Resources

Meta-Resources

Apple Learning Interchange
http://www.ali.apple.com/

The ALI website is an extensive collection of online resources, activities, lesson plans, materials, and live online events. Go to the Site Overview Tour on the ALI introduction page for a streaming video overview (in Quicktime format) of the resources provided by ALI.

These include:

A Teaching and Learning section that offers high-quality lesson ideas and materials that incorporate digital video and computer technology as well as a collection of video clips of model teaching practices in the classrooms of National Board Certified Teachers. Lesson ideas and model teaching practices are organized by age level.

• Examples of lesson ideas in the Teaching and Learning section include The Blend Game, an activity designed to teach phonetic awareness through video production. For this activity, as for most included on the ALI site, the teacher can download a copy of the lesson plan and the educational standards (including the TEKS) it is designed to address. For more descriptions, go to [link here to video examples on the Visual Voices site].
• Many of the teaching practice modules include assessment ideas or additional research. One of the projects that may prove useful to preservice teachers is "Opening Classroom Doors: Teaching Methods" In it are several video clips in which a National Board Certified Teacher demonstrates a specific teaching method or concept.

Digital Learning Events including virtual field trips and digital documentaries.

• In spring 2004, one virtual field trip documented on ALI followed a four-month long reeactment of the travels of Lewis and Clark across the continent. The virtual field trip included live webcasts by participants, videoconferences (students can submit content for broadcast), and live web coverage of special events in the reenactment. After completed, virtual field trips are archived for later viewing. Many of the contributors to the digital learning events are recognized scientists or content experts from groups such as NASA and the Chicago Field Museum.

The Leadership and Professional Growth section offers teachers professional development materials including video cases of best practices in school organization and leadership.

• Included is an archived online interview with Dr. Ruby Payne entitled "A Framework for Understanding Poverty". Among the supplemental materials, the site has a self test for teachers to use to understand the differences in the issues faced by those living in poverty and and those in middle and upper class families.

Technology Showcases provide information and multimedia examples of some of the ways to use Apple hardware and software to support teaching and learning.

• One example comes from the Français Interactif program at UT Austin that documents the lives of real university students and their experiences at the UT Summer Program in Lyon, France.

WebTeacher.org
http://www.WebTeacher.org/macintosh.html

WebTeacher sponsors a comprehensive site devoted to teaching and the Internet. Much of the site is devoted to an extensive set of tutorials on computers and Internet technology. The tutorials are divided into five sections:

• web basics
• communicating
• multimedia
• homepage construction
• peripherals & utilities

Skills covered range from simple (e.g. sending email, using a search engine) to complex (e.g. using html code to create web pages, working with CGI). This is a great source of clear explanations for the less-than-expert user. (NOTE: Some of the information is slightly outdated; instructions for Macintosh are based on the OS 9 operating system rather than OS X.)

The sixth section on the WebTeacher site relates directly to the integration side of technology integration.

The Web in Your Classroom

Sub-sections include:

• Content Resources - a set of annotated links to sites related to curriculum content.
• Lesson Plans - an extensive collection of links to sites that offer lesson plans and lesson ideas.
• Internet Safety - a collection of useful annotated links has resources related to Internet safety organized by audience (i.e. teachers, parents. students, etc.)