Educational Resources

Recently a colleague passed this list of resources along to me. I felt I needed to share them as many allow teachers to stretch our tight budgets while enabling us to have rich content and incorporate the Common Core. So thanks to Ted Schulz for passing this information along and Patty Fisher from St. Lawrence Lewis BOCES who compiled the list. Curriki Curriki is a website that curates content in a variety of disciplines, highlighting noteworthy teachers and content. Membership is free, and users can sign in with their Google Apps or Facebook account. While Curriki is a non-profit, it asks users for an optional donation. This site integrates well with the iPad and Chromebook, and documents are available in many formats for easy viewing. Here is a testimonial on their site from Leslie G. Perry, a U.S.-based educator and blogger: What makes [Curriki] remarkable is how well it is organized, the rating system to guide educators on their search for curricula, and the interactivity included in every lesson plan provided. CK-12 The CK-12 Foundation offers FlexBooks, full digital texts that students and teachers can access on multiple devices in PDF, MOBI and ePub formats. This provides broad access to rich content. Here's more from the CK12 Flexbook site: Services like CK-12 make it easy for teachers to assemble their own textbooks. Content is mapped to a variety of levels and standards including Common Core. You can start from scratch or build from anything in the FlexBooks library. Connexions Connexions is another free OER offering that allows users to sign up with a username and password to access a variety of modules and collections on multiple devices. Their website tells us: Connexions is a dynamic digital educational ecosystem consisting of an educational content repository and a content management system optimized for the delivery of educational content. Connexions is one of the most popular open education sites in the world. Its more than 17,000 learning objects or modules in its repository and over 1000 collections (textbooks, journal articles, etc.) are used by over two million people per month. Its content services the educational needs of learners of all ages, in nearly every discipline, from math and science to history and English to psychology and sociology. Connexions delivers content for free over the Internet for schools, educators, students and parents to access 24/7/365. Materials are easily downloadable to almost any mobile device for use anywhere, any time. Schools can also order low-cost hard-copy sets of the materials (textbooks). Content is vetted by major organizations and universities and is accessible in PDF or EPub formats. And the display quality on an iPad in iBooks is excellent. Smarthistory Smarthistory is not only a clever play on words, but also a great art history resource. This site features content organized by time period, style, artist and theme. It's more of a gallery of art history than a textbook. Here's an excerpt from a description of their offerings: Smarthistory at Khan Academy is the leading open educational resource for art history. We make high-quality introductory art history content freely available to anyone, anywhere. Smarthistory is a platform for the discipline where art historians contribute in their areas of expertise and learners come from across the globe. We offer nearly 500 videos, and these are being translated into dozens of languages. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker created Smarthistory and are the Executive Editors. Videos are also available on Khanacademy.org and the Khan Academy app. Smarthistory and Khan Academy are 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporations. MIT OpenCourseWare The MIT OpenCourseWare site offers educators and students access to full courses designed and taught by MIT professors. Users can access the entire course library and the entire course packet. Course packets include video interviews with professors, syllabus, outlines, readings, assignments, projects and related resources. Here is a brief synopsis from the site: MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. Through OCW, educators improve courses and curricula, making their schools more effective; students find additional resources to help them succeed; and independent learners enrich their lives and use the content to tackle some of our world's most difficult challenges, including sustainable development, climate change, and cancer eradication. OER Commons This site offers educators a place where they can connect and share globally with other educators, and work with the curriculum those educators have shared. OER Commons offers a vast database of teacher-created curriculum. The content is vetted for credibility and provides citations for reference. Users can sign up for a free account, share their own work, and access and curate their own content.