Our new look

We are changing our format and site to better serve the needs of teachers. Finding information about the best tools available is a time consuming task. I have found many sites that contain large lists of options, but the quantity of options are so large that it would take a month to sort through all of the options. Our site will narrow down the lists in a specific category to what we feel are the top five tools. We will provide key information on those tools, so that you can quickly make an informed decision on which tool would best fit your needs. We consider freeware, open source, and commercial software, and websites so you are likely to find a solution even without a budget. Once our evaluations are complete we will produce a pdf guide so that you can download, share, and print this valuable information. We will also produce a Podcast that will highlight the key features of each item. Individual product reviews will be posted on our blog as they are completed. Our Goal is to produce a new guide each month, however time and budget limitations my make that difficult. If you would like to help you could make a donation via PayPal, or you can support our sponsors.

A Few of the planned guides include:

1. Clip Art Sites-
2. Worksheet Sites-
3. Browsers-
4. Reading Software-
5. Drawing Software-
6. Image Software-
7. Lesson Plan Sites-
8. Web Quest Directory-
9. Video Software-
10. Math Software-
11. Web Encyclopedia-
12. Grading Software-

FireFox 2.0 The Browser for education!

Firefox 2.0 has recently been released and under the hood there are some marked improvements. You will not see as drastic of change as that of Microsoft's IE 7; however Microsoft was playing a major catch up game with Firefox and other modern browsers. Even though the face did not change much there are some cool new features.

My personal favorite is the built in spell check. I was constantly copy and pasting information for forms into word to check the spelling, not we have a very powerful spell check built into the browser, so there is no longer a need to fire up Word just to make sure your spelling is Correct.

Here is a brief list of some of the new features:

• Improved Tabbed Browsing

• Spell Checking

• Search Suggestions

• Session Restore

• Web Feeds (RSS)
  

• Live Titles

• Integrated Search

• Live Bookmarks

You can get more detailed information about these great new features at the Firefox website

Even prior to the update Firefox was my choice for student computers, and now it has solidified a strong lead for use in this category.

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/

Internet4Classrooms.com is a great resource for finding information on the web. They have an extensive list of website links for all things education. One section that I found particularly useful is the Online-Practice Modules. It had tutorials for many applications used in our schools. The content had enough detail to get you started, but not so much that it was overwhelming to get started. The also had a great section on test preparation resources for all grade levels. Internet4Classrooms.com definitely deserves some real estate on your book mark list.