ITS-IDEAL to Make a Difference!

IDEAL Training
http://its-ideal.com/
IDEAL Training site is the hub of the IDEAL training conference. It lists information about engaged learning as well as links to WebQuests created by a group of participants. Use this site to find of all of the Internet site listed on this handout.

Blue Web'n
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/categories.html
Blue Web'n lists a lot of great links listed by subject area. Make sure you subscribe to this list serve. They will send you listing of great site reviews weekly.

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
Kathy Schrock is a professor at San Diego State University. This site lists the hottest educational resources currently on the web. This is a must bookmark site for all teachers.

Busy Teacher
http://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/busyt/
Busy Teacher allows teachers to search by subject area to find references, lesson plans, activities, and hotlinks. "Busy teachers" have the option to receive automatic e-mail when updates occur.

Education World
http://www.education-world.com/
Education World has a great search engine for educational searches. You can also search for links and lesson plans by subject area.

MarcoPolo
http://marcopolo-education.com/index.aspx
MarcoPolo provides the highest quality standards-based Internet content and professional development to K-12 teachers and students throughout the United States.

EDSITEment
http://edsitement.neh.fed.us/
EDSITEment is a humanities collection of online resources for teaching English, history, art history, and foreign language. The lesson plans are exemplary

Secondary School Educators
http://7-12educators.miningco.com/
Secondary School Educators provides great links to topic or interest areas, hosts a bulletin board and chat room for teachers, allows teachers to exchange lesson plans, and provides a search engine.

Education Index
http://www.educationindex.com/
Education Index links teachers to useful education-related sites on the web. Also allows teachers to search by subject.

TeachersNet
http://www.teachers.net/lessons/
TeachersNet is a lesson plan exchange site. It allows teachers to post, search, and request lesson plans.

Teach Net
http://www.teachnet.com/lesson.html
Teach Net allows teachers to search for lesson plans by subject area. TeachNet also contains a newsletter, articles, and Keypals to connect classrooms around the world.

Library in the Sky
http://www.nwrel.org/sky/
Library in the Sky is for teachers, administrators, support staff, students, and parents. It provides extensive links to lesson plans and resources sorted by subject area. It also provides links to great activities available on the Web.

21^st Century Teacher Network
http://www.21ct.org/
National network of teachers connecting through technology. Features news and events as well as links to research and lesson guides.

Rubistar
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

Filamentality
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/
Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into learning activities. It helps you combine the "filaments" of the Web with a learner's "mentality" (get it?). Support is built in through Mentality Tips, so you'll be guided along the way and end up with a Web-based activity you can share with others even if you don't know anything about HTML, Web servers, or all that www-dot stuff.

Quia!
http://www.quia.com/
Quia provides a variety of educational services, including: A directory of thousands of online games and quizzes in over 40 subject areas, Templates for creating nine different types of online games, including flashcards, matching, concentration (memory), word search, hangman, challenge board, and rags to riches (a quiz-show style trivia game), Tools for creating online quizzes, Quiz administration and reporting tools, Free teacher home pages

PuzzleMaker
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/index.html
Discovery Channel School is proud to be the new home for Puzzlemaker-a puzzle and games generation tool for teachers, parents and students. Create and print customized word search, crossword and math puzzles using your word lists. Build your own maze or print our specialty hand-drawn mazes created around holidays and classroom topics.

Certificate Creator
http://www.certificatecreator.com/
Instantly create on-line certificates for awards, sports, praise, graduation, or holidays

Trackstar
http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp
TrackStar is an on-line interface that helps instructors organize and annotate on-line resources (URLs) and file them in the TrackStar database. The list of resources, acting like a table of contents to the Track, remains visible throughout the lesson allowing the user/student to easily browse through the lesson and stay on track.

Discovery School Teaching Tools
http://school.discovery.com/teachingtools/teachingtools.html
Create your own online account of teaching tools and saved work. All you have to do is register once—then you have unlimited access to your Custom Classroom to save or retrieve Puzzlemaker puzzles and Quiz Center quizzes. We’ll be adding more tools to this area. The site also include vocabulary quiz whiz, quiz center, and glossary builder. The site is always adding more teacher tools.

Achievement Certificates
http://www.successcertificates.com/
Free Award certificates for teaching, schools and clubs. Choose from hundreds and print from the web!

FormSite.com
http://www.formsite.com/
Create surveys, order forms, registration forms, reservation forms, sweepstakes, etc., using only FormSite.com. Nothing to download, nothing to install, all you need is your browser.

