Teaching Portals

The following are a collection of portals containing teaching and learning resources that can be integrated into the classroom and online learning environments.

• World Lecture Hall (WLH) from the University of Texas, Austin contains an extensive list of links to faculty-created web poges. They are organized by subject categories.
  http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/
  
• Classroom Connect the online companion to the newsletter, provides information and resources for teachers who use the Internet. See the G.R.A.D.E.S database, a Yahoo-like archive for educational resources. http://www.classroomconnect.com/
  
• Blue Web'n from Packard Bell is a searchable library of instruction offered via the Internet. It offers searches by audience, type of web resource, subject, Dewey classification, or keywords.
  http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/
  
• Connections+ from the Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL), "consists of Internet resources--lesson plans, activities, curriculum resources--linked with corresponding subject-area content standards (From Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education)." http://www.mcrel.org/resources/links/hotlinks.asp
  
• Education World bills itself as "the place where educators go to learn" and has a keyword searchable collection of articles, resources, and lesson ideas. http://www.education-world.com/
  
• free-ed.net provides a directory to the "best course notes, outlines, tutorials, courses and e-texts we can find anywhere on the 'net." http://www.free-ed.net/
  
• Gallery of Courses Taught with Technology produced in conjunction with the Journal of Computer Enhanced Learning, "is composed of vignettes that describe the what, how, why, and impact of technology upon learning in specific courses. Readers can organize the vignettes according to academic discipline, educational notion, computer enhanced technique, assessment methodology, dates submitted and last updated, top quartile (as judged by a panel), or any combination of the criteria." http://iccel.wfu.edu/gallery
  
• Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) is a consortium effort, support by the National Library of Education and the U.S. Department of Education, to create an operational framework to provide the nation's teachers with "one-stop, any-stop" access to substantial, but uncataloged, collections of Internet-based educational materials available on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. http://geminfo.org/ 
  
• Globewide Network Academy (GNA) acts as a central marketplace for distance education courses. Maintains a course catalog and provides technical services to distance educators. http://www.gnacademy.org/
  
• Halls of Academia a subject organized collection of links to web resources, each annotated, provided by TENET. http://www.tenet.edu/academia/main.html
  
• Internet Projects Registry is Global SchoolNet's "'Stop Looking!' Resource! Our registry is the one central place on the Internet where you can find projects from across the globe to bring into your classroom." http://www.globalschoolhouse.org/pr/
  
• Internet Scout Report for a long time has been an excellent source of educational sites that are carefully reviewed. http://wwwscout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/
  
• Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators hosted by the Discovery Channel andupdated daily, "is a categorized list of sites on the Internet found to be useful for enhancing curriculum and teacher professional growth." http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
• Lecturefox - Site provides links to free University Lectures. Maintained by Andreas and Ellen Petersen.
  
• MindEdge "is a one stop destination that gives learners all the tools they need to search for, compare, and pre-register for the courses they want- whether they're right around the corner, or halfway around the world." http://www.mindedge.com/
  
• Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) "is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students in higher education. With a continually growing collection of online learning materials, assignments and reviews, MERLOT helps faculty enhance instruction." http://merlot.csuchico.edu/
• Open Culture - Provides links to free course podcasts and online lectures from several well known universities. http://www.oculture.com/2007/07/freeonlinecourses.html
  
• Roadmap to the Web for Educators A selection of top web picks from the editors of T.H.E. (Technology in Higher Education) Journal. http://www.thejournal.com/highlights/roadmap/
  
• Scout Report Signpost from the folks at the Internet Scout Project, "contains only the best Internet resources, as chosen by the staff of the Scout Report, cataloged and organized for efficcient browsing and searching." http://www.signpost.org/signpost/
  
• TeAch-nology "offers a wide variety of resources intended to bring educators into the world of teaching with technology. As a portal, it provides links to valuable and useful information relative to current and past practice in the field of education." http://www.teach-nology.com/
  
• Teachers@Work features well over 1000 rated and reviewed educational web sites.
  http://teachers.work.co.nz/
  
• TeleCampus comes from Province of New Brunswick, offerss a database of more than 7,000 online courses from a variety of educational institutions and private organizations in over than 15 countries.
  http://telecampus.edu
  
• ThinkQuest Library of Entries presents a large catalog of award winning educational and interactive web sites desgined by students. http://library.advanced.org/library/
  
• WannaLearn "has been designed to provide a wide range of users with an effective and efficient means of accessing the best free learning opportunities available on the Web, in virtually every subject and area of interest." http://www.wannalearn.com/
  
• World Wide Web Courseware Developers' Members Courses is a subject organized directoy of web courses developed by members of the WWDEV Listserv. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/c3.html
  
• WWW 4 Teachersincludes "Teacher Testimony: True stories of trials and triumphs with technology in the classroom" as well as "Premier Tracks: Web lessons ready-to-go and to keep students on track" http://www.4teachers.org/
  
• Yahoo the mega resource, contains a directory for education that you can browse by subject or do a keyword search. http://www.yahoo.com/education/
  

Open Source Tools for the Classroom & Online Environments

• AbiWorld - a free word processing program similar to MS Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, etc.
• ArcExplorer - "a lightweight GIS data viewer developed by ESRI. This freely available software offers an easy way to perform a variety of basic GIS functions, including display, query, and data retrieval applications. It can be used on its own with local data sets or as a client to Internet data and map servers."
• Art of Illusion - "Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modeling and rendering studio. It is written entirely in Java, and should be usable on any Java Virtual Machine which is compatible with J2SE 1.4 or later."
• Blender - an "open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License."
• GNU Image Manipulation Program - GIMP is an illustration program that is very similar to PhotoShop. GIMP can be used to enhance or modify photographs as well as to create original artwork.
• Grass - "is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geophysical data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization." This is a complex and very powerful program. If you are using it for the first time work through the tutorials.
• ImageJ - scientific and mathematical image processing tool developed at the National Institute of Health. Java application ensures cross-platform functionality. Great for analysis of microscopy images.
• LDraw - "an open standard for LEGO CAD programs that allow the user to create virtual LEGO models and scenes. You can use it to document models you have physically built, create building instructions just like LEGO, render 3D photo realistic images of your virtual models and even make animations."
• Open Office - Powerful alternative to the expense of licensing Microsoft Office. Can open and save files in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats.
• POV-Ray - a rendering program that can ray-trace 3D models and scene descriptions created in LegoCAD programs like Ldraw. A fantastic combination of art and math.
• Squeak - A creative environment in which projects can be created with objects that can be programmed to move and interact. Highly interactive and flexible, Sqeak supports collaborative connectivity over the Internet, including a voice-over-IP capability.
• StarLogo - a programmable modeling environment to explore the workings of decentralized or emergent systems. Created in MIT's Media Lab and supported by their College of Education.