This column offers top-quality teacher resources. Past editions of NetWatch and additional sites for most topics can be found online at Archives.

by Lynda Scarrow

Web tools for teachers

Field Trip Planner

www.attractionsontario.ca

everything you need

Click education in the Attractions Ontario top navigation bar and you will find the best resource available for planning school trips to our province’s top attractions. The downloadable guide tells you which curriculum areas and grades are covered at each attraction and provides details and contact information for more than 60 organizations. A nice touch is the clickable attraction web address embedded in the PDF document.


Have Fun Teaching

www.havefunteaching.com

quick and easy resources

Easy-to-access materials on this site include worksheets, songs and movies on topics including simile, volume (math) and respect (movies are a little syrupy) plus educational games like the Spider-Man Vocabulary Word Game and the Penguin Diner Money Game.


Awesome Library

www.awesomelibrary.org

education resource portal

You wouldn’t know it from looking at the home page, but the teacher section of this site leads you to hundreds of links by topic, each with short, clearly written descriptions and site provenance. Another nice point is that you can find research, practice and theoretical information. See School Improvement / Collaboratives.


Curriculum Canada

www.curriculum.org

teacher approved

Curriculum Services Canada works closely with the Ministry of Education to provide teachers with education resources. The site includes teacher webcasts, web conferences, web meetings and a number of classroom resources. Mini-sites like CultureSource, Leading and Learning, Leading Student Achievement and Coaching Institute also provide really good information.


Curriki

www.curriki.org

top-quality resources

Created by the Global Education and Learning Community, Curriki is dedicated to creating free, world-class educational materials. It is extraordinarily well designed with eye-catching graphics under Browse Subjects and has 16,000+ resources with subject area and grade clearly indicated. Easy-to-understand icons flag lesson plans, graphics, exercises and worksheets. Rollovers provide good, quick content overviews. Highly recommended.


Teacher Web

www.teacherweb.com

do-it-yourself sites

I normally don’t review sites where the majority of services aren’t free, but this one is a worthy exception because it lets teachers quickly and easily create their own web site. Signing up takes minutes and content categories are already in place for you. Many Ontario schools are on the drop-down registration list. You can try it free for 30 days followed by a $39 annual fee.

Lynda Scarrow is the College's web editor. She can be reached at lscarrow@oct.ca.