Ask an Expert
http://www.askanexpert.com/
Askanexpert.com connects you with hundreds of real world experts, ranging from astronauts to zookeepers. These experts have volunteered to answer your questions for free!

Virtual Reference Desk
http://vrd.org/
The virtual reference desk is a Digital reference, or "AskA", services that are Internet-based question-and-answer services that connect users with experts and subject expertise. Digital reference services use the Internet to connect people with people who can answer questions and support the development of skills. The site is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

Backflip
http://www.backflip.com/
Catalog your Bookmarks Online - BackFlip offers an easy ways to organize your bookmarks (or favorites) and have access to them anytime your online.

I-Drive
http://www.idrive.com/
I Drive is a 100MG of free online storage. Unlimited "sideloading". Great site for storing files you "download" from the Internet.

Netzero
http://netzero.com/
NetZero provides consumers with free and easy, unlimited Internet access, e-mail and navigational tools to enhance their online experience: all for free. For advertisers, our service offers a powerful online direct marketing tool with features and functionality that have distinct advantages over traditional forms of advertising.

PBS
http://www.pbs.org/
One of the best educational networks has created one of the finest educational web sites. This web site from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) features companion web sites for more than 250 PBS programs and specials, as well as seven online neighborhoods that aggregate content by genre and interest.

Discover Channel
http://www.discovery.com/
Discovery Channel lists programs on the Discovery Channel. It also provides curriculum for each program including an overview, vocabulary, discussion questions, activities, academic standards, and related resources.

Scholastic
http://scholastic.com/
Scholastic is a site for teachers, parents, and students. Teacher resources include Instructor Magazine.

Ask An Expert Page
http://njnie.dl.stevens-tech.edu/askanexpert.html
Find an expert by searching in the choosing an appropriate category. Just about any kind of expert you would need is listed on this site.

ISBE
http://isbe.net/
The Illinois State Board of Education is more than just information on Illinois State Standards, it has a comprehensive teacher vacancy list.

Library Spot
http://libraryspot.com/
LibrarySpot is the library and reference information portal of the Web. Find top dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, maps, genealogy tools and much more in one user-friendly spot.

My Virtual Reference Desk
http://www.refdesk.com/
The refdesk.com is a one-stop site for all things Internet: news, weather, sports, reference, encyclopedia (50 areas), facts on file, FAQs, tutorials, search engines, Win95/98/NT, free stuff, games.

Pitsco’s Ask an Expert: Main Menu
http://www.askanexpert.com/
The kid-friendly expert site! Hundreds of experts in science, technology, career, and other categories answer your questions for free! Appropriate for family and classroom use.

The Plagiarist
http://www.plagiarist.com/
The Plagiarist is a magazine of poetry, literature, and the arts. You may submit works of poetry, short stories, essays, journal writings, drama, and otherwise, via email to detect plagiarism.

Virtual Fieldtrips
http://www.dreamscape.com/frankvad/museums.html
Virtual Tour of Museums presents over 300 Museums Exhibits, Virtual Reality and RealTime Tours & Events which offer Multimedia Guided Tours. Many include text, pictures, sound and movies.

Shockwave.com
http://shockwave.com/
Download Shockwave for free then view fantastic educational demonstrations. Click on the Search button within the site, then click on Education. Choose your subject area to view different demonstrations.

Yellow Pages.com
http://yellowpages.com
Access white pages and yellow pages on-line free! Find just about anyone and get a map to their house.

MapBlast
http://www.mapblast.com/
Find a map or driving directions, find a business by name or location, or get local information such as weather, news, or points of interest.

MapQuest
http://www.mapquest.com
The MapQuest Web site helps Web users explore millions of towns and cities worldwide. Users can display addresses on a map, view nearby businesses, get driving directions, and plan a trip with Mobil Travel's rated lodging, restaurant, and city information.

The Weather Channel
http://www.weather.com/
The Weather Channel sponsors this comprehensive weather update.

Cinemark Movies Online
http://cinemark.com/
Find theaters and show times for Cinemark theaters.

All Recipes
http://allrecipes.com/
Allrecipes.com is the leading community-based recipe and meal planning web site. The site offers users unique food ideas and resources, including recipes, menu ideas, meal preparation tips, culinary ware and news. features. The site has won numerous accolades and awards

50 States
http://50states.com/
State information resource links to state homepage, symbols, flags, maps, constitutions, representatives, songs, birds, flowers, trees and other useful information.

