Social Studies Webliography

1. Name: New York State Education Department: Curriculum and Instruction: Social Studies                URL Address: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/socst/                                                                          Summary: The Office of Curriculum and Instruction Team provides guidance, resources, funding and program opportunities to aid the educational community in developing and delivering quality curriculum and instruction to students in New York State.                                                                                      Commentary: This website is crucial for any new or veteran teacher due to the fact that the website provides crucial information regarding state standards, the NYS curriculum for all contents, access to past regents exams, as well as providing constantly updated information pertaining to teaching the specific content. Because so many of these resources are crucial to the success of a teacher I rate this site five out of five stars.
2. Name: Discovery Education                                                                                                                URL Address: http://my.discoveryeducation.com/                                                                   Summary: Discovery Education provides engaging digital resources to schools and homes with the goal of making educators more effective, increasing student achievement, and connecting classrooms and families to a world of learning.                                                                                                                                Commentary: I was introduced to this website by another one of my education professors because it has a huge selection of images, short video clips, and full length videos pertaining to almost any imaginable subject. This website is designed specifically for educators in mind. It allows very basic searches to advanced searches narrowing results down by content area, grade, and the type of media desired. The website also has an area for lesson plans and complete units that incorporates the media found within the site. Therefore I rate the site five out of five stars.
3. Name: Aspects of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.                                                                        URL Address: http://www1.umassd.edu/ir/contact.cfm                                                                      Summary: Aspects of the Industrial Revolution in Britain was developed by Prof. Gerard M. Koot
   of the History Department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The website offers an Introduction to the Industrial Revolution in Britain by providing a written description, a collection of past seminar papers written about the subject, a list of sites of interest including museums, an image gallery, and finally additional links for the subject.                                                                                 Commentary: I was able to locate this website when I was creating a unit plan for the Industrial Revolution. It provides great information for students, great interactive images, as well as links for further information. Therefore I rank it at a 4 out of 5 stars.
4. Name: Rubrics for Assessment                                                                                                          URL Address: http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.cfm#cooperative                                     Summary: The website was developed by the University of Wisconsin-Stout's School of Education department to provide their students  access to a multitude of Rubrics for Assessment.                         Commentary: I was introduced to this website by a collegue when I was having trouble developing a rubric for assessment. While there are many rubric builder websites available, this site offers already created real world examples classified by type. Because there are so many examples and the site is classified by type I rate it at a 3 out of 5.                                                                                             
5. Name: Sites for Teachers                                                                                                                   URL Address: http://www.sitesforteachers.com/index.html                                                  Summary: Teacherwebsite.com, Inc. is a family based company whose mission statement is "Connecting Teachers, Students, and Parents through Technology". Using the world wide web; educators, students, and parents will be able to access important school information, links to education resources and communicate at a higher level. Through the use of two internet portals, TeacherWebsite.com for educators and ClassHomework.com for students, we hope to add tools for teachers to utilize technology to enhance the education process and get parents more involved.             Commentary: This website is filled with literally hundreds of links to sites that contain teacher's resources and educational material. The sites are ranked by popularity so that teachers do not have to spend hours surfing countless pages to find the occasional "good" site. While the site does offer countless resources it is cluttered, unsearchable, and hard to navigate. Therefore I rate it at a three out of five stars.
6. Name: Teachers Love SMART Boards                                                                                             URL Address: http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/#tp                                                             Summary: Teachers Love SMART Boards was developed by an Arizona Math teacher. This site incorporates tips, tricks, and techniques for using a SMART Board in your classroom.                         Commentary: This website is great for getting the most out of your classroom SMART Board. The site offers online tutorials, presentations, animations, and ideas on how to creatively and effectively present the content, therefore I rank the site a 4 out of 5 stars. 
7. Name: Education World: The Educator's Best Friend.                                                                       URL Address: http://www.educationworld.com/                                                                               Summary: Education World's goal is to make it easy for educators to integrate the Internet into the classroom. With 98 percent of the nation's public schools connected to the Internet, the need for a complete online educational guide is evident.                                                                                       Commentary: I was introduced to this site by a friend when I was searching out ideas for lesson plans. The amount of information available is somewhat overwhelming, however if you have time to search you can locate some very helpful resources within the site. Unfortunately the site is full of adds and distractions, therefore I rank it a 3 out of 5.                                                                                  
8. Name: Social Studies for Kids                                                                                                           URL Address: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/                                                                         Summary: Social Studies for Kids is a website that provides a resource for students, teachers, and anyone else who wants to learn about Social Studies. The site covers history, geography, economics, cultures, current events, holidays, religions, languages, archeology, and much more. The sit also contains articles, glossaries, newsletters, and a forum.                             Commentary: I frequent this website for the online forum because it offers suggestions for activities and lesson plans. This site is also hard to navigate and full of ads, therefore I rank it a 3 out of 5 stars. 
9. Name: TeAch-nology                                                                                                                         URL Address: http://www.teach-nology.com/                                                                                  Summary: TeAch-nology.com offers a wide variety of free resources intended to bring educators into the world of teaching with technology. It provides links to valuable and useful information relative to current and best practices in the field of education. A large variety of free classroom materials and support tools are also available.                                                                                                           Commentary: I was introduced to this website by another one of my education professors because it has a huge selection of resources available for teachers including worksheets, lesson plans, rubrics, printables, and tips for educators.  Because of the ease of use and great selection I rank the site a 5 out of 5 stars.
10. Name: Oswego City School District: Regents Exam Prep Center                                                       URL Address: http://regentsprep.org/                                                                                               Summary:  The goal of this nonprofit site is to help high school students meet the New York State Regents requirements in English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.                                         Commentary: This website is a great review tool for students when preparing for any New York State Regents exam. The site is very user friendly and easy to navigate, therefore I rank the site a 5 out of 5 stars.