By Jessica Merritt

Every year, high school students with dreams of college admissions and scholarships wake up early on a Saturday and subject themselves to the SAT, one of the most nerve-wracking tests they’ve taken so far in their lives. The test requires lots of preparation, practice, and confidence, and there are plenty of resources available to students who want be be prepared. Here, we’ll look at 100 sites and resources that are designed to help students achieve the best SAT score they can get.

Powerhouses

These are some of the really well-established sites that offer a wide variety of incredibly helpful SAT resources.

1. College Board SAT Preparation Center: Visit the College Board website to get an official practice test, question of the day, and more.
2. SparkNotes: The SparkNotes SAT test center is a wonderful resource, including a mini SAT, vocabulary novels, power tactics and much, much more.
3. Number2: Visit Number2 to get a free SAT companion tutor complete with monitored progress, a word of the day, and more.
4. LearnHub: LearnHub’s SAT resources include a question bank, lessons, tests, and more.

Vocabulary Review

Many of the SAT resources online focus on vocabulary, offering words to study, tests, and more.

5. Vocabulary Tests Online: Here you’ll find a variety of resources designed to help you pass the vocabulary portion of the SAT.
6. 5,000 Free SAT Words: This simple site offers 5,000 vocabulary words to learn from, and an audio version to learn from as well.
7. Hard SAT Crosswords: Here you’ll find crossword puzzles featuring SAT words.
8. SAT Vocabulary Builder: Use this site’s vocabulary builder, and you’ll be able to use their flash cards and printable resources.
9. Vocab Test: Build your SAT vocabulary with the help of this website.
10. Vocabulary University: This source has the top 180 SAT and ACT words, and offers puzzles to help you learn them.
11. English Usage Practice Playsheets: Brush up on your grammar and vocabulary with these playsheets.
12. SAT and GRE Vocabulary Test Prep: Sheppard Software shares a few vocabulary quizzes here.
13. Wordsmyth SAT Dictionary: Wordsmyth offers a huge collection of frequently used SAT words and their definitions.

Practice Tests

Assess your skills and become more familiar with the SAT by taking these practice tests.

14. SAT Test Practice Questions: This resource offers an in-depth self-assessment test for the SAT.
15. SAT Test Preparation Practice Exercises: Test your ability to do well on the SAT test with these practice exercises.
16. Sentence Completion Quiz: About.com’s quiz is a great tool for testing your writing skills.
17. Yahoo! Education SAT Test Prep: Here you’ll find sample questions for writing, math, and reading.
18. English Test: This site has more than 1,000 vocabulary tests, many of them focused on SAT words.
19. PrepMe: This test preparation service offers a few diagnostic tests.
20. Morrison Media: This site has plenty of SAT tests and drills to offer, including vocabulary and math.
21. Algebra.com SAT Preparation: Visit this site to test your skills at SAT math.
22. Peterson’s Free Practice Test for the SAT: Peterson’s allows you to take a timed, full-length SAT practice test, and offers detailed answer explanations for every question. You can even log on and off.

Test Prep

These sites offer test preparation, which is great for improving your all-around skill for the SAT.

23. ProProfs: Visit ProProfs, and you’ll be able to take advantage of study guides, practice tests, cram sheets, and more.
24. Study Hall: Study Hall’s free program allows you to take practice tests, learn more about the questions, and set a unique timetable.
25. SAT Exam Prep: In order to enjoy this site’s SAT resources, all you have to do is register.
26. Major Tests: Use this site’s hundreds of practice questions and vocabulary development resources to improve your SAT score.
27. eNotes: eNotes offers SAT practice tests, drills, vocabulary, and more.
28. Ivy Bound: This tutoring service has a number of free resources available online.
29. Study Guide Zone: This test prep site has study guides, writing practice, practice questions, advice, and more.

Study Programs

Make use of these courses and tutoring programs to improve your score and knowledge.

30. ePrep: ePrep’s courses offer a video-based study system.
31. Huntington Learning Center: Get tutored for the SAT from Huntingon Learning Center.
32. The Princeton Review: The Princeton Review offers in-person tutoring, tools, and a variety of online options.
33. Kaplan: Kaplan’s test preparation program includes a free SAT QuizBank, practice SAT, SAT games, and more.
34. Accolade Prep: Learn all about the SAT online from qualified experts, including a 2,400 scorer, in this course.

Tools

Put these tools to work to make studying for the SAT just a little bit easier and more fun.

35. FutureU: Get this game for the Nintendo DS and you’ll have fun studying for the SAT.
36. SAT Tip of the Day: Bookmark this page to get a little bit of SAT help at a time.
37. Pocket Prep Interactive Handheld Tutor: Use this handy gadget to study for the SAT wherever you go.
38. Texas Instruments Test Prep Solutions: Use your graphing calculator to get ready for the SAT with these downloadable tools from Texas Instruments.

Guides & Advice

Here you’ll find a wealth of information that will help you study for the SAT.

39. SAT Summer Study Guide: Here you’ll find a rough schedule for SAT studying over the summer.
40. Sentence Improvement Strategies: Use this resource to practice improving your sentences.
41. SAT Tips: Here you’ll find a printable list of SAT tips.
42. SAT Test Forum and Information: Check out this forum to talk to others who are studying for the SATs.
43. Essay Strategies: Yahoo! Education has some guidelines for writing a good SAT essay.
44. How to Score High on Your SAT Exam: Follow this how-to guide that suggests you take the PSAT and be prepared on the day of the test.
45. SAT Test Day: College Board offers some useful advice for being prepared on test day.
46. Error Identification Strategies: Check out this resource to learn how you can easily spot errors in the SAT.
47. 6 Ways to Tackle the New SAT: This article has some great advice for adjusting your SAT strategy.
48. SAT Essay Advice: Go Long!: This article recommends that you make an effort to write a lengthy essay portion on the SAT.
49. How to Do Better on the SAT: Check out this how-to to find out what steps you should take to master the SAT.
50. Grid-In Strategies: This resource will help you make sense of the SAT’s grid-in questions.
51. How to Survive the New SAT: Newsweek explains how to do well on the newly-revamped SAT.
52. Practical Advice and Test-Taking Tips for Students Taking the New SAT: In this press release, College Board explains a few strategies for doing your best on the new SAT test.
53. Problem Solving Strategies: Find out how to tackle the math section’s problem solving questions by following this guide.
54. Scholar Holler SAT Preparation and Advice: Visit this site to learn all about the SAT, what you’ll need to succeed, and a few resources that can help.
55. How to Easily Increase Your Test Score: Admissions Consultants offers a wealth of advice for doing well on the SAT.
56. SAT Prep Advice for Juniors: Here you’ll find some timely advice for high school juniors from ePrep.
57. Advice about taking the SAT: Get advice from some parents who have already been through the SATs with their children.
58. The SATs: How to Prepare: This article explains what the experts have to say about getting prepared for the SATs.
59. Long Reading Comprehension Strategies: Ace the long reading comprehension section of the SAT using this strategy guide.
60. Wikipedia’s SAT entry: Wikipedia’s coverage of the SAT offers an in-depth look at the test’s history, changes, and different sections that you’ll have to take.
61. Free SAT Prep: This site is full of advice and information about taking the SAT.
62. SAT Problem Solving: Time Management: This article explains the concept of time management for the SAT.
63. Short Passage Reading Comprehension Strategies: This guide offers some helpful strategies for doing well on the short passage reading section.
64. Eat Your Way to a Higher SAT or ACT Score: FastWeb discusses nutrition as a study tool.
65. 7 Resources for Preparing for GRE or SAT Vocabulary: Here you’ll find a handful of simple resources you can use to build your SAT vocabulary.
66. Eleven Tips to Help Your Child Prepare for Tests: This article offers advice for parents of students taking the SAT and other standardized tests.
67. Sentence Completion Strategies: Read this guide to learn how to do well in sentence completion.

