C-SPAN Classroom
Incorporating Web sites and other online resources into the classroom allows teachers to provide students with up-to-the-minute data and resources, as many geography educators have discovered. C-SPAN’s Classroom Web site attempts to fill that void for government and civics classes by giving users access to searchable video clips, some of which are available for download. The site from the cable-TV industry’s nonprofit public-affairs service also provides standards-based resources—such as discussion questions, activities, and quizzes—for educators to use alongside the Web materials. Videos are grouped into six categories: principles of government, the U.S. Constitution, the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and political participation. Each category includes a featured video clip of a current event, along with a backlog of previous video clips from that category. Watching and downloading all videos requires registration, which is free for educators.
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BlogNetNews
Keeping up with education blogs can be a great way to stay informed on education trends and to share ideas, strategies, and best practices. But weeding through hundreds of blogs to find those that are well written and useful for educators can be a daunting, time-consuming task, which is why BlogNetNews’ education section is worth checking out. The Web site functions as a gateway for educators to blogs that are relevant to them: It gathers dozens of education blogs in one place so that readers can view numerous online posts from multiple bloggers simultaneously. The blogs are divided into three categories—technology, K-12 education, and higher education—to make it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for. A possible downside for ed-tech leaders is that most of the blogs are targeted at more general issues in education, rather than focusing specifically on educational technology. Even so, that shortcoming could be easily remedied by having more ed-tech blogs added to the list.
