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=Welcome to a Digital Library of Online Resources for Curriculum Development=

Use these great search engines to aid in your research for papers, projects and more.
 * Resources that Support Online Research**


 * **[|Google Scholar]:** With Google Scholar you can search through thousands of guaranteed scholarly (and appropriate for use in a paper) articles and research reports.


 * **[|WorldCat]:** If you need a book and they don’t have it at your local library, use this tool to find out where the closest location you can find the book is.


 * **[|Scirus]:** Using this search tool you can browse or search through loads of great scientific articles–great for last-minute research.


 * **[|HighBeam Research]:** This tool searches through numerous sites to find the articles that you’re looking for.


 * **[|iSeek]:** Students and teachers alike can find great information using this site that searches through only trusted resources.


 * **[|Librarian’s Internet Index]:** Make sure you’re finding reliable, truthful information by using this search tool.


 * **[|Vadlo]:** This search engine allows users to search through thousands of resources in the life sciences and biomedical fields.


 * **[|Virtual Learning Resource Center]:** You’ll find a great collection of resources on this site to help you complete your projects in everything from economics to art history.


 * **[|Open Library]:** If you don’t have time to run out to the library, you can find online resources to use for free using this search engine.

Check out these search engines for help finding answers to your important questions and organizing information.
 * **[|Online Journals Search Engine]:** Use this search engine to find great scientific journal articles.
 * [[image:http://www.onlineuniversities.com/wp-content/uploads/answers.jpg align="left"]]Getting Answers**


 * **[|Answers.com]:** Ask a question and other users will post their answers on this helpful site.


 * **[|AskMeNow]:** Use this search site to find answers from experts on a wide range of topics.


 * **[|Powerset]:** This tool uses Wikipedia to answer your question, bringing up the most relevant information.


 * **[|Lexxe]:** Simply type a question into this site to get search results that best answer it.


 * **[|Online Conversion]:** You can convert just about any unit to another using this great tool. Simply search to find the conversion you need.


 * **[|Tablefy]:** This site will allow you to compare just about anything from products to websites and give you the information in an easy to use table.


 * **[|MetaGlossary]:** Using this tool, you can find the meaning of millions of phrases, terms and acronyms.


 * **[|BrainBoost]:** Try out this question-answering engine to see if you can’t find just what you’re looking for.


 * Finding Free E-Books Online**


 * Project Gutenberg.One of the oldest and best free eBook sites. Thousands of titles.
 * Amazon has its own book format, Kindle, that works on many platforms. Many other readers support the ePub format. A downloadable library of ePub format books may be found at http://www.epubbooks.com/books (You can add ePub support to Firefox with the add-in found at @https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45281/.)
 * The Universal Digital Library has over 1 million books available at @http://www.ulib.org/ The books here are imaged and you need to install a TIFF reader to be able to see them. A PC version is available at @http://www.alternatiff.com/
 * A good listing of books available on the web may be found at @http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/.
 * Connecticut State Library has a comprehensive listing of ebook services as well.
 * Note that there are many web sites that claim to be indexes of downloadable eBooks that are really poor sites that are trying to make money via advertisements and redirection to pay sites.


 * Resources that Support Student Collaboration**
 * The Detective Game by Peter Pappas. "This activity demonstrates to students the need for considering the contributions of every group member and gives them practice in organizing cooperatively to accomplish a task. In this exercise every student is given bits of information essential to the solution of a mystery. With modifications this exercise can be used to help students organize and evaluate information and data in a variety of contexts."