Articles

These articles shed light on the SAT, and are great for helping you devise strategies and better understand the test.

68. How SATs Work: Visit this HowStuffWorks article to get the lowdown on the SAT.
69. The New SAT: Yahoo! Education explains what’s changed in the new SAT.
70. Are My SAT Scores Good Enough?: Read this collection of advice articles from About.com to find out if your scores are up to snuff.
71. Frontline: Secrets of the SAT: Here you can read about PBS’ coverage of the SAT.
72. The SAT: Questions and Answers: FairTest offers a frank look at the SAT.
73. Preparing for the SAT/ACT: FastWeb discusses a number of ways that you can prepare for the SAT.
74. SAT Prep Resources: The Seattle Times offers a number of helpful resources that will help you prepare for the SAT.
75. About the New SAT Test and SAT Exam: This article offers an in-depth explanation of the new SAT test.
76. SAT, ACT, and Test Optional Admissions: Here you’ll find some simple advice to consider when applying to test-optional schools.
77. Low SAT or ACT Scores? These Colleges Don’t Require the Tests: If your scores are low or you don’t have enough time to take the tests, consider applying to these schools that do not require test scores.
78. Martha Allman’s Great Speech on the SAT: Read what Martha Allman from the admissions department of Wake Forest University has to say about making the SAT optional at their school.
79. Taking the SAT Again: This expert recommends that students take the SAT at least twice.
80. Prescription: What To Do After the First SAT: Ivy Bound has some recommendations for specific post-SAT situations.

Books

Use these books to get practice and build your SAT knowledge.

81. The Official SAT Study Guide: Published by the College Board, you’ll find a wealth of information to prepare you for the SAT, including eight practice tests.
82. 11 Practice Tests for SAT and PSAT: With this book, you’ll be able to get lots of practice, using 10 practice SATs and 1 practice PSAT.
83. Barron’s SAT 2400: Aiming for the Perfect Score: Check out Barron’s guide to acing the SAT, including critical reading strategies, math formulas, and essay help.
84. Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT: This guide offers advice from students that "destroyed" the SAT.
85. Cracking the SAT: In this book you’ll find strategies for every question type, a list of frequently used vocabulary words, and access to online tests, lessons, and drills.
86. Critical Reading Workbook for the SAT: This book concentrates solely on the critical reading section of the SAT, offering an overview, vocabulary, practice exercises, and more.
87. How to Prepare for the SAT: Pick up this book to get an overview of the test, create a personal study plan, and take advantage of full-length practice SATs.
88. 500 Key Words for the SAT, and How to Remember Them Forever!: Give your SAT vocabulary a shot in the arm with this book.
89. The Official SAT Question of the Day Calendar: Use this calendar to give yourself an SAT brain teaser once a day for a year.
90. Increase Your Score in 3 Minutes a Day: SAT Essay: This low-committment book will help you incrementally increase your SAT essay skill level.
91. The New SAT: Writing SparkChart: Master the SAT’s new writing portion with this handy quick reference guide.
92. Kaplan SAT Math Workbook: In this SAT workbook, you’ll get 2 realistic math tests, hundreds of practice questions with explanations, concepts, techniques, and more.
93. Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power: This book makes learning and memorizing SAT words fun eand easy.
94. Writing Workbook for the New SAT: Barron’s book gives you an overview of the new SAT writing portion, as well as review chapters and writing tests.
95. The New SAT: Math SparkChart: With this SparkChart, you can print out a handy guide to math strategies, concepts, and formulas.
96. Increase Your Score in 3 Minutes a Day: SAT Critical Reading: This book will make the SAT critical reading portion both fun and easy.
97. Sparknotes: The New SAT: Read this online book from Sparknotes to get an in-depth look at the new SAT.
98. 10 Real SATs: Here, you’ll find exactly what’s promised — a book full of real SATs that you can practice your skills on.
99. New SAT: Critical Reading SparkChart: Download this printable SparkChart to get a valuable and easy to use reference for SAT critical reading.
100. Extreme SAT Flashcards Flip-O-Matic: You’ll be able to master some of the toughest vocabulary words to appear on the SAT with this set of flashcards.

We’re consistently being told of ways in which we can improve our mind and our overall intelligence. One of the most common ways in which we’re told we can do this, is to regularly exercise your brain. By maintaining positive mental stimulation, it’s quite possible to prevent cognitive decline and to enhance one’s own “brain power”. Just as regular physical exercise can maintain your overall fitness in body, so can regular mental exercise maintain your overall fitness in mind. Some ways in which your mind can improve are linked to (but not limited to) the following things.

• Spatial-Temporal Reasoning: Also commonly called Spatial Awareness, this refers to the general awareness of one’s environment, be it a physical one or an environment of data. It is the ability to visualize patterns of a sort and to be able to mentally sort and process them. Simply put, it can refer to an awareness of things around us.
• Hand-eye Coordination: This is the extent to which a given person has the ability to properly coordinate their motor functions with what they can see with their eyes. Essentially the relationship their eyes share with their “hands”, neglecting practice of this cognitive function can eventually lead to mal-coordination, as a person may not be used to coordinating in a certain manner. However, this skill is fairly easy to practice, as we use it in everyday activities.
• Reaction Time: The time it takes for a subject to display a response to some sort of sensory stimulus, or basically the time it takes for you to react to something you see/hear/taste it, etc. Jedi were shown to exhibit such heightened aspects of this ability, that they appear superhuman.
• Pattern Recognition: Whilst also the title of a William Gibson book, it refers to the ability to identify patterns (much as the name suggests) and respond accordingly. Pattern recognition is broken down into subsections, but you’ll mainly want to be focusing on the feature analysis category, which is the brain’s ability to break down and process stimuli, and can essentially be linked into all the other cognitive functions discussed here.

