Woodlands Web (online resource) Woodlands Junior School in the UK has created a very special and incredibly useful website. It is a repository of well organized and easily accessed interactive learning activities and games. Although Woodlands Junior students are aged 7 to 11, many of the activities housed on the website are appropriate for children both younger and older.

There are numerous features of this site that set it apart. First, there is the simple uncluttered interface that is completely ad-free and easy to navigate. Then there is the exceptional quality of the activities that are housed or linked on the site. There are both activities that have been created at Woodlands as well as links to some of the best that other sites have to offer. Activities are straightforward and engaging. Also notable is the extensive range of offerings.

In support of curriculum, activities are organized into four main areas: Literacy Zone; Maths Zone; Science Zone; Homework Help. As well, there is information about the UK in a special section entitled British Life and Festivals. Other subjects featured include playground games, safe internet surfing, jokes and brain teasers.

Finally, this site offers an extensive collection of games. By my count, there are currently 115 games in the collection. Titles range from Maniac Racers to Word Meisters. The top five games games of the moment are: Jet Slalom; Basketball; Tank Game; Harry Potter; 3D Driver. The site says these games are for the students, “…to enjoy during free time and when they are at home.”

The screenshot below shows only the top half of the starting interface for the Woodlands Web, but it gives an idea of how well the site is organized and of how clearly it is presented.

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Here’s an online library of helpful resources for educators and for students of any age. I’ve listed this on Content & Curriculum.

Utah Education Network (online resource) This is a well organized repository of resource links for educators and students–from Kindergarten to post-secondary. The site is comprehensive in its scope. The main categories: K-12 Educators; K-12 students; Higher Ed. Faculty; College Students; Adult Education. Resources are searchable, and the content is organized intuitively. Material can be searched by both grade level and subject area.

Most helpful of all, from my perspective, is the collection of free online interactive student activities (“Student Interactives” under “K-12 Students” ). There is much here to enrich and re-enforce virtually every area of the curriculum. Most linked online activities are created in either Flash or Shockwave. The activities have been chosen carefully and they are all of high quality. Take a look at the following screen shots to get a better idea of some of the content and how it is organized and presented. (Click on thumbnail to enlarge.)

SymbolWorld.org (online resource) This is a website that has been created to offer free content for users of Widget Rebus Symbols. The entire site has been constructed using Writing With Symbols 2000 (2.6) and Communicate: In Print 2. SymbolWorld includes a variety of curriculum-based learning activities organized under the following headings: Science & Nature; Life Skills; Cooking; Interactive; Humanities; Literacy; Different Languages; Current Affairs. There are separate sections for stories and personal contributions. SymbolWorld also hosts a monthly online magazine called eLive. eLive offers a collection of current event news articles as well as film reviews, puzzles, recipes, jokes, etc. A pdf version of eLive is available for download, and eLive is archived with access to editions dating back to 2002. The entire site is easy to navigate with large easily accessible buttons.

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A significant number of students I have supported in special education would be intrigued by today’s feature. I file most calendar resources on my Productivity page. This one clearly belongs with Content & Curriculum.

Calendar Magic (downloadable program) There are numerous free calendar applications, but this one is unique. Calendar Magic offers calendars in Gregorian, Chinese, Hebrew, Julian, and Persian formats. This calendar enables you to go back to virtually any date in history. It’s easy to go back and find the day of the week on which you were born, or to discover how many days you have lived.

If you need to know the date and time of an equinox, solstice, or moon phase in any year between 1582 and 3000, then this is the calendar for you. Also, if you need to know when religious festivals or other days of observance occur, Calendar Magic will help you with that.

Of course, Calendar Magic can give you reminders for current events such as birthdays or anniversaries, even an audible reminder for something that is about to happen immediately. Other features include a Geometry calculator and a mathematical Expressions Calculator. This program has been developed by a company called Eurosoft, and they continue to update it. The latest release was on Aug. 11, 2006.

The program is available from Eurosoft.

This program runs in Windows.

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Here’s a practical resource for anyone who lives or works with children with autism, ADHD, or delayed speech. The activities can be used as soon as they are downloaded, but they may also inspire you to create activities in a similar vein. I’ve put this on my Content & Curriculum page.

Hiyah.net (downloadable programs) Hiyah fills a significant need by offering a growing set of downloadable activities designed to help develop basic language and communication skills in children with autism, ADHD, or delayed speech. Each activity is built around a nursery rhyme, a specific holiday/celebration, or other activity that might be stressful for a child. The activities are visually appealing, and it is evident that they are the result of careful thought and planning.

Since the activities have been created in PowerPoint, they can all be accessed by having the child simply hit the space bar. Alternatively, a switch may be used via an adapted mouse.

