5 websites with massive amounts of free educational resources

FREE Educational Resources
The Federal Registry for Educational Excellence (FREE) website contains a massive collection of education resources. Animations, primary documents, photograph collections, videos, maps, articles, and the lists goes on and on. If you have never visited this incredible collection of educational resources for all subjects and grade levels, then you really have been missing out. For all that our government does wrong, their collection of FREE educational tools and materials is quite extensive and very useful.

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Graphic Organizers
There are many places on the web where you can find graphic organizers but it may take searching through several sites before you find the right one. The next time you need a graphic organizer, start here at this collection of graphic organizers from the Vermilion Parish. They have collected the best organizers from around the internet into one large collection for you to use.

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CK-12
CK-12.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to education. Their website offers a large collection of resources for students and teachers like Brain Genie which I previously shared. The bulk of their resources are math and science centered where students can learn about chemistry, physics, algebra, and geometry just to name four. They also offer resources for other content areas as well including history, English, and SAT prep. Their website is free to join and offers a wealth of learning resources and activities. Their site offers articles, quizzes, interactive lessons, videos and students can keep track of their learning as they complete lessons and activities and members can upload their own resources to the site as well.

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Gilder Lehrman Institute
History teachers will want to spend some time here at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website. It features great resources such as this American History by Era which allows you to learn about American history by era and or theme. There is also a section dedicated to primary sources which is also categorized by era. In their Programs and Exhibitions area there is an online exhibitions page which includes enhanced audio, videos and slideshows about history. The site also includes a multimedia section with hundreds of videos as well as a community section where members of the site can communicate and share information. Suffice to say that the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History  is a fantastic resource for history teachers and students.

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Chronicling America
Chronicling America, from the Library of Congress, is a site that contains a huge database of historic newspaper pages from the years 1836 to 1922. Their homepage features "newspapers from 100 years ago today" but users of the site can use their extensive search option to look for year, state, topic, newspaper, dates, and even language. Here is a clip from a newspaper when I searched "World War I, New York, 1918."

Chronicling America could be a good tool for student research from a particular era or topic. If you are a history teacher you owe it to yourself and your students to take some time to browse around and see what the site has to offer.

Photo Pin - Free photos for your blog

Photo Pin is a site where you can search and find millions of Creative Commons photographs from Flickr and add them to your website of blog. Once you have decided on a picture you choose the size and then download it to you computer be sure you copy the attribution to your post. I love photography and I got caught up in looking at all the amazing pictures. Below is a picture I grabbed from Photo Pin and I found the experience to be both easy and fun. 

photo credit: fatboyke (Luc) via photopin cc

Huge Collection of Free Government Resources for Education

In honor of Washington D.C.'s sequestration fiasco, I decided to share the federal government's entire collection of education resources. Animations, primary documents, photograph collections, videos, maps, articles, and the lists goes on and on. If you have never visited this incredible collection of educational resources for all subjects and grade levels, then you really have been missing out. For all that our government does wrong, their collection of FREE educational tools and materials is quite extensive and very useful. Head on over to this web portal ASAP, before they are threatened the incompetence (my opinion) of our leaders.

Jump Share - Fast and easy file sharing

Jump Share is a site that will allow you to easily and quickly share files with other people. To get started you simply type in your name, email address, and password and you are on your way. The next step is to upload your files and the site gives you a link that you can email to anyone who you wish to share your files. The recipients will get an email message and can preview the files before they are downloaded. This site is free to use but the maximum size for any one file is 100MB and the total limit you can send collectively is 2GB. Jump Share supports over 200 different file formats and is a great tool if you have a variety of files to share with many people. It is simple to use and best of all it is free. 

Publisher to PDF - Convert Publisher files for FREE

Publisher to PDF is a website that allows you to convert a Publisher document to a PDF file without scanning and without any cost to you. You simply upload your file and submit your email and the site emails you a link with your PDF file. The final step is to download the file to your computer but please be aware that the message that explains this final step is below a more pronounced advertisement. While  Publisher to PDF does take a few steps, it is well worth it because it works and it is free.

All My Favs - Your favorite websites all on one page

There are many ways for you to keep all your favorite websites in one location but there is none quite like  All My Favs. This free website turns your bookmarks into your home page by allowing you to store all your favorite sites onto one all encompassing, visually impressive, web page. Creating your page is simple to do and when you are done you can share your page with others. All My Favs is a handy site that provides quick and easy access your favorite websites plus the sharing feature makes it a useful tool for anyone who wants to share resources with colleagues,friends and family.

Memrise - Learn Something New Everyday for Free

Memrise is an education website that will help you learn languages, history, science, math, geography, arts, and literature. Their methods are scientifically based and their lessons are interactive and fun. Teachers will be able to use Memrise to help reinforce curriculum and parents will love Memrise because they can use it  at home to help their child review and to support their learning. Memrise also allows members to create their own courses. The site offers such a wide variety of courses and lessons and it is free to join. Anyone who values learning will find Memrise to be a handy educational support tool.

10 great tools for education: Day 2

Today is day two of my 10 great tools for education. I sincerely hope that you enjoy the second helping of web based educational resources.

The first resource for today is called Share My Lesson. This website is a place where educators can create and share their best/favorite teaching resources. Share My Lesson also contains a large amount of resources related to Common Core State Standard and best of all, this site is free to use.

The second site for today is Voice Thread which is not new but is very worthy of mention. This site allows students to comment on resources posted  by their teacher. The resources can be pictures, web pages, documents of a video. Students can choose to write their response or they can record their feedback by using a microphone, web cam, or cell phone. They have the option of responding with a video commentary. Like every other resource I have shared, Voice Thread is free to sign up but it does cost money  if you want to add student accounts.

10 great tools for education: Day 1

This week I will be sharing 10 websites themed exclusively around cloud based education tools. While there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of excellent web based sites available, it would be impossible to share them all. I will be sharing two per day for 5 days with the hope that less is more. Exploring two websites is much easier than the 5 to 8 that I have normally been sharing. With that said lets get rolling with the first two sites.

Three Ring is a website that allows you to take a picture of student work with your smart phone or tablet and upload and store it to your Three Ring account. Three Ring has an app for iPhone and iPad as well as the Android market and the website is free for teachers. You can go here to find out more or sign up if you are so inclined.

The second site I'd like to share is the Teaching Channel. This site is comprised of high quality videos produced by educators from all over the country. The website is easy to navigate and the videos are sorted by grade level, content specialty, or topic. This site is a must see and best of all, it is free!

Please stop back each day this week, as I will be sharing two new sites every day.