 * Resources that Support the use of Photos and other digital images**
 * Flickr is a great online service for organizing, publishing, and sharing photos. In the Creative Commons section of Flickr, there are millions of photos licensed under Creative Commons licenses, meaning that we can use them in general for educational purposes without major limitations. Generally, photos still need to be cited, but the beauty of the Creative Common licenses is that users are given explicit copyright-free permission for use.
 * Wikimedia Commons is a project by the Wikimedia foundation, the same one that is responsible for Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons hosts all of the pictures and other multimedia elements included in Wikipedia articles. There are pictures on a variety of topics (use the search function on the left-most side of the screen), mainly under the GNU Free Documentation and Creative Commons licenses, so we can use these without many limitations in our courses.
 * Stock Exchange is an online service where we can download as many pictures as we want, for free.
 * GIMP should already be located on your hard drive. If you need to resize or reformat a photo image, this software will allow you to easily use photo editing software and organize your efforts for import into Moodle.
 * Slideshare allows you to upload and share your Powerpoint presentations publicly or privately. Animations and audio cannot be uploaded. Embedding code is available so that you can then embed your presentation into a blog or web page in Moodle.
 * Authorstream allows you to upload and share your Powerpoint presentations, including animations and audio, publicly or privately. Embedding code is available so that you can then embed your files into a blog or web page in Moodle.
 * Strip Generator is an online tool for creating comic strips with an easy-to-use-drag-and-drop interface.


 * Resources that Support the use of Audio and Video elements**
 * Audacity is the free software utility for audio recording and editing. It can be found on our NT1 network as a resource, if it is not already found on your hard drive.
 * Lingtlanguage.com. This is a versatile free online site that allows instructors to post a discussion prompt in several formats (video, audio, or text). Students can respond to the prompts in the various formats (video, audio, or text) as well. In addition, the site has a course management function that allows instructors to store class responses organized by assignment. Finally, the site has a publicly-available library of discussion prompts other instructors have posted for public use.
 * The Audio Archive is a library with over 300,000 free digital recordings, ranging from old radio shows to concerts and poetry readings. Many recordings can be downloaded for free.
 * CCMixter is a project from the Creative Commons initiative where we can find lots of samples to use in our audio projects. We can also upload the results to the same site. All of the content is licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
 * Freesound is a collaborative collection of sounds licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing users to use them in your own works. The resources at this site focuses only on sounds, not songs.
 * Voki allows users to create avatars that can talk either with our own voice or by converting text to speech. This is a tool that can be used for a digital storytelling project. It is more appropriate to our younger students, but even the older ones will probably find the avatars engaging. The embedding code is available for the avatars you create so they can be embedded into Moodle. Posting them with a blog would be a nice application. Otherwise, you could use Add resource/Compose a web page and then embed the avatar into the web page.
 * Songbird is an open-source customizable music player (similar to ITunes) that is still being actively developed by Mozilla.
 * Podomatic is an online podcasting community.Students can create their own podcasts directly without the necessity of installing any additional software.
 * Voicethread allows you to create online collaborative multimedia presentations that integrate images, documents, and videos, allowing peers to leave comments using voice, text, audio, or video. For example, students can upload a PowerPoint presentation and allow other students to post their feedback about the presentation. These presentations can be embedded into Moodle.
 * Youtube is the popular online video service with a large wealth of videos on a broad range of subjects, both commercial and non-commercial.
 * Embedr is a free service that lets anyone create a custom playlist of videos from the top video sites on the web, including Youtube, MySpace, Vimeo, DailyMotion, and others. Your video playlist can be embedded into Moodle.
 * Top 25 Places to Find Instructional Videos is a blog entry by an English social media consultant, Jane Hart, that is particularly comprehensive.
 * 100 Video Sites Every Educator Should Bookmark

These sites are full of videos on a wealth of topics that can help grab your students’ attention.
 * Educational Video Collections**
 * **[|Teacher Tube]:** On this site, teachers can post their own educational videos and find videos made by others on virtually every topic out there.
 * **[|Edublogs.tv]:** Visit this site to search through a great collection of educational content.
 * **[|Edutopia]:** Sponsored by George Lucas, this site contains some great lesson plans as well as an assortment of lectures and inspiring videos.
 * **[|You Tube Edu]:** Check out this site to get access to the great content offered by YouTube, but narrowed down to all but educational videos.
 * **[|EduTube]:** Here you’ll find educational videos on just about every topic you could imagine.
 * **[|Classroom Clips]:** If you’re looking for teacher submitted and approved video and audio content for your courses, give this site a try.
 * **[|neoK12]:** This site believes that kids learn better by seeing and doing, and offers a wide range of educational videos and games to help them do it.
 * **[|Scholar Spot]:** Designed with both students and teachers in mind, this site has lots of educational content including lectures, animated videos and inspiring news stories.
 * **[|OV Guide]:** If you still haven’t found the video you’re looking for, consider paying a visit to this site. It will help you search through hundreds of sites for the best educational content on the web.
 * **[|Cosmo Learning]:** This educational site offers videos that can work well for students from grade school as well as those geared towards high school or college students.
 * **[|Google Educational Videos]:** Here you’ll find instructions on how to search through Google Videos and bring up only those that relate to education.
 * **[|Lectr]:** On this site teachers and students alike can find free lectures from learning institutions around the world.

