Netwatch Teachers Helping Teachers Offers Many Gems NetWatch takes a look at two helpful web sites for teachers and a neat web site for young children – with lesson plans for teachers too.

By Denys Giguère

Teachers Helping Teachers www.pacificnet.net/~mandel This a well used site – more than 2 million hits – with all kinds of resources for teachers, from lesson plans to classroom management tips to topics of the week.

Many of the links are top notch. I followed one in Educational Resources that took me to a web site that’s worth many visits – A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust (http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust). The site describes the holocaust, puts it in context, offers definitions along the way in pop-up boxes and even has pictures of artwork from prisoners in Auschwitz and Birkenau. Did I mention quizzes, in-depth resources, historical documents from Nuremberg and more lesson plans? The site cautions teachers to review the material carefully before using it and offers guidelines from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. to help review the material.

Teachers Helping Teachers offers many more gems like that – a lesson plan on disease transmission in the science section is another good example. Go and visit it. Just make sure you have plenty of time on your hands and paper in the printer.

CanTeach www.track0.com/canteach/index.html CanTeach is an interesting non-commercial site for teachers that focuses on lesson plans, resources and links. Although the resources are not classified by province – which would assure teachers they meet provincial curriculum expectations – the variety of materials will allow teachers to find things they can use. 

The threads in the discussion groups show that the site is well used by teachers looking for advice and information and by their colleagues eager to help. Elementary Resources offers good suggestions on, for example, classroom management or integrating First Nations content in the classroom. The site also offers a bounty of links divided in categories ranging from physical education to illnesses, math and fine arts. The technology education section even includes links on detecting computer viruses and hoaxes.

This is a site for disciplined people – you could easily surf for a few hours and feel that you still don’t have what you need if you aren’t organized in your research.

ALFY – For the Little Ones www.alfy.com ALFY is a kids’ portal playground geared specifically for children aged three to nine. The site is fun and educational, filled with colour graphics, well organized and safe. It includes a clubhouse, a surprise corner, a music area, a creative area, a sports arena, a storyville and a cool sites section.

Teachers will love this site because it’s fun for them too, and they’ll also find a section with neat lesson plans. Keep in mind however that the site is American and the contents may have to be slightly adapted.

Every section of the site is worth visiting – either to stimulate children’s creativity, help them acquire knowledge or just to entertain them in a safe web environment. Spelling, math, history, science, you name it, it’s probably here. You can even learn Spanish – select Spanish at www.alfy.com/languages and hear all the words in Spanish while reading them in English on the screen.

This is a site that is going to keep kids entertained and interested while they learn – and they will learn a lot.