Listed below are several retro games that could – at one time or another – be found in the video game arcades that are now mainly consigned to our childhood dreams of nostalgia. So here they are, each in their own way uniquely capturing the zeitgeist of the time they were created.

1. Pac-Man: Commonly thought to have originated from a pizza with a slice missing, creator Toru Iwatani has said that this is only partly true and that the idea also came from the combination of the Japanese character for “mouth” and the slang word for the opening and closing of the mouth – “paku paku”. As many will know, this game features the player controlling the eponymous yellow guy, evading ghosts whilst simultaneously eating lots of dots (as well as the occasional fruit and power pill). The game required good spatial awareness to avoid the ghosts, and a reasonable ability to be able to work your way through the mazes at the same time.
2. Asteroids: A game so popular that video arcade owners had to alter the machines to be able to accommodate the number of quarters people were putting into them. This game placed you in control of a space ship that could rotate and move forwards, and fire directly in front of itself. Your mission was to destroy the on-screen asteroids, with each shot making them split into consecutively smaller asteroids that would increase in speed. Occasionally, one of two varieties of enemy space ship would appear in an attempt to hinder your progress. As there was a constant onslaught of moving objects that proved to be a threat to your craft, coupled with the ability to move your ship, it would seem that players would require a good degree of spatial awareness, along with being able to effectively judge the momentum of the player vehicle in accordance with the movements of the asteroids themselves.
3. Marble Madness: One of those games that a lot of people found incredibly frustrating while others completed them in something silly like 3 minutes, Marble Madness is nevertheless a classic staple of arcade history. So popular that the arcade cabinets became expensive to maintain due to the controller (a trackball which required spinning to make the in-game marble move) wearing out and having to be replaced after excessive use. Requiring good mental dexterity, along with quick reflexes (to dodge those annoying grey marble guys, amongst other obstacles), and the willingness to practice until you weren’t embarrassed by your lack of skill, Marble Madness is certainly to exert some sort of workout on your brain.
4. Ikari Warriors A classic that introduced the rotary joystick, allowing players to rotate and fire at the same time. This shoot-‘em-up saw players take control of one of two commando-types and wage a one (or two) man war against army of perhaps the most bizarre final bosses in arcade history. Good reflexes, spatial awareness and a whole lot of quarters were required to overcome the challenges posed by this game.
5. Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins: A simple premise: Control protagonist Arthur, defeat demons, rescue the princess, experience side-scrolling action. This game has reached legendary status as being perhaps the most difficult (and frustrating) arcade game in history, not just because it was hard, but also because upon beating the final boss, you were then informed you’d have to do the whole game all over again. Nice. You’d need to employ all mental faculties at your disposal and prepare for a serious workout, as well as having an almost god-like ability to withstand frustation. If you can survive 10 minutes of this game without shouting expletives, then you have the strength of mind to hold your own in any difficult situation.
6. Klax: Klax’s mental benefits are obvious; it’s a simple puzzle game using colored blocks. The aim of the game is to match up the blocks in rows or columns of three or more similar colors, causing them to disappear and points to be awarded. As with most block-related games, it seems likely that regular participants of the Klax game would start to experience symptoms of the Tetris Effect.
7. Centipede: A shooting game that took place from a vertical point of view, the aim was to destroy a centipede creature that wormed its way all over the screen by shooting it. Gradually the screen filled up with mushrooms whilst at the same time you had to take on incoming swarms of insects. Strategic planning and a certain amount of cunning, combined with judging where the centipede and/or mushrooms would appear next were all needed to best the many-legged foe in battle.
8. Arkanoid: Similar to Breakout but more awesome and in space, this classic even has a modern remake in the works. All you have to do is control a paddle at the bottom of the screen and bounce a ball in a given number of colored blocks in the top segment of the playing field. This requires a high level of hand-eye coordination, as missing the ball with the paddle will result in the game being well and truly over.
9. Frogger: The game in which you control a loveable little frog and have to guide him to safety across various perils (including cars and a river of floating logs). The objective seems simple enough, but if you falter in concentration, you may inadvertently find your frog on the underside of a truck.
10. Donkey Kong: So-called because the creator thought that “donkey” was another word for “stupid” and that “kong” evoked imagine of large ape King Kong, this is the original game to star this Nintendo staple character, along with the ever-popular Mario. In this game, you had to jump over barrels to reach the princess and defeat the irritating titular character. So much jumping was involved, that Mario was nearly called Jumpman for precisely that reason. Players must use skill and timing to avoid the barrels and navigate the oddly-placed scenery.
11. Gauntlet: One of the original cooperative games that caused you to get incredibly angry at the friends you played it with. If the announcer’s cry “Elf shot the food!” doesn’t invoke either feelings of fear (because you were the Elf that had just shot the food) or of rage (as you witness a hapless Elf shoot your chance for more health), then you quite clearly missed out on this arcade gem. Guiding your band of fighters around a seemingly endless selection of mazes would indeed require a great deal of spatial awareness (especially when on the lookout for that persistent Death character), and a whole host of strategy-related brain skills, not to mention endurance if you were trying to survive for any length of time.
12. Contra: Also cited as one of the hardest (read: most brain-challenging) games ever made, this run-and-gun shoot ‘em up was almost impossible to beat without the life-giving cheat code and even then it was hard enough to finish. Requiring superhuman levels of brain activity, this is the ultimate workout, mental and physical alike.
13. Bomberman: It spawned many sequels and spinoffs, yet always remained a strategic game in which you controlled a guy (or sometimes a girl, or even a “thing”) that can drop bombs in order to dispose of obstacles and enemies alike, you needed to be a quick-thinker and a master planner to get to the very end. A common problem was suddenly realizing you’d blocked yourself in an inescapable situation by using your own bombs!
14. Gain Ground: Combining strategy and action in a surprisingly unique and challenging way, featuring an extensive cast and many strategic combinations, Gain Ground will certainly challenge the player through all 50 of its levels. Requiring a sharp mind, spatial awareness, good player selection and a pile of quarters, this would be a humbling experience for many out there.

By Christina Laun

Many teachers work hard to keep up to date with the latest in educational advancements, curriculum design and general information. Usually, this means taking classes at night or during the summer. With open courseware, however, you can learn about a wide range of topics, from classroom behavior to using the latest technologies at your own pace. While it’s no substitute for real classroom education, it can provide an invaluable supplement and guide to your educational pursuits and classroom management. Check out these 60 places to find course materials to keep you on top of the teaching game.

Subject Specific

Teachers interested in a specific topic or who specialize in a subject will find advice and information that can be helpful in creating great courses with these resources.

