This "Electronic Library" is intended to give you some experience examining web sites that might be useful in providing resources that engage your future students in a topic. These virtual museums and websites provide BEING THERE experiences which go beyond the classroom walls and the typical textbook. Novice teachers can benefir from collecting ideas and resources that will be available to them when they are planning lessons in which they wish to engage the imaginations and minds of adolescent learners.

We are providing you with some beginning "links" to Internet addresses that may provide you with a variety of resources that .may expand your repertoire for building literacy skills-- reading, writing, speaking, listening, and visually viewing and representing.

As with all Internet addresses, they often change or are updated on a regular basis. If you run into some that have been discontinued, please let me know so that I can update the Block web pages in this Electronic Library. This library is just to get you started, to encourage you to develop some skills in searching for possibilities. But first you need to believe that there might be some helpful information and ideas for you, the novice teacher. Thus the purpose of this CHOICE ASSIGNMENT.

Create a resource file of ideas and and plans, library or museum resources, classroom organizational and/or management ideas, or just resources for enhancing your classroom instruction (cartoons, quotes, music, etc.).

Getting Ready to Search:

A. Think about what you have learned in the Block to add to your prior knowledge/experience:

1. About adolescent learners and what might keep them focused on your content area and active in the classroom.
2. About how their brains/minds develop and play a role in their intellectual, emotional, social, and physical development.
3. About what you will be expected to teach according to local, state, and/or national standards.
4. About how to plan for effective instruction in your content area (best practices and design frameworks).

Determine your Search Questions:

B. What do your want to search for? Lesson plans, classroom ideas, content area resources?

Essential Questions to Guide Your Search:

C. Is the information at a site relevant to my purpose? How do I decide?
Is the information reliable?
What will be most useful to me as a new teacher?
Other questions that come to mind?

Searching the Web:

D. Explore a variety of addresses provided on the Block website or do general searches using Google, Yahoo, or other sources available to you from the front page of the Van Wylen Library.

Collecting Resources:

E. Summarize what you have found at a particular site and copy the address. Perhaps you'll want to highlight and copy some of what you find.

Organizing the Ideas/Information Collected:

F. Decide how you want to keep this information for future reference:

1.Just keep a list created in WORD or WordPerfect, or some other word-processing program

2. PowerPoint slides within a single file

3. HyperStudio stack

Point Value for this Assignment: Up to 30 points