Michelle Allen

ICL 7134 Internet in the School Library

Summer 2016

Evaluating Educational Web Resources

Tennessee Electronic Library

http://tntel.tnsos.org/
The Tennessee Electronic Library or TEL is a online library of research resources free to
Tennesseans. TEL is funded by state, federal and other libraries donated funds. TEL offers
online access to magazine articles and Tennessees newspapers, but also primary source
materials, e-books, videos, and podcasts. There is a section for educators that includes lesson
plans and curricular resources that provide Lexile leveled articles. TEL is good for students of
all ages and even provides a separate database for elementary age students that caters to the
way they browse. One negative about TEL is that the intended audience and use is very wide.
TELs intent to serve students with homework, testing practice, as well as, business with stocks,
and adults who use genealogy resources, makes the online library have a wide berth, but it is
not as deep. TELs strength is in the collection of online journals. Its weakness is in the
genealogy portion which is really just for dabblers, a larger and unfortunately more pricey
database is needed for in-depth genealogy research.

Internet 4 Classrooms
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/
Internet 4 Classrooms or I4C is a collected resource for grade level help, practice and
assessment. One of the sites strengths is the links included for printable worksheets based on
common core standards. There are also links to the written common core standards. It also has
technology tutorials, useful to both student and teachers. However, since it is a free resource, it
is helpful to a certain extent as a supplement but more resources will need to be added to what
is available to make it complete. This website is also an older resource and may be on the
downward slide, because it still is keeping the archives of older browsers such as Netscape.

Readworks
http://www.readworks.org/
Readworks is a site for geared to teachers that has lesson plans based on common core
english language arts standards. The site will even adjust to the newly adopted and changing
state level standards. It has Lexile leveled articles with questions based on the text. One of the
greatest aspects of the site is that there are paired articles and differentiated text with a lower
Lexile for students in the grade that are at a lower reading level. The lesson plans start with the
standard and objective and use the gradual release model of instruction ending with an
independent practice for the lesson assessment. There are lessons for each ELA standard,
however, it is only one or two per topic, new teachers could benefit from more content.

Google Earth
https://www.google.com/earth/
Google Earth is a virtual globe that uses images from satellites to make the earth come alive.
This allows students to see landforms, oceans, and continents in real time. Pictures and videos
taken at points on the virtual map make the land come to life and small blurbs orient the viewer
to the scene. There is a search feature that the user types in the coordinates or terms and the
globe spins, taking the user to the location. The student can then zoom in and out getting a feel
of the navigation and orienting themselves to the land masses. Certain cities, for example Las

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Vegas, Nevada even zoom into street level. Mount Everest is 3-D an allows the viewer to stand
on the side of the mountain and look out. The user supplied pictures add richness to the
viewing features. The downside is that the site must be downloaded to the computer.

NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/
The NASA website has pictures and information from space missions that are currently in
operation and an index of past missions. The website will stream images during missions, like
when New Horizons made a flyby of Pluto. Revisit the site often to see updates on research
from these missions. There is a section for both students and educators featuring educational
projects and opportunities to learn with workshops and podcasts. The student section is broken
down by age groups. There are several interactive features, including Spot the Space Station
where a city and state can be inputed into a drop-down menu to find where and when the ISS
can be seen in the sky above that city.

Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/
The Library of Congress website is the virtual presence of the largest library in the country. It
has online digital collections of books, maps, manuscripts, audio recordings, films and
photographs. The website is good for fulfilling the common core standards requirement of use
of primary source documents to teach social studies and other subjects. Students can see
Rosa Parks diary entry regarding the Freedom Riders and letters from presidents written in
their own handwriting. For teachers, there are lesson plans by grade level and a drop-down of
common core state standards to match. The images make history come alive and are very
compelling to students who may struggle with comprehending historical information.

ReadWriteThink
http://www.readwritethink.org/
ReadWriteThink offers free educational resources for educators of english language arts.
Lesson plans, printable graphic organizers (like KWL charts), and professional development
help are just a few of the sites strengths. The verbiage used is part of the most recent trends in
education offering strategy and practice for connections (text-to-self, etc) and close reads of
textually complex articles in order to raise rigor in student reading. There are videos that give
examples of how other teachers use these practices in real classrooms. Teachers can also add
their contributions, ideas or lesson plans to the site to be used by the community.

PBS Teachers
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/
The public broadcasting station (PBS) is well known for educational television program. The
PBS educational website pairs streaming videos of their television programs with activities and
lesson plans. Math, social studies and english/language arts, among other subjects are
represented and the database can be searched by those subjects, as well as grade level. If an
account is set up the resources can be favorited and shared with others. There is even a
section for teacher professional development with classes that are self-paced as well as
facilitated courses that teachers can get PD credit from their district for taking.

Edutopia
http://www.edutopia.org/
Edutopia is a brain child of filmmaker George Lucas who wanted to help educators give kids a
educational experience outside the four walls of a classroom. The website focuses on helping

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students developing 21st-century skills by project-based learning centered around access to
new technology. Teachers can utilize the site by browsing topics or by starting with a focus on
grade level. Navigate to articles on how to use iPads effectively in instruction, complete with
recommended apps to try. Watch videos on how to use the flipped classroom in action. Get
tips on classroom management. Everything that is trending in education has an article and
video to give teachers ideas on how to implement the practice.

Smithsonian Education
http://smithsonianeducation.org/educators/index.html
The Smithsonian Museum collection has a wealth of historical content. The Smithsonian
Education website is for teachers who can use the Smithsonians collection in their lessons.
The lesson plans provided ranged from music to math, not just history. The website has a
search feature for 2,000 resources. The search is broken up into search term, grade level and
subject. There are also downloadable activity sheets, that seem like two page magazine
articles with text dependent questions which would be very useful in the classroom as a
supplemental resource. There is a section where educators can review sources they used in
order to recommend them to others.

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