1. A Global Dimension to Science Education in Schools: Aimed at secondary school teachers, this course encourages teachers to include lessons on non-western contributions to science and to emphasize the global nature of science education.
2. Teaching Languages: Language Awareness: Those teacher foreign languages can make the most of this free course from the Open University which attempts to use the historical and phonic connections of languages to improve present day language education.
3. Using Visualization in Math Teaching: Teachers working to educate elementary students can get some ideas on how to use visualization to improve the understanding of a variety of math concepts for their students.
4. School Geography: Get an idea of how geography is currently being taught in schools. Teachers can learn reasons why teaching geography is important, learn about current issues that face it, and even get some ideas for lesson plans.
5. Music Travels for Children: Conexions offers this course which combines ideas in social studies and music to help teachers show children what music is like around the world. It includes several possible lesson plans.
6. Teaching Citizenship: Work and the Economy: This UK centered course from the Open University can help teachers create lessons that will educate students about how they are part of the economy and what their rights are as workers and citizens.
7. Writing About Literature: English teachers may appreciate the material for this course which provides several lessons that are focused on teaching students how to read, analyze and write about great works of literature.
8. AP High School Courses: If you’re a high school teacher looking for additional materials for your AP courses then look no further than this offering from the UC Irvine. You’ll find lessons for everything from AP calculus to AP U.S. History.
9. Dance Skills: Whether you teach physical education or just want to bring a little motion into your classroom, this course can provide some ideas on how dance can be used to express feelings and build their physical skills and coordination.
10. Why Teach Art?: Art teachers and administrators alike can find something to take away from this course from the Open University. It focuses on the reasons art education is important and ways teachers can further engage and support students.

Training and Professional Development

Whether you’re working towards a teaching degree or just want to find ways to improve your teaching abilities, these courses can be a great source of information.

11. Educational Theory and Practice: This course from MIT focuses on the skills and knowledge teachers will need to work in a secondary school. It can be a great supplement for current teaching students or a nice refresher for current teachers.
12. Professional Portfolio Development Seminar: If you think your teaching portfolio might need a little work check out this seminar course which can give you some ideas and guidance in building a collection of your work.
13. California Subject Examination for Teachers: Those working in California can take advantage of these preparatory courses from the UC Irvine. Teachers planning to work in math or science can get materials to help them study for the CSET and get on their way to becoming certified teachers.
14. Exploring K-12 Classroom Teaching: New teachers can benefit from the materials provided by this MIT course. Working through observation, teachers will learn about issues like diversity, standards, methods of instruction, the digital divide and more.
15. Master Online Teaching Certification: Professors looking to branch out may want to take a look at this course which provides instruction on how to create effective online courses and materials for students.
16. Careers In Education and Guidance: Teachers working at the secondary level or school counselors can find helpful information how to work with parents to provide guidance and information to students making the transition to higher education or the workplace.
17. Finding Information In Education: Get a better idea of how to use information in your courses or in your personal research with some tips and guidance from this Open University course.

Curriculum Design

These courses can provide inspiration and ideas for enhancing your classroom curriculum.

18. Curriculum Theories: This course explores four different ways teachers can look at curriculum and build their lessons in the classroom.
19. Changes in Science Education: Keep up with the changes affecting the way science is taught in schools by giving this course a try. It is UK centric but teachers everywhere can find something of value in it.
20. Experiences in Learning Mathematics: Teachers looking to evaluate the way they teach math, those thinking of becoming math teachers, and those who are studying to become math teachers can take this course to learn more about the way math can be taught and different approaches to take with students.
21. The Role of Play in Children’s Learning: Those working with preschool or elementary school age children can get ideas on how to incorporate play into their lessons through the information provided by this course.
22. Teach Global: This series of materials gives teachers some ideas on how to adapt their curriculum to focus on a more global scale in social studies, geography and science.
23. Introduction to Teaching and Learning Math and Science: MIT provides these course materials which can help you understand the way science and math are taught and give you some ideas on how to make it more exciting and interesting for your students.
24. Concept-Centered Teaching: Explore this method of teaching which focuses on dispelling student misconceptions and fostering students’ understanding of key concepts.
25. Enhancing Pupil Learning on Museum Visits: Help your students get the most out of their museum trips with some guidance and ideas from this Open University course.
26. Evaluating School Classroom Discussion: Learn about the elements that make up an effective discussion through this course so you can create better and more informative discussions on materials your own classes are dealing with.
27. Language as a Medium for Teaching and Learning: English teachers are encouraged to take advantage of this course which gives some ideas on new teaching methods based on socio-cultural psychology.

Reading and Literacy

Learn how to promote reading in and out of the classroom by taking one of these literacy-focused courses.

28. Involving the Family in Supporting Pupils’ Literacy Learning: This course can help you build programs that assist building children’s love of reading not only at school but at home with their families as well.
29. Encouraging Book Talk in the School Library: Great for both teachers and librarians, this course can help you to encourage students to talk about the books they read, learn to state why they do or don’t like them, and think more critically about the information presented.
30. New Media Literacies: This course from MIT looks at media literacies throughout history up to the present day digital environment. This can include new media like video games, social networking, multitasking and collective intelligence.

Higher Education

College professors and teaching assistants can take advantage of these free courses to learn how to improve the experience of their students.

31. Research for the Classroom Teacher: Teachers currently working in the classroom can find some guidance on how to best go about conducting research with a little help from this course.
32. Supporting Development in Initial Teacher Training: Professors working at training new teachers can get some ideas on how to improve their courses and cater to the needs of new teachers by taking a look at the resources offered by this course from the Open University.
33. Teaching College Level Science: MIT provides this course which can give professors an idea of ways they can improve how they’re teaching science courses of all kinds.
34. The Handbook of Doctoral Problems: Learn to develop graduate programs that are more engaging and beneficial for your students through this course from Conexions.
35. Making the Academic Adjustment to College: Professors can better understand the needs of their freshmen students by taking a look at the materials provided by this course.

Technology

Technology is becoming a bigger part of education all the time, so make sure to keep yourself up-to-date on the latest developments by checking out these courses.