Each activity comes bundled with its own PowerPoint viewer. This means that when you double click on a shortcut for the activity, the activity will open in PowerPoint. Image and sound quality is high. Because of the rich media content, some of the files are rather large. This means that downloading can take some time even with a high speed connection.

For more information, and to download the activities, go to Hihah.net.

These activities run in Windows and Mac.

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Have you considered starting the new school year by having each student create his or her own photo calendar? Perhaps a collaboratively produced class calendar? Today’s free program from Germany is designed to facilitate the creation of photo calendars. This is a Productivity resource.

TKexe Kalender (downloadable program) Here’s a free program that is designed to facilitate the creation of custom photo calendars. TKexe offers considerable flexibility and provides several calendar formats or styles to choose from. Of course, you can substitute any image file if you prefer not to use photos. The set of Help files is somewhat limited, but the program is not too difficult to figure out. The program can be downloaded from http://www.tkexe.de/kalender/. Be sure to specify your preferred language. This program is available for download in 12 languages!

This program runs in Windows only.

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Here’s an online resource with much to offer for teens as well as for anyone involved in working with them both in and out of school. This one’s on my Content & Curriculum page, but it is a resource that can also enhance productivity.

TeenSpace – Internet Public Library for Teens (online resource) The part of the Internet Public Library that is geared toward teens is a truly amazing free resource for teens and those who support them. This website offers a large and well organized collection of valuable links that point teens to sources of relevant information–both academic and otherwise. The site is uncluttered and ad-free.

To give some idea of the range of material that is catalogued, the home page features the following “Hot Topics”: School and Homework Help; A+ Writing; Graphic Novels Guide; Poetry Wiki; FAEQs (Frequently Asked Embarrassing Questions); Procrastinator. The home page’s “Directory” consists of the following headings: Clubs and Organizations; Reading and Writing; Health and Sexuality; School and Homework Help; Money and Work; Sports, Entertainment and Arts; Technology. This site and many of its component pages deserve to be bookmarked.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.If you haven’t yet checked out the Internet Public Library, it is a marvellous resource for individuals of all ages. I am highlighting here the part of the Internet Public Library that has been created specifically for kids. This one is listed on my Content & Curriculum page.

Kidspace @ The Internet Public Library (online resource) is a huge repository of information and resources for children. Essentially, this site is a very well organized collection of links to other web sites. The main headings are: Reference; Our World; Computers & Internet; Health & Nutrition; Reading Zone; Math & Science; Art & Music; Sports & Recreation; Fun Stuff. Kidspace itself is ad-free and the site is clean and uncluttered. The sites that are linked are generally of very high quality, but they are not all ad-free. Kidspace provides links to both content and skill-building sources.

In addition to its “Subject Collections”, Kidspace offers what it calls “Features”. These include: Science Fair, Stately Knowledge, Learning HTML, Orca Search, Poison Prevention, Culture Quest, Story Hour, US Presidents. The site is searchable, and for children under 13, there is an “Ask a question” feature. The site says it requires 3 days to answer questions that are submitted.

The Internet Public Library is sponsored by The Regents of the University of Michigan.

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Today’s new listing offers support for almost the entire curriculum–from basic literacy and numeracy to advanced research and study skills. Any teacher working at any level from K to 12 will find it worthwhile to explore what is available here!

2Learn.ca Education Society (online resource) This website houses an amazingly extensive collection of online resources for K – 12 students, for their parents, and for their teachers. It is sponsored jointly by Alberta Education, The Alberta Teachers’ Association, The College of Alberta School Superintendents, The Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta, and Telus. In addition to offering a few of its own resources, this website provides links to some of the best educational resources and online activities available elsewhere on the internet. The site is well organized, making it easy to locate material and activities to support specific areas of the curriculum. For Canadian schools, the French language resources may be especially helpful. Canada is also the primary focus of social studies links on this site.

One of the following links may suggest the part of the site that you want to check out first: 2Learn.ca Educators’ Resource, 2Learn.ca en francais, Parents Want 2Learn.ca Too!, ABC@2Learn.ca, l Kids Love 2Learn.ca, 2Learn.ca for Teens, Senior High Source@2Learn.ca.There is one more section of 2Learn.ca that deserves special mention. It is SATIR, and that stands for School Administrators’Technology Integration Resource. Within SATIR there is a helpful emphasis on the implementation of assistive technology.

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Today’s highlighted resource is on the Content and Curriculum page, and it has a great deal to offer for virtually every subject area. This one’s amazing!

Wikipedia (online resource) Wikipedia is a truly remarkable online resource. It is an online encyclopedia offering an incredible wealth of information on a huge range of subjects. Since this site has been constructed as a wiki, you and your students even have the opportunity to add to this amazing online resource. Here’s how Wikipedia describes itself: “Begun in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link…”