Edmunds
http://edmunds.com/
Edmunds.com, Inc. publishes new and used vehicle guides to assist automotive buyers in making informed decisions. Edmunds provides vehicle pricing information for users of wireless web-enabled devices. Edmunds.com continues to experience unprecedented success and growth, valued by consumers as the Internet’s pioneer and leader in providing free, unbiased, straightforward information on all aspects of buying, owning and selling a vehicle, including the True Market Value system which suggests actual transaction prices.

Expedia
http://expedia.com/
Expedia.com can help you plan the right trip at the right price, right from your desktop. You can plan a trip around the world or just get driving directions across town. Consumer Reports recently praised our site, saying, "[Expedia.com] has a simple, easy-to-use interface and is packed with … text about destinations worldwide."

Wanted Jobs
http://wantedjobs.com
Wanted Jobs is an excellent place to search for jobs, insight into job interviewing and career exploration and job searching tools such as salary and moving calculator and moving calculators, as well as a relocation wizard.

Iping
http://mrwakeup.com/
You can use iPing for FREE Wake-Up Calls, Reminder Calls and Notifications. Join and enter phone number and time for Iping to call you to remind you to take your medicine, wake up, or remind you of important dates.

City Search
http://www.citysearch.com/
Find out what’s happening in around town. Find music, restaurants, sports events, movie listings, and job boards.

The WebQuest Page
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/
The WebQuest Page provides pertinent information for teachers interested in creating a WebQuest. The examples sections breaks down example WebQuests into subject area and grade level.

ThinkQuest
http://www.thinkquest.org/
ThinkQuest is library of web sites developed for educational use by students. Teams of high school or middle school students (with teacher coaches) submit web sites devoted to specific topic areas. The sites compete in the ThinkQuest contest for prize money. They are phenomenal sites.

Microsoft in K-12 Education
http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/resource/lessons.htm
Microsoft in K-12 Education has great lesson plan ideas to incorporate Microsoft Office 97 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) into your curriculum. You can also get great lesson plan ideas for any technology project.

Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers
http://www.essdack.org/tips/index.html
Tammy provides great tips for teachers. Tammy's example activities give directions for Mac users as well as Windows users.

Global Schoolnet Foundation
http://gsn.org/
The Global Schoolnet Foundation sponsors global internet projects. This site also lets students and teachers register for a pen pal.

NJNIE Classroom Projects
http://njnie.dl.stevens-tech.edu/currichome.html
NJNIE sponsors and designs projects which teachers around the world can utilize in their curriculum. All of the projects focus on data available on the Internet and collaborative Internet projects. It also offers an Ask an Expert link to experts in different categories suitable for all grade levels.

Manteno School District WebQuests
http://www.manteno.k12.il.us/webquest/
Manteno has an excellent gallery of WebQuests created by teachers. WebQuests range from kindergarten to high school.

Search Engines Information and Search Engines

Search Engine Information: Search the Internet a Graduated Approach
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Help/search.html
This is a four step guide to searching the Internet

Effective Internet Searching Tutorial
http://www.thewebtools.com/tutorial/index.htm
This is a 75 page guide to searching on the Internet, goes into lots of detail on the use of keywords and Boolean Operators.

Dogpile
http://dogpile.com/
Dogpile is a multi-engine, semi-parallel search interface automatically searching 20+ search engines 3 at a time. Allows for Boolean/proximity operators.

Ask Jeeves
http://www.ask.com/
Search the web in plain English! The fastest and easiest place to find answers online! Ask Jeeves is a unique search engine where you type a question.. Also try Ask Jeeves for KIDS http://ajkids.com/ The site is filtered using SurfWatch.

Alta Vista Main Page
http://altavista.com/
Alta Vista is an excellent search engine. It will even allow you to type in a sentence within quotes to check students work for plagiarism.

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
Several groups recently rated HotBot number one. It allows you to limit your search to phases, words, exact words. You can also choose to have the engine search for sound files as well as other types of files.

Google
http://www.googles.com/
Google is a neat search engine that assumes that any words in your search line belong together. No more boolean searches.

Yahoo!
http://yahoo.com/
Yahoo is powerful search engine. The site allows you to customize the information to your preferences.

The Amazing Picture Machine
http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm
The Amazing Picture Machine is a search engine to help educators find pictures, maps and other graphic resources on the Internet.

American Jouralism Review
http://www.newslink.org/searchn.html
This site is definitely worth checking out. This is a search engine for news articles. It lets you do different types of searches at different sites as well as their own.