36. Teaching Using Digital Video in Secondary Schools: Learn how to best use digital video as an educational tool in secondary schools by examining the materials provided by this course.
37. The Impact of Open Source Software on Education: This course provides information on how universities around the world have implemented open source programs to improve the quality of education offered by their institutions.
38. Creating Interactive Multimedia: The University of Southern Queensland provides this course which gives educators some ideas on how to create educational systems and multimedia to engage and educate their students.
39. Learn and Apply HTML: Build websites on a range of educational issues by taking this Utah State University course designed just for teachers and educational administrators.
40. Blogs, Wikis and New Media for Learning: Learn how you can use blogs, wikis and a range of other new media in your classroom to improve your curriculum and keep students engaged through this course.
41. Computer Applications for Instruction and Training: Check out this course to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe GoLive, Apple iMovie, Microsoft PowerPoint and a variety of other programs to build instructional and educational programs for use in the classroom.
42. Accessibility of eLearning: This course discusses the issue of accessibility of educational materials for disabled students and how eLearning may prove to be a valuable resource for many.
43. Creating Meaningful Online Discussions: Teachers can get some ideas of the challenges they’ll face when creating online courses and learn to build more effective forums for discussions online.
44. Technologies for Creative Learning: MIT provides this course which can give teachers some ideas on how to incorporate technology into teaching science, math and more.
45. Media, Education and the Marketplace: This course focuses on the rise of information and communications technologies and how they’ve affected how we learn and teach.
46. Creativity, Community and ICT: Learn to educate your fellow teachers or yourself on information and communications technologies so you and your colleagues can use them to better educate and assist students.
47. Creating Open Educational Resources: Explore the pedagogical issues involved in self-study resources and learn to build more open educational opportunities like open courseware for your own institution.

Administration

Educational administrators and those aspiring to be one can learn about important issues from the materials provided in these courses.

48. Integrated Thinking for Future Leaders in Education: Get the information you’ll need to stay ahead of your field in this course, designed just for educational administrators and leaders in the educational community.
49. Ethical Administrators: Tools for the Trade: Make sure you’re following a code of ethics and acting as a responsible administrator by checking out the information provided by this Conexions course.
50. Politics of Local Education: Local education provides a number of challenges including balancing finances, managing board members, dealing with conflicts with parents and more. This course helps explore and provide guidance on those issues.
51. Organizational Change In the Field of Education Administration: Learn how the field of educational administration is changing in this graduate level course.
52. K-12 Leadership and Educational Administration Curriculum: A Theory of Preparation: Public schools take a lot of criticism for churning out poorly educated students. Learn how you as a administrator can help to start turning this negativity around and provide responses to the criticism of parents and the public.

Psychology, Behavior, and Development

A big part of being an effective teacher is knowing how to deal with students’ behavior and to respond to understand the psychology behind learning. These courses can help you learn about these things and more.

53. Promoting Positive Development Among Youth: Learn to apply developmental science to the students you work with to create a positive and inspirational environment for students from a wide range of backgrounds.
54. Play, Learning and the Brain: Get a better understanding of how young children’s brains develop and the best ways you can teach and work with them to help them learn the most.
55. Parents as Partners: This course can help you learn to make an ally of parents in educating their children. You’ll learn how to forge these relationships and why they are so important.
56. Neural Basis of Learning and Memory: This course from MIT can provide some insight to the biological processes that go on in the brain that let us learn and remember information.
57. Language Acquisition I: Whether you’re working with young children just learning how to speak or with students trying to learn another language, this course can help you understand the biological background behind how we acquire and use language.
58. Human Growth and Development: Gain an understanding of how humans grow and develop from birth to death through this course. It can help you understand where your students are based on their age and level of development and how to best work with them.
59. Intellectual Development: Tufts provides this course which focuses on the development of intellectual processes from infancy through adolescence.
60. Psychosocial Aspects of Visual Impairment: If you’re working with students who have some level of visual impairment this course can help give you an idea of how it’s affecting them mentally and socially.
61. Stress Management: Being a teacher can be a stressful job. Learn to deal with stress by checking out the information provided by this Weber State University course.
62. Teaching for Good Behavior: This course examines some of the factors that lead to students acting out in class and ways that teachers can work to re-engage students in the learning process.

By Jessica Merritt

Like Wikipedia without the anonymity, Google Knol is turning into an excellent resource for both researchers and experts alike. It offers information consumers a platform for finding encyclopedia-like articles written by experts, and a place for these experts to write said articles. Read on to learn how you can make the most of this useful new tool.

Research

If you’re on the hunt for high-quality information, follow these tips to find the best.

1. Read biographies: If you’re looking for authoritative information, check out a knol writer’s biography to determine how qualified they are to write about the topic.
2. Use ratings: Let other readers know when you’ve found a good resource, or something you can’t use at all by taking advanage of the ratings system on Google Knol.
3. Follow Google’s guidelines for searching: Read the search toolkit to get good ideas for finding the information you’re looking for.
4. Write a review: Jut like ratings, reviews on Google Knol will help bring the best pieces of knowledge to the top.
5. Read the comments: You can often find additional helpful information and resources by reading the comments at the bottom of a knol.
6. Search on Google: For the broadest results, don’t search through Google Knol-just go to regular Google Search instead.
7. Use Knol like a scholarly journal: Don’t be afraid to cite knols. Use them just like you would an article in a journal.
8. Look for peer reviews: Some of the best knols will offer more authority with peer review comments.
9. Respect the author’s copyright: Pay attention to the license that the author has granted, which is most often Creative Commons with attribution.
10. Look for collaboration groups: Groups that contribute articles together tend to offer more authority than individual authors.
11. Suggest new information: If you have useful information that an author hasn’t included, help them out and share your knowledge.
12. Check out the author’s credentials: Go beyond the biography and verify that the author possesses the knowledge that they profess.
13. Use it as a jumping-off point: Read Google Knol articles to find links to additional resources for research.
14. Take advantage of searchable full text: If you’re looking for specific information inside of a knol, just search the text to find what you need.

Writing

Here you’ll find a number of tips for writing good knols.

15. Update your articles: If you’ve found new information, update your knol so that it stays relevant and useful.
16. Focus on a specific niche: The broader your topic, the bigger your competition will be, so write about a niche topic.
17. Claim your content: Protect yourself from users that might steal your content and post it to Google Knol by preemptively creating a copy yourself.
18. Consider Google’s search guidelines when you’re writing: Check out Google’s search toolkit to plan keywords and phrases that your knol will be found with.
19. Place important links high in your content: Create prominent links to the sites you want knol visitors to click on.
20. Write well: This should be obvious, but your work will be much more respected if you pay attention to grammar, spelling, and staying on-topic.
21. Don’t plan for constant updates: If the topic you want to write about is better suited for a blog that can be updated on a regular basis, write a blog instead.
22. Carefully place important words and phrases: Give important words and phrases prominence by placing them at the beginning or end of sentences.
23. Speed things up by importing knols: Google Knol offers the option to import knols from documents that already exist on your computer.
24. Voice your opinion: Share your opinion-just be sure to explain why you feel that way.
25. Don’t be spammy: Write a knol with real, helpful information instead of teasers and sales pitches.
26. Find out what works: Look at past featured knols to see what Google and Knol users are looking for.
27. Don’t stop with just one knol: Write as many knols as you want about different subjects-they’ll all be linked to your name.
28. Pay attention to your titles: Think hard about what you’d like to assign for your titles, because they play a big part in whether or not people will visit your knol.
29. Offer lots of details: Knol readers are looking for authoritative content on a subject, so don’t be afraid to share everything you know.
30. Write for various levels of expertise: Your audience is bound to be varied, so write in a way that will appeal to most readers.

