Video sites, software tips and educational links

Make use of is a technology site giving all sorts of advice, from operating system tips to best websites, and over 50 software guides if you are grappling with new applications. Try also here for education related posts.
Video sites recommended include VideoSci.com and All things Science for science, and Keentalks, TED, Brighttalk for general inspiration, SolveforX for problem solving ideas, and GreenTV for science & the environment.
     

Sharpen your Pencils

Discover, save, and manage educational based web content, quizzes, video and more. Designed for primary and lower secondary pupils, there is a US bias, but links saved by teachers are highlighted. Lets you build your own class pages and links to blogs. Try here.

Videosift

This is a very large collection of videos, sorted by newness or popularity. In addition, there are playlists and channels of similar themes, including Art (5940), Cinema (9000), Controversy (5160), Documentaries (3980), Education (260), Equality (1440), French (500), Health (1260), History (3220), Kid (friendly) (3300), Philosophy (1460), Religion (4080), Science (5440), Short films (2220), Teens (1180), World Affairs (4360). US bias but good for starters or plenaries. See here for details.

Lessons for Next Year

Need content for next year's topics? Not sure how to fill 5 lessons a week? Then use a specialised Google search to see what others have done on the topic.  Click HERE to enter advanced search, enter your chosen topic at the top and find 'filetype' to narrow your search by. This will allow you to choose only PowerPoint files, and this will let you browse existing presentations on your topic. The results will inspire your own lessons, either as a new PowerPoint based on several others, or by using some of the content you can use as the basis for your own chalk and talk. You can do exactly the same for pdf, Excel, Word and Flash files.

Pete's PowerPoint Station

In a hurry to come up a lesson? Pete's PowerPoint Station is a site that collects together a comprehensive selection of presentation links, with a detailed index page. Although there is US bias, a 1800+ topics should cover most things, especially for KS3 . See HERE for the full topic list.

Culture 24 and Show Me

The Arts Council, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council & the DoE have together come up with Culture 24 and Show Me, two related sites that cover 15,263 UK museum related items, plus 9,500+ archived. Culture 24 is for secondary, and Show Me for primary resources, and both have teacher sections to relate content to curriculum. The secondary content is biased towards Arts, History and Science/Nature.

National Centre for Technology in Education (Ireland)

The NCTE has been set up in Ireland to provide advice, support and information on the use of ICT in education.

It has developed a number of educational portals and websites, often in conjunction with other partners. Go HERE for details and links to sites, including Scoilnet, a portal for links in secondary subjects (see HERE), several Internet safety sites, images for education, French and German teaching sites with links, plus ones for Geography and History, and basic Science resources.

Teachers TV - New links

The Department for Education (DfE) has signed agreements with at least 7 organisations, so that the 3,500 plus Teachers TV video archive remains available to all. Teachers TV was a government-funded service that broadcast on UK television and online from 2005 to 2011. See here for details of the new sites.
Some of the 7 include other material from sites no longer available in their previous form, such as the National Strategies, QCDA and Becta sites.

Wisconsin Online Digital Library

Wisconsin Technical College System hosts a collection of 2310 learning objects as a digital library, many animated, known as WISC-Online. The subjects range from business, science, english and maths, plus some items relevant to teachers under Professional Development. Go here and register to use.

Education Scotland

A previous post in 2008 referred to LTS, a Scottish resource bank based on their curriculum. This has now changed to Education Scotland, and the subject homepage is to be found here.

Adobe Resources

Adobe have opened a site for sharing resources, and currently have 2,213 listed via nearly 28,000 members. They are listed across 3 regions, UK, USA & Canada, and Australia & NZ, and can be searched via grade, relevant Adobe product, resource type and subject. Registration is required to browse all resources here.

Vital resources

Vital is an professional development organisation, whose resources are delivered by the Open University and funded by DfE. They show how ICT can be used better in the classroom, and have developed resources for many secondary subjects, from Art to Science. See the details HERE via their secondary portal.

Teacher's TV closes and reopens

The Teachers TV website closed on April 29th, along with 3,500+ relevant videos for schools. But all is not lost - A group of UK teachers has succeeded in downloading all the videos and materials to share with other teachers online via Google Docs.
In addition, Teachers TV programmes will be available free for anyone to view from 11 May, when operator Ten Alps is relaunching the channel as online service SchoolsWorld.