The Bartleby Library Page
http://www.bartleby.com/
Searches for literature in the public domain.

Information Please
http://www.infoplease.com/
This new search engine is a one-stop reference site that offers millions of up-to-date minute facts and statistics covering just about everything.

Ditto.com
http://ditto.com
Great site for finding photos, pictures, and images.

Ozline
http://www.ozline.com/
Great site for information about WebQuest and incorporating the Web and Education. By Tom March one of the WebQuest founders.

From Now On
http://fno.org/
From Now On is hosted by Jamie McKenzie, a leading constructivist in education. The site has excellent articles on questioning, technology in education, and other engaged learning topics.

Illinois State Standards
http://www.isbe.net/ils/Default.htm
This site is the Illinois State Board of Education’s State Standards site.

Handbook of Engaged Learning Projects
http://www.ncrel.org/mands/FERMI/
NCREL provides excellent examples of engaged learning projects that teachers may use in their classrooms.

IMSA Center for Problem Based Learning
http://www.imsa.edu/team/cpbl/cpbl.html
IMSA offers a comprehensive site for teachers who are interested in Problem-based learning. The model problems are excellent examples for teachers to see a workable problem-based learning activity.

The Graphic Organizer
http://graphic.org/
The Graphic Organizer site is an excellent resource for visual organizer tools. The site also has excellent examples of artistic visual organizers that every teacher should see.

NCREL’s Plugged In
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/edtalk/toc.htm
NCREL is the leader in engaged learning. This site provides tables of engaged indicators and information for teachers to understand engaged learning.

Fermilab Leadership Institute
http://www-ed.fnal.gov/lincon/
Fermilab Online is creating a cadre of educational leaders who effectively use technology to support engaged learning. Teams of classroom teachers, technology coordinators and library media specialists create engaged learning projects that incorporate the best uses of technology.

Questioning
http://questioning.org/
This site is sponsored by Jamie McKenzie. It contains articles that every educator should read to improve questioning strategies.

SUCCESS STORE: Reviewing Methods for Developing Potential
http://reviewing.co.uk/success/success8.htm
Tips and methods for reviewing success - even when there's not much sign of success. Tools to help you maximise learning from positive experiences. Techniques to make reviewing a positive experience.

CNN Interactive
http://cnn.com/
Great current events updated multiple times a day plus links to Business and Technology sites. CNN is a great site for students as well as teachers. Teachers may want to consider pulling video and audio clips from this site to share with students.

Chicago Tribune
http://chicagotribune.com/
The Tribune online contains updated news, links to business, small business, and stocks. Check out Silicon Prairie Tech Magazine.

The Economist
http://www.economist.com/
The Economist is an excellent site for Business, Finance, Economics and the Social Sciences. Economic and Financial Indicators are reported and there are common columns on science and technology.

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/
The Library of Congress is an essential resource tool for all teachers and students. The site research, pictures, sounds, video, as well as a learning page for students and teachers.

MSNBC
http://msnbc.com/news
Microsoft NBC news online provides up-to-the-minute news and links to columns of interest including technology and business.

New York Post
http://newyorkpost.com/
Updated News all day. See links on Business, Market Watch, and the Savvy Shopper.

Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com/index/
The Sun Times on-line offers current news, a business section, and features in Careers and Education.

Time Magazine
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/
Time Magazine sponsors a wonderful online version of the magazine contains news, multimedia, and more. Articles are archived, so teachers can create stable links to curriculum-related, kid-friendly material. It even has a kids link.

The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The best of what a newspaper has to offer along with links to Business, Employment, and Real Estate.

US News Online
http://www.usnews.com/
US News On-line posts not only its current and past publications, it also contains a classroom program. The site also allows teachers to reprint pictures and articles for educational use. Release forms and reprint options are on-line.

The New York Times Learning Network
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/
The NY Times Learning Network provides students and teachers with up-to-date news coverage with lesson plans and activities.

ABC
http://abc.go.com/
ABC News site provides news and sports coverage, as well as information on ABC television shows.

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/
This is an excellent interactive site to use in the classroom. Includes great graphs.

Today in History
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
Today in History is an illustrated essay that features an event in American history which occurred on the current date. Links lead to related resources. Each daily topic is a jumping off point into the American Memory collection. The site is sponsored by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Great Sites for Web Page Design and Multimedia Projects

HTML Goodies
http://htmlgoodies.com/
Free html tutorials from industry expert Joe Burns. featuring extensive tutorials on tags, programming, basics, script, frames and more.