Authority

These tips offer ideas for making your knols more trustworthy and authoritative.

31. Use it to gain authority in your field: By writing a knol, you can be recognized for your expertise.
32. Write a biography: Google Knol will require that you create a biography, but make sure that you’re filling out an adequate one to pique interest and further cement your status as an authority.
33. Provide references: Use proper citation in the knols you write.
34. Do a name verification: Add to your trust factor by verifying that you are who you say you are.
35. Consciously create a table of contents: Be aware of how you assign headings to create your table of contents.
36. Avoid conversational writing: Knols are meant to be authoritative sources, so use a more formal tone.
37. Create a knol about yourself: Take your biography a step further and make a knol about yourself.
38. Join a collaboration group: Give yourself more authority by joining a collaboration group or creating one yourself.
39. Seek out reviews and references: Your knols become more trustworthy and authoritative with the more support you have, so be sure to ask your friends and colleagues to offer comments and additional information.
40. Invite other experts: Ask other authors to contribute to your knol to make it a better resource.

Design

Follow these tips to make your knols easier to read and more visually appealing.

41. Use New Yorker cartoons to add interest: The New Yorker grants authors the use of one cartoon from the magazine per article.
42. Use pictures: Upload pictures, and you’ll add some autheniticity to your knol.
43. Keep things short: Be concise in your writing for better readability.
44. Use HTML: You can take advantage of HTML formatting in knols to include formatting, images, tables, and more.
45. Use lots of paragraphs: Be sure to break up your writing into small, digestable chunks.
46. Write scannable information: Use lists and formatting to make your information easier for readers to process.
47. Make use of ordered lists: Bolded and numbered lines make your text easier for readers to understand.
48. Use visual aids: Google Knol encourages images, tables, and HTML help to make your knol look more appealing to readers.

Community

Use these tips to make use of Google Knol’s community tools.

50. Consider editing permissions carefully: Choose whether you’d like to allow your knol to be edited by the public, co-authors, or only yourself.
51. Use your AdSense Account: Link knols you’ve written to your AdSense account to earn money from the articles you’ve contributed.
52. Add a link to your website: Earn some Google juice from your knol by putting a website link in there.
53. Be careful about open moderation: If you’re choosing to leave your knol open to public moderation, keep an eye out for spammers.
54. Avoid writing spam: Google prohibits content that is designed only to promote businesses, products, and services.

Puzzles have been around for centuries, and – according to the 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary – the term “puzzle” has been with us since the end of 16th century. Sometimes the domain of children, whilst list of some of the older varieties of puzzle, as well as their more common and contemporary counterparts.

Wood

One of the earliest construction materials knows to man, wood has been around forever. Since the earliest shelters were being built, we’ve continuously found alternative ways in which to use it, including the construction and manufacture of many varieties of wooden puzzle.

1. Jigsaw Puzzles: A British man by the name of John Spilsbury is accredited with having created the puzzling phenomenon by placing a map on a sheet of wood and then sawing around the individual countries. He used these “jigsaw puzzles” as a learning aid to help students with geography.
2. Soma Cube: Created by Danish author Piet Hein in 1936, after attending a quantum mechanics lecture by Werner Heisenberg. You could say this puzzle is the grandfather of all those wooden cube puzzles you see about today. You know, the ones you get for Christmas and no one seems to be able to do them? Yeah, those ones.
3. Kumiki Puzzles: The Japanese word “kumiki” means the process of wood joinery, and refers to how traditional Japanese craftsmen would never use nails to hammer wood together (due to their propensity to come apart during earthquakes) and instead would resort to complex methods of joining the wood together so that nails were not needed at all. These craftsmen then transferred the genius of interlocking wood joinery from houses to puzzles, and so kumiki were born!
4. Tower of Hanoi: Invented by French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883, this puzzle is, of course, that favored of classroom learning puzzles in which you have to move a stack of four (or more) discs to the last peg of three adjacent pegs, moving only one peg per move, with no larger disc being placed on a smaller one. The lower the disc number, obviously the easier to solve, but the higher disc puzzles certainly provide their fair share of complexity!

Paper

After wood came a multitude of paper variations, before finally settling on the smooth and occasionally sharp material we know today. Paper puzzles have been no stranger to us, as it was found that in early 20th century, newspapers could increase their audience – and therefore their sales – if they published some types of puzzle(s), or puzzle contests in along with the paper.

5. Sudoku: The bane of partners everywhere, as their other half gets wrapped up in this logic-based game and is confined to the sofa for the whole weekend as they attempt puzzle after puzzle. The objective here is to fill a grid made of up smaller 3×3 boxes with each column and row containing the numbers 1-9, which can appear only once in each row/column.
6. Crosswords: Here you get a grid of black and white squares, with parts of this grid totally blacked-out so as to provide spaces for words that will form either horizontally or vertically in the white boxes left on the grid. Clues are provided and the participant has to use language, and other mental skills in order to solve the clues and make sure the word will fit in the appropriate box.
7. Chess Problems: These are puzzles which are set up using a chess board with an assortment of pieces in various positions left on it. The solver is then given some sort of condition, like having to checkmate a color within so many moves, before the puzzle can be called “solved”.
8. Word search: The humble word search may – for some of us – recall memories of afternoons spent in class, idling away the minutes with a teacher-made word search related to whatever topic was being studied in class. But the truth is that the word search can help practice not only vocabulary skills, but word recognition and – to a slight degree – spatial awareness, and they’re also good ways to pass the time.

Electric

With the advent of electricity, puzzles have taken ever-different and increasingly varied forms. One of the major products of the electrical age is the computer, so here we have some of the classic puzzle games available on a computer format.

9. Tetris: This is a game that almost everyone will play at some point or anything in their lives. Its colorful falling blocks will forever haunt us and we’ll have visions of slotting blocks into place even when we’re not playing! Tetris has also been scientifically proven to increase the efficiency of brain activity.
10. Puzzle Bobble: A classic from the mid ‘90s arcade era. This was a game in which you fired colored bubbles from the bottom of the screen at other bubbles at the top of the screen in the hopes of creating a match of colors, which then caused the matched bubbles to pop and disappear.
11. Minesweeper: Another classic timewaster which comes preinstalled on most computers. This logic and number-based puzzle game was somewhat infuriating to the uninitiated, but soothing and rewarding to those able to understand how the numbers on the squares actually worked!
12. Brain Age: Known as “Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training” in the UK and Australia, this game was designed to be played a little each day in order to improved various aspects of mental functioning. Available on the Nintendo DS from ’06, this has proven to be popular with everyone, not just those that are into puzzle games. This is largely due to the fact that it requires no great period of commitment at any one time you play; you can simply pick it up and work it into your daily routine, stopping whenever you want to.

