Five Friday Finds

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Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others!

General-
The Educator’s Reference Desk: http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/index.shtml
Site with over 2000 unique lesson plans, written & submitted by teachers.  Lessons are categorized, and are searchable. 

Assistive-
Zamzar: http://zamzar.com/
In addition to providing online file conversion, Zamzar has added a text to speech conversion.  The user can upload files in TXT, DOC, DOCX, EPS, PDF, RTF, WPD, WPS and convert it to an mp3 audio file.  There is a 100MB limit on file size.

ELA-
21st Century Lit .org: http://21stcenturylit.org/
Detailed lesson modules for 7th-12th grade students that incorporate journalistic writing, project based learning and technology.

Science-
Earth Science Week 2010: http://climate.nasa.gov/esw2010/
The site provides a variety of resources for teachers to use in the classroom (videos, data, activities and interactives); this year’s theme was “Exploring Energy” and last year’s was “Understanding Climate” (access by changing the 2010 to 2009 in the URL). Earth Science Week is conducted annually by the American Geological Institute in partnership with NASA & other sponsors.

Social Studies-
The Supreme Court: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/index.html
PBS site with videos, timelines, lesson plans, discussion guides and other resources all about the history of the Supreme Court and its role in our daily lives.  The site was developed in input from Civic, American History & Social Studies teachers and has lessons appropriate for students ages 9-18.

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