About
Sep 5th, 2006 by Paul Hamilton
There is a wealth of free educational resources available on the internet. These include countless stand alone programs, numerous websites offering quality online activities, myriad resources for download, as well as a rapidly growing number of powerful online tools to facilitate learning.
The advent of the “Read/Write Web”, or “Web 2.0″, is resulting in the rapid development of a set of online resources that facilitate both learning and teaching for ALL learners. One of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 is that users generate content that is stored on the internet and that can be shared with others. Among other things, this means that there are now numerous online options for digital story-telling. This is not only powerfully engaging and motivating, it offers exciting new opportunities for individuals with writing challenges to share what they learn.
I am putting together a growing collection of free programs and online resources. This blog exists to facilitate exploring and sharing these free resources. Because I work in the field of assistive technology (K-12), there is some emphasis here on resources for students who use technology to overcome barriers. Most listed resources, however, are of value to ALL learners and teachers. (Any teacher who no longer sees himself/herself as a learner, of course, is not worthy of being called an educator!)
I’ve organized my collection here under two main headings: “Productivity” for resources that I think have the potential to help one become more productive; “Content and Curriculum” for programs and websites that directly support curriculum. Categorization is not an exact science in terms of these lists, so feel free to challenge my choices. Originally, I also had a catetory I called “Cool Stuff” for programs or websites that I considered particularly wonderful for any number of entirely subjective reasons. I have discontinued the “Cool Stuff” category because there are too many resources that are just too cool for words.
After I put up a blog post about a particular resource, I copy my description on either the Productivity page or on the Content and Curriculum page. On these pages, I list alphabetically the resources that I have posted. You can browse my lists there if you wish.
You can also search this blog. If you enter a word or term in the search bar at the top right corner, you will get a list of every entry on the blog where that word occurs. For example, if you enter “science”, you should get a listing of all resources pertaining to science because I have done my best to use the word science on every entry where the activity described pertains to science in some way. This seems to be working reasonably well.
I am also filing my posts under specific category headings. You will find the list of all categories where blog posts have been filed on the left side of the blog page. Searching by category seems to be the most effective way of locating resources here.
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So, who am I?
My name is Paul Hamilton, and I work as an assistive technology consultant in the public school system on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
There are many fine commercial products available to help individuals use technology to overcome a wide range of barriers. I have the privilege of supporting the use of some of these great resources in my professional role. The budgets of educators and parents, however, are often stretched thin. This sometimes means difficult choices about what to purchase and what has to wait.
So, I am constantly on the lookout for free options or alternatives that can fill some of the gaps. It is this search that has led to this personal project. I’m hoping my blog will be an effective vehicle for sharing the treasures that I have found. At the same time, I welcome any help in expanding and refining my collection of free resources. Your comments and contributions will always be welcome.
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Paul, what an amazing resource! Thanks for sharing, and for your email! I’m raiding your blog for things to write about on NCS-Tech! Keep up the great work!
Kevin Jarrett | Technology Facilitator, K-4 | District Webmaster
Northfield Community School: http://www.ncs-nj.org
Great resource Paul! Thanks for the collective information and help this provides teachers. You may want to look at www.iabida.com, which is electronic communication management for special needs students. The individual account is provided at no charge for professionals, parents and others. Let me know if you want me to walk you through this some time for a review on your site, or you can see the demo on the site as well. Keep up the good work.
Nice website! Maybe you also would like to have a look at http://www.open-of-course.org where you find multilingual and open content courses and tutorials.
Terrific site. Could you consider adding our site for all its great freebies. The site is called Youth Change and is at http://www.youthchg.com; Click here to visit it. We have a free Problem Student Problem-Solver internet magazine that’s always free to teachers and other professionals.
Sign up at this page if you are a teacher or youth worker. Plus, we send free sample interventions too, also accessed from this one page. Even better, the site also has dozens of pages of interventions and dozens of articles with solutions to behavior problems, and all of these are free. Our Solution Center is the best place for freebies.
Click to go there now. Keep up the good work, and please let our site become a part of your universe. Thanks.
Excellent site.
An additional reason I have for supporting ‘free’ resources is that students can use them anywhere, any time.
Being able to use an expensive piece of software, but only during school hours is very limiting.
Found this site by accident. Wondering if you have a contact email. Would like to ask a couple of questions.
Thank you.
Hi Paul: Thanks for the recent re-mention of Gliffy. We appreciate that you have taken time to share information and use Gliffy–We hope it continues to be helpful for you and your colleagues. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please let us know. Thanks again, Debik(at)Gliffy(dot)com
greatly enjoyed seeing your presentation at CTG - looking forward to using some of your resources with my son!
This is a wonderful resource. Thank you so much for your hard work. I am looking forward to finding many things I can use as an ESL teacher and passing on to my son’s teacher and our Special Ed teachers.
Paul, could you email me please (can’t find your email here)? I have a message to forward to you that was left on my site.
Thanks for the great resource!
You should also check out www.literacyispriceless.wordpress.com for a variety of early literacy sources.
Hi Paul
I read your excellent comment on Sue Water’s blog post about Twitter. I am glad to join your community. Excellent resources Paul. I have added your blog to Google Reader and I am your newest follower on Twitter. I shall share your site with the Special Needs staff at our school.
Best wishes
John Larkin
What a fantastic and honorable venture.
We hold things in common as we try and get the word out that the Internet can be open and accessible to all.
Thank you for support and for the wonderful and selfless work that you are doing.
Ken Saunders
www.AccessFirefox.org.
Paul,
Just discovered your site via Twitter. Great stuff, every post is a winner.
THANK YOU.
-ron k jeffries
An incredible resource collection. It truly is a goldmine of information! Many thanks.
Marie