Web Style Guide
http://www.webstyleguide.com/
The Web Style Guide is the online version of the book. In 160 pages of expert instruction, authors Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton put the essence of the Yale University Center for Advanced Instructional Media's wonderful online site design guide into traditional print.

Visibone
http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/
Color scheme picker for web designers. See all the web-safe colors on the left. Pick by clicking. See your choices on the right with hex and decimal codes and all text / background combinations. Click on the little 'X's to delete a choice

The Bare Bones Guide to HTML
http://werbach.com/barebones/
The Bare Bones Guide to HTML lists every official HTML tag in common usage, plus Netscape and Microsoft extensions.

A Complete List of HTML Tags
http://www.echoecho.com/htmlref.htm
This site provides a complete list and explanation of HTML tags along with explanations and compatibility with Internet Explorer and Netscape.

Cool Text
http://www.cooltext.com
CoolText.com is an online logo generator to easily create logos for web pages or multimedia projects.

Flaming Text
http://flamingtext.com/
This site allows you to generate text, images, banners and buttons for your web page quickly and easily.

3D Text Maker
http://www.3dtextmaker.com/
3D Text Maker allows you to create animated logos for your web pages.

1001fonts
http://www.1001fonts.com/
Download free fonts for Windows and free fonts for Apple Macintosh. All fonts on this site are either freeware or shareware and in the TrueType or PostScript format.

CoolNotions
http://www.coolnotions.com/
Free animated gifs and free web page backgrounds await you. Download them for your website.

Icon Bazaar
http://www.iconbazaar.com/
IconBAZAAR provides a gallery of free graphics, webart, webdings, clip art, icons, images, animations, animated backgrounds, backgrounds, and borders.

BellsnWhistles
http://www.bellsnwhistles.com/
Bellsnwhistles is an award winning site containing free animated graphics, animations, bars, bullets, icons and clipart, web site resources, DHTML, java applets, javascript, backgrounds, and information for building web pages.

Corbis
http://corbis.com/
This site provides excellent photos free to the public. Each photo is, however, copyrighted and labeled with Corbis.com in the corner of each picture.

Animation Library
http://www.animationlibrary.com/
Animation Library is a site featuring over 3500 free animations, plus many other great things such as the Postcard Station and the Transporter. To navigate our site, just use the buttons on the sidebar and to select animations you want to see, just use the drop-down menus near the top of every page on the site.

Animation Factory
http://www.animfactory.com/
Over 30,000 Original Animations and Designs for use on web pages, email and presentations

Animation-Central
http://www.animation-central.com/
Animation Central contains great animated graphics as well as links to other great graphic sites.

Top 50 Wav Sites
http://www.top50wavsites.com/
This site has great links to wav files that may be easily integrated into PowerPoint presentations.

SoundAmerica
http://soundamerica.com
This is a great resource for sound effects especially themes from movies and television shows.

United Streaming
http://www.unitedstreaming.com/
United Streaming is a digital library of over 4,000 videos, 40,000 video clips, and thousands of graphics. This is a site every educator should know about.

Alfy
http://alfy.com/
A fun, entertaining and educational free mega site for children worldwide, with lots of interesting activities, games and cool links for kids and teenagers, teachers and educators.

Jellyfish
http://jellyfish.com/
Huge environmental directory with natural products, services and organizations. Links to recycled, organic, solar, cruelty-free, healthy, socially conscious, and environmentally friendly products.

Scholastic
http://scholastic.com/
Scholastic.com, “The Most Trusted Place in Cyberspace” has won numerous awards including the prestigious Webby Award and People's Choice Award for the Best Kids Site in 2000. With rich educational content and classroom-tested online curriculum, Scholastic.com is revolutionizing the way teachers and students integrate technology into the classroom and work together to enhance learning.

Brain Pop
http://brainpop.com/
Brainpop is a wonderful site pack with short video clips (cartoons) for almost every topic taught in school.

I Know That
http://www.iknowthat.com/
Online Multimedia Educational Games for Kids in Preschool, Kindergarten, and Elementary Grades

Great Starting Places for Teachers on the Internet

Online Teacher Tools

Internet Tools

Resources on the Internet for Teachers

Resources on the Internet

Online Projects

Search Engines Information and Search Engines

Engaged Learning and Illinois State Standard Sites

Newsworthy Sites

Great Sites for Web Page Design and Multimedia Projects

Great Sites for Elementary School