Reality

Alternate Reality Games, or ARGs for short, are games which use the real world as a setting for its multitude of puzzles and adventures. ARGs will likely make use of multiple media platforms in order to tell its story, making for an incredible experience that combines the efforts of many people from nations and cultures all around the world. Often tied into a viral marketing campaign for something else, ARGs are nevertheless gaining in popularity and are an interesting cultural phenomenon to observe.

13. I Love Bees: Serving as both a real-world experience and as a viral marketing campaign for the incredibly popular video game Halo 2, the main website received over 3,000,000 visitors over the course of the first three months of it being active in 2004.
14. Perplex City: This ARG had players racing to find an artifact of a fictional city (Perplex City) called the Receda Cube. It was started in April of 2005 and was finished in February of 2007, when the Cube was found in some woods in Northamptonshire, in the United Kingdom. Offering a real life reward of around $200,000, costs were offset by the developers – Mind Candy - as they released a series of collectable trading cards which contains puzzles and clues which would help out with the solving of the ARG as a whole.
15. The Lost Ring: Created by McDonald’s to help out with their marketing campaign for the Beijing Olympic games, this ARG saw people from around the world trying to solve the mystery of a fictional sport that disappeared roughly 2000 years ago.

By Jessica Merritt

The Internet can be a scary place for elementary teachers. On one hand, you want to share the Internet as a wonderful tool with your students, but on the other, you worry about safety and helping them find the most useful resources without getting lost on the information superhighway. Because of this, we’ve put together a listing of some of the best sites for elementary teachers and students online, plus a few tools to help you keep everything together.

Organization & Collaboration

Save your bookmarks, collaborate with colleagues, and stay in touch with parents using these web tools.

1. Thinkature: Thinkature offers real-time collaboration online for students, teachers, and more.
2. Flickr: Share and store classroom images with this incredibly popular online photo storage service.
3. Diigo: Diigo is a great tool for highlighting and sharing the web with your students.
4. PBwiki: Create an easy-to-update web space and resource for your class using PBwiki.
5. del.icio.us: Save your favorite sites and share them with your class using del.icio.us.
6. Clipmarks: Create Clipmarks to clip out little pieces of the web to share with your classroom.
7. Wizlite: Enjoy collaborative page highlighting with this tool.
8. Netvibes: Create a class start page full of useful resources with Netvibes.
9. Gliffy: Create and share flow charts, diagrams, and more with Gliffy.
10. Notecentric: Share and store your class notes with this online note taking application.

Search Engines & Directories

Make use of these search engines and directories that offer the best of the web.

11. Clusty: With this clustering search engine, you’ll be able to search on Wikipedia, blogs, and more at one time.
12. BUBL: Find selected Internet resources in specific academic subject areas through BUBL.
13. Turbo10: This search engine looks on more than 800 deep web search engines at once, so you’ll be able to save time and find great information you can’t find anywhere else.
14. Complete Planet: On Complete Planet, you can find more than 70,000 searchable databases and specialty search engines.
15. Ask for Kids: This search engine was created with kids in mind, offering tutoring and reference help as well as search.
16. Librarians’ Internet Index: Find websites you and your students can trust in this directory compiled by librarians.
17. CyberSleuth Kids: Get searches, homework help, and more from this website.
18. Geniusfind: Geniusfind offers a directory to some of the best resources you can find on the web.
19. Internet Archive: Check out the Internet Archive to get access to websites and pages that have fallen off the web.
20. KidsClick!: Visit this website for a kid-friendly search engine.
21. Digital Librarian: This site offers a librarian’s guidance for the best resources online.
22. Infomine: Infomine is full of scholarly Internet resource collections that you and your students can use.
23. ProTeacher Directory: ProTeacher has teaching ideas, resources, blogs, and more for elementary school teachers.

Google

Google is known for its useful web tools, but did you know that a lot of them have incredible applications for education? Take a look at these Google tools to see how they’ll work for your classroom.

24. Google Custom Search Engine: Create your own custom search engine and tell Google which sites you want it to index, and you’ll be able to offer your students the best of the web.
25. Google Docs: Google Docs offers teachers and students a web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation editor that can be used securely and collaboratively from any computer.
26. Google Book Search: Search the full text of books ranging from popular best sellers to out-of-print books on Google’s Book Search.
27. Google Groups: Set up a discussion group for your classroom on Google Groups.
28. Google News: Google News is a wonderful place to look for news in newspapers and magazines around the world.
29. Google Maps: Your class can use Google Maps to build maps of your community, learn about cities, and more.
30. Google Page Creator: This Google tool allows teachers and students to create useful web pages without having to use complicated code.
31. Google classroom posters: Help your students search the web better with these posters that contain tips for using Google Search and other Google products.
32. iGoogle: iGoogle allows you to create a custom page for your classroom that includes components like a school calendar, bookmarks, news, and more.
33. Blogger: Start a class blog with Blogger, and you can share work, pictures, and more, all while staying connected with your classroom community.
34. Google Notebook: Use Google Notebook as an easy to use notepad for the web.
35. Google Calendar: With Google Calendar, you can easily communicate school schedule information with your classroom community.
36. Google classroom activities: Here, Google offers a few activity ideas for elementary school children.

Templates & Lesson Plans

These simple tools will make your job just a little bit easier.

37. Student information roster: Download this PDF to have student information easily at hand.
38. Lesson Plans Library: Discovery Education offers a wide variety of lesson plans, from Ancient History to Economics.
39. Record-Keeping Template: This chart is useful for a wide variety of applications, including permission slip checkoffs, parent communication, and more.

Research & Reference

Make use of these tools to give your students the research power they need.

40. Infoplease: Infoplease combines an encyclopedia, almanac, atlas, dictionary, and a lot more, all in one place.
41. HowStuffWorks: Your students can find easy to understand information about how anything and everything works on this site.
42. MetaGlossaryMetaGlossary defines more than 2 million terms, phrases, and acronyms.
43. Repositories of Primary Sources: This index is a wonderful place to find strong sources for manuscripts, archives, historical photographs, and more.
44. Refdesk: Find kid-friendly research resources through Refdesk.
45. eHow: eHow explains in simple language how you can do just about anything.

Games

Make learning fun by sharing these online educational games with your students.

46. FreeRice: Have your students play this vocabulary game, and they’ll learn while donating food to people in need.
47. Brain Boosters: Discovery Education’s Brain Boosters are challenging mental games.
48. Learning Adventures: This collection offers multimedia education on sharks, slavery, and more.

Reading & Writing

These tools are useful when teaching students about reading and writing.

