The IU 13 E-Learning Toolkit is one of the most comprehensive compilations of educator resources available. This site is intended to serve as a resource for educators and parents when exploring eLearning strategies and resources. You'll find pages of educational tools covering instructional content and strategies, ELL's, gifted learners, special education, teacher support guides, and much more. 

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From Scholastic.com, here are 9 websites they consider to be among the best for teacher resources: 

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1. Common Sense Media - Find teacher-written reviews of thousands of educational tools, apps, and programs with Common Sense Media. The site also offers ready-made lesson plans, webinars, videos, and more. Plus it’s a great site to have parents use at home.

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2. Crayola's Website offers hundreds of standards-based lesson plans, crafts, and activities for every grade level, plus art techniques for beginners to practiced artists. Here you will find what you need to supplement learning in every subject. 

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3. http://www.readwritethink.org/ is listed as best for student interactive tools. Along with dozens of engaging language arts interactive tools, you’ll find lesson plans, activities, professional development resources, and apps for students K–12.

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4. For Humanities and Social Studies teachers, https://edsitement.neh.gov/ is a fantastic site, developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Trust for the Humanities, offers lesson plans as well as primary sources, videos, and photos for a wide range of humanities topics. And it's all free!

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5. The National Science Teachering Association (NSTA) website, https://www.nsta.org/, is a goldmine for classroom teachers who may not feel as comfortable teaching geology and astronomy as they do reading and arithmetic. You'll find journal articles, experiment ideas, and a roundup of the latest science stories in the news. And currently, the NSTA is offering a free 30-day membership providing access to more than 12,000 digital professional learning resources and tools.

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6. Glogster is a great multi-media tool for making interactive posters, or glogs, containing pictures, text, video, links, and animation. **UPDATE** - this website is temporarily non-operational.

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7. You may already know about Teachertube, listed by Scholastic as the best source for instructional videos in a safe environment. It's definitely worth a re-mention! From enlivening math with teacher raps to sharing table manners videos with parents, TeacherTube has it all. 

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8. PowToon - Moviemaking has never been easier than it is at PowToon. To create a short animated clip, all you have to do is write a script and choose characters and other graphics using a simple drag-and-drop tool. The classroom possibilities are endless.

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9. Annenberg Learner provides multi-media resources for classroom instruction (K-12) and teacher professional development. Many of the PD series from the Annenberg Foundation are available on demand here, with videos on teaching measurement, writing workshop, and more. You'll see master teachers at work and undoubtedly snag an idea or two for your own classroom.

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Some additional fabulous resources:

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The Stanford History Education Group focuses on improving education by providing classrooms with free materials. History teachers will love "Reading like a Historian," which engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents based on students' reading levels.

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PBS Learning Media provides interactive lessons in science, social studies, math, and English language arts. Lessons are updated frequently to reflect the real world, current events, and student interest. 

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The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics created the  Illuminations site to increase access to quality standards-based resources for the teaching and learning of mathematics for all grades. The website includes more than 700 lesson plans, 100 activities for students, and 13 Calculation Nation games, as well as interactive tools for students and instructional support for teachers. 

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Music teachers probably have one of the most difficult subjects to teach during school closures! Fortunately, the National Association for Music Education has compiled a thorough list of music teacher resource. Access it HERE. And be sure to check out Smart Music. 

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The University of Colorado has created PhET Interactive Simulations, a very cool place to explore and interact with countless science and math SIMS. Perfect for STEM teachers. 

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TED-Ed is an amazing educational platform created to spark and celebrate the BIG ideas of teachers and students around the world. Educators can create and share original interactive lessons and access a large library of original animated videos. Click on "discover lessons" to find thousands of video=based lessons organized by subject. 

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Check out EdTech Digest for lots of articles, tools for teachers, trends, and more. They offer insights, updates, interviews into the rapidly evolving world of edtech for all those involved in any aspect of edtech, at all grade levels. 

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I've become a big fan of Academia.edu, a kind of social networking site for academics, that offers an enormous, FREE repository of research papers and publications. You can build a personal library of works that interest you, and I have even found (once or twice) entire books to download from this site! However, be aware that despite the .edu domain name, this site is not connected with any accredited educational institution.  ResearchGate and Google Scholar are similar sites that have their own advantages.  

 

For teachers seeking ideas for implementing Social and Emotional Learning in the classroom, the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is a trusted source for knowledge about high-quality, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL)

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The Standards Aligned System (SAS) developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, is a comprehensive, researched-based resource to improve student achievement

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And of course, no resource list for educators would be complete without a nod to my favorite place to find all kinds of free and low-cost educational resources: TeachersPayTeachers

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WeAreTeachers is an online media brand for educators committed to one of the toughest, most rewarding jobs out there. They publish daily articles, videos, and giveaways on their website as well as their social media channels, and ask you to think of them as your virtual teacher's lounge!

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