These sites do offer some great educational content, but contain other types of videos as well.
 * General Video Collections**
 * **[|Hulu]:** Hulu carries a lot of everyday, pure entertainment TV shows, but it also streams programs from PBS and National Geographic that can be great for classroom use.
 * **[|Internet Archive]:** This site compiles videos from all over the web, giving you access to archives, public domain movies and a whole lot more.
 * **[|TED]:** Get your students or even yourself inspired with the amazing lectures posted on this site.
 * **[|MIT World]:** Hear from some of the world’s foremost scholars in lectures provided by MIT.
 * **[|TVO Big Ideas]:** On this site you’ll be able to hear from some big names in business, politics and activism and get a look at how they feel about some of the bigger issues facing our world.
 * **[|Big Think]:** Check out this site from video programming that asks you to truly think about a topic. Not all videos may be appropriate for the classroom, but there are definitely a few that could spark some interesting conversation.
 * **[|The Open Video Project]:** If you want access to loads of public domain digital video, go through the archives collected on this high-tech library site.
 * **[|@Google Talks]:** Hear from experts in fields like history, technology and business in this impressive collection of lectures from Google.
 * **[|Forum Network]:** This PBS site is absolutely full of video lectures from authors, academics and thinkers, but you’ll also find some great free PBS programs on topics that are especially relevant to history, science and technological education.
 * **[|UChannel]:** On this site you’ll find video lectures from some of the most prestigious institutions around the world.

These video sites are maintained by TV networks, offering videos of their programming for teachers to use for free.
 * Network and Program Videos**
 * **[|PBS Video]:** With this site you’ll be able to bring the great content from PBS right into your classroom for free.
 * **[|National Geographic Video]:** From nature to ancient cultures, you’ll find videos aplenty on this site.
 * **[|Nova Teachers Watch Video Online]:** Using this site you can show clips or whole programs from the television series Nova.
 * **[|Discovery Education]:** The Discovery Channel has compiled the videos on this site just for teachers and students.
 * **[|C-SPAN Video Library]:** Students learning about government can see it in action through the videos here.
 * **[|iCue]:** NBC News sponsors this site that offers great clips of important world events.
 * **[|History Channel Video Guide]:** Bring history to life through biographies and historical documentaries found here.
 * **[|Biography.com]:** Let your students learn more about famous figures in history using the short clips from the Biography Channel found here.
 * **[|Educational Internet TV]:** Check out this site to find out about free educational channels from around the world that you can watch online for free.
 * **[|BBC Learning]:** BBC Learning offers thousands of clips that have been pre-edited and selected to work well in the classroom.

Visit these sites to get access to free documentaries, public domain films and short clips.
 * Free Movies and Clips**
 * **[|Film Clips Online]:** Here you’ll find short, and legal to use film clips that are perfect for the classroom.
 * **[|Free Documentaries.org]:** Use this site to find some free documentary films for the classroom.
 * **[|SnagFilms]:** This site is home to a wide range of both free and pay film content.
 * **[|Top Documentary Films]:** Search through the documentaries on this site to find something perfect for the lessons you’re creating.
 * **[|Movies Found Online]:** Check out the search tool on this site to find whole public domain films online.
 * **[|ABC Documentaries]:** This site offers free documentaries from an Australian television station, including many shorter TV programs that can work well in school.

