRIPTION: This site is part of the Discovery Channel School, and provides relevant links for educators. Access information for a variety of subjects: Art and Architecture, Business Sources/Grants, History and Social Studies, Mathematics, Organizations/Government, Weather, and much more. Go to the Additional Information section for a range of topics: tips on improving students' ability to critically evaluate sites, tips on introducing the Internet to the classroom, an alphabetical index to the site, and more.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: Discovery Channel School
Way Cool Software Reviews
URL: http://www.pappanikou.uconn.edu/wcool.html
DESCRIPTION: Way Cool Software Reviews is the product of graduate students in an Internet/WWW class during the summer of 1995 at the University of Connecticut. The intent of the project is to promote evaluations of software by kids, teachers and parents. Way Cool Software Reviews (WCSR) is a joint project of the A. J. Pappanikou Center Technology Lab at the University of Connecticut and the Chatback Trust of the United Kingdom. Reviews are published on the Way Cool Listserv and here on the World Wide Web.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION: University of Connecticut