When I arrived at the Kan-Ed site, I started playing around with NetTrekker. It is awesome. I took a “two birds, one stone” approach and searched for information for my Unit plan for my Middle Level Education class. I am doing a unit on mythology from different ancient cultures (Greek, Egyptian etc…) to tie with the Social Studies standards for 6th grade. When I searched Greek mythology, so many excellent resources came up. After deciphering the “readability code” I was able to instantly judge whether this would be appropriate for a 6th grade class. It was great to be able to see what was “teacher approved and “student approved.” It helped me sort through all the resources. I have already bookmarked some resources and will definitely be back to explore even more.
I then moved to Thinkfinity, and I repeated my same search. It brought up equally interesting results. I enjoyed how this website gave you entire lesson plans/ unit plans. I will definitely be able to incorporate these into my unit plans for school and when I am really teaching. This is a great resource for any looking for ideas for a lesson or help mapping out an entire unit.
Thinkfinity also had great professional development ideas broken down by grade level. I like how it didn’t lump “high school” all together. It had 9, 10, 11 and 12th grade. Sure, there is a lot of overlap, but Freshman and Seniors need different academic challenges and lessons. It has advice on everything from how to figure out what your students are really interested in to explanations of how online and print readings differ. Many of the resources will be helpful to new teachers looking for effective ways to talk to students.
There are so many great resources available on Kan-Ed. I don’t have time to look at all of them yet. But the website is definitely worth a visit.
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