Go through these sites to get great videos and footage from the past and present of American history.
 * Government and Organizations**
 * **[|The National Archives]:** Through this site you’ll get access to multimedia records that are held in the U.S. National Archives — a perfect addition to any history lesson.
 * **[|National Science Foundation Multimedia]:** Here, the NSF provides educators and interested learners with videos of nature, interviews, animations and a whole lot more.
 * **[|NASA e-Clips]:** Use these short clips as a way of showing students about our world and the universe that lies beyond.
 * **[|NASA TV]:** From live footage of space shuttles and space stations to programming geared towards use in the classroom, this NASA site is an invaluable resource for teachers looking to add to lessons about space travel.
 * **[|Library of Congress Teacher Resources]:** This site helps bring together some of the best material offered by the Library of Congress for use in a range of lesson plans on American History.
 * **[|American Memory Motion Pictures]:** If you prefer to look through the material on your own, this site will let you search through the multimedia material held by the Library of Congress.

On these sites, the videos focus on the fields of science, math and technology.
 * Science, Math and Technology**
 * **[|Green Energy TV]:** Teach your students about the latest innovations in green technologies with free videos from this site.
 * **[|Research Channel]:** The programming on this Internet TV site highlights some of the latest research being done in science, technology, medicine and even the humanities so you can educate yourself and your students on the next big things.
 * **[|BioInteractive]:** Explore biology with a little help from this site, offering videos and animations that can be a big help in teaching complex topics.
 * **[|ARKive]:** For lessons about the natural world, this site is perfect. It contains a wide range of videos on the animal and plant life of Earth.
 * **[|Math TV]:** If your students are struggling to understand a mathematical concept, augment their lessons with some of the material found on this site.
 * **[|The Vega Science Trust Videos]:** Let your students see potential science careers, discuss important issues and see inspirational figures in the field with videos found on this site.
 * **[|The Science Network]:** See interviews with big names in science that touch on important topics like stem cell research, evolution, neuroscience, genetics, learning and more on this site.
 * **[|Pop Tech]:** Inspire your students with the videos found on this site, showing individuals who are using science, technology and plain old hard work to change the world.
 * **[|Channel N]:** This site is full of lectures and videos on the human brain and psychology.
 * **[|How Stuff Works Videos]:** Show your students amazing and instructional videos through the content on this site.
 * **[|ScienceStage]:** You’ll find everything from videos of the Hubble Telescope to problems with human nutrition on this research-focused site.
 * **[|Exploratorium]:** Check out the webcasts on this site to let your students hear from biologists, cosmologists, physicists and more.
 * **[|SciVee]:** Give your students a view into the real working world of science, with this site that allows scientists to post videos of their real-life research for students and other scientists to use.
 * **[|The Futures Channel]:** This online channel is full of lessons and video clips on all types of math and science topics, from how to predict the weather to how to build stronger snowboards.

Here you’ll find a great collection of videos to illustrate the past and help your students see the beauty of the arts.
 * History, Arts and Social Sciences**
 * **[|EASE History]:** Watch videos about historical events, campaign ads, and cultural values on this historical site.
 * **[|Kennedy Center Archives]:** Through this site you can show students performances from some of the most amazing musicians in the world.
 * **[|The Archaeology Channel]:** Help your students to explore the history of mankind through the great free content offered here.
 * **[|Peoples Archive]:** This site collects the biographies of well-known people around the world told by the people who know it best–themselves.
 * **[|Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive]:** On this site you’ll find an amazing collection of WWII-era footage of the horrors of the Holocaust.
 * **[|Culture Catch]:** This site will let you see some of the work being done by up-and-coming artists.
 * **[|Folk Streams]:** Use this site to show students documentaries about traditional and folk culture in America.
 * **[|Digital History]:** With lesson plans and interactive online experiences for students, the videos found here are just the icing on the cake.
 * **[|History Matters]:** This site explores the primary historical documents central to understanding American history.
 * **[|Social Studies Video Dictionary]:** Your students can look up vocabulary words in style with this video dictionary.

Digital Storytelling Tools Myths and Legends Story Creator 2
 * Good Blogs**
 * **[|Technorati]:** Use Technorati to scour the blogging world for posts and sites that match your interests.
 * EduBlogger winners. A comprehensive listing of the most respected educational bloggers.
 * Henry G. Tuttle writes a blog about technology integration, called Education with Technology.