49. The Online Books Page: This website is home to more than 30,000 free books that you can read online.
50. Bartleby: Bartleby offers lots of different texts online, from novels to reference.
51. Audio Books for Kids: Allow your kids to listen to audio books for free with this site.
52. RhymeZone: In the RhymeZone, you can type in a word to find its rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more.
53. Children’s Storybooks Online: This site offers illustrated children’s stories for free.
54. Word Search Generator: Create a customized printable word find worksheet with this tool.
55. Free Classic Audiobooks: On this site, you’ll find classics like Huckleberry Finn on audiobooks for free.
56. Poetry Idea Engine: The Poetry Idea Engine is a great tool for writing haikus, limericks, and more.
57. Orangoo: Use this quick online spell check to make sure your text is perfect.
58. Bibliomania: Bibliomania offers more than 2,000 classic texts, along with notes, author biographies, and study guides.
59. Writing Prompts/Journal Topics: Check out these topics to assign to your students.
60. Handwriting Worksheets: Use these worksheets to help your students practice their handwriting.
61. Project Gutenberg: This project has more than 25,000 free books, and over 100,000 titles in its network.

Math & Science

Make use of these tools to deliver a richer math and science experience.

62. SuperKids Math Worksheet Calculator: Create math drill worksheets using this tool.
63. Calcoolate: Give your classroom an awesome calculator with this "cool" tool.
64. Produce Oasis: Visit the Produce Oasis to learn about nutrition and food.
65. eNature Zip Guides: Find wildlife that lives in your local area with this online nature tool.
66. The Abacus: Check out The Abacus to find an abacus tutorial, calculations, and more.
67. Visible Body: Use Visible Body to give your class a 3D look at human anatomy.
68. Universal Currency Converter: Teach your class about money around the world with this currency converting calculator.
69. whonamedit: Find out about the name behind medical conditions with this online tool.
70. Ask Dr. Math: Dr. Math has formulas, instructional resources, and more.
71. TryScience: TryScience has great ideas for experiments, field trips, and science adventures.
72. Create A Graph: With this web tool, you’ll be able to quickly and easily generate graphs.
73. Climate Zone: Teach your students about the climates of the world with Climate Zone.
74. Math Playground: On the Math Playgound, you’ll find worksheets, logic puzzles, and more.
75. Roman Numeral Converter: Use this converter to easily switch back and forth between roman numerals and regular numbers.

Arts

These online collections offer a wonderful way to share art from around the world with your students.

76. The Guggenheim Museum: Share the Guggenheim’s online collection with your students.
77. Louvre Museum: Find some of the Louvre’s collection available online here.
78. Catalog of American Portraits: You can find more than 80,000 portraits in this portrait search.
79. Classical Music Archives Listen to the works of the great composers on this website.
80. National Gallery of Art: Find galleries of photographs, sculpture, and more in the National Gallery of Art.

History & Social Studies

From geography to mummies, you’ll find lots of tools for exploring our world here.

81. 50 States: This website offers a wealth of information about each of the 50 states in the US.
82. Geodata.gov: Find useful state, local, and federal geographic data on this website.
83. Maps.com: This online map store has lots of wonderful games, including a US Capitals map game and a geographic continent map game.
84. The Biography Maker: Use this tool to turn a biography into a wonderful story about a person’s life.
85. Visible Earth: Show your class unique perspectives of the earth with satellite images from Visible Earth.
86. Clickable Mummy: Explore the different parts of the mummy and learn about the mummification process with this online tool.
87. Countries of the World: Find country studies from the Library of Congress and other authoritative sources through this site.
88. EyeWitness to History: Get a look at the ancient world through World War II through photos, voices, and other media on this history site.
89. CIA World Factbook: The CIA World Factbook has useful information about the countries of the world, including maps and flags.
90. The History Beat: This site offers loads of history timelines on the web.
91. ANYDAY Today-in-History: Learn what happened on any day in history with this online tool.
92. dMarie: dMarie’s time capsules offer a way to look at data for dates from 1800 to 2002.

Online Libraries

Make use of these online libraries to enjoy incredible collections that you can share with your students.

93. Smithsonian’s Galaxy of Knowledge: The Smithsonian has a digital library, arts, science, lectures, and more.
94. Exploratorium Digital Library: Exploratorium offers a variety of collections in gigital media and digitized museum materials for elementary school students and beyond.
95. SONIC: The Library of Congress’ Sound Online Inventory and Catalog houses about 2.5 million audio recordings, including unpublished recordings.
96. The Internet Public Library: Founded by a class of students at the University of Michigan, the Internet Public Library is a full-service library online.
97. Stately Knowledge: This kid section of the Internet Public Library offers basic facts about the United States, the world, health, music, and much more.

Activities

Create fun and educational activities for your class with these resources.

98. Electronic Fieldtrips: Take field trips online with this site.
99. Exploratorium Hands-on Activities: Here you’ll find activities including sport science, a journey to Mars, and cow’s eye dissection.
100. GPS Activities & Lesson Plans: This resource will show you how to make GPS and geocaching an important part of your curriculum.

By Alisa Miller

Teachers spend out-of-pocket money each year for their classes and this can really add up. To help reduce those costs and enhance your classroom, take advantage of the following ways to get free stuff. From audio books to activity kits to free software, you will find something in this list that you can use with your students.

Books

The following books are all available for free. Some are interactive online books, others are audio downloads you can use in the classroom, and they range from titles for the youngest child to high school age.

1. Reading A-Z. Download and print several free books that include leveled readers, readers in Spanish and French, and books that focus on phonics, vocabulary, and fluency.
2. LearningPage.com E-Books. Sign up for a free membership in order to download these free books.
3. Audio Stories 4 Kids. Download from MP3 files of many audio books for children. Titles include Alice in Wonderland, The House at Pooh Corner, and Madeline.
4. The Cinnamon Bear. This story is an old radio series from the 1930’s and you can download both the music and PDF files to use in your classroom. On this site, you can also download free audio files of Christmas on the Moon.
5. Book Adventure. This reading motivation program sponsored by Sylvan Learning is free for students to use in grades K-8 and teachers can receive a free Book Adventures Teachers Guide to help guide them in using the program in the classroom.
6. Children’s Storybooks Online. Find full-color story books for young readers to books for older children all available to read online and all for free.
7. Lookybook. With a click of a mouse button, you can flip through the pages of these high quality and frequently gorgeous children’s books.
8. Fairrosa Cyber Library of Children’s Literature. Classics such as Little Women and Peter Pan reside next to fairy tales and poems on this resource full of children’s literature.
9. Storyline Online. The Screen Actors Guild has compiled several children’s books at this innovative site. Click on a book and the actor will introduce the book and begin reading it. Along with the narration, the video streams the pages of the book and the accompanying text.
10. Stonrynory. These free audio books are targeted at children and include both classics as well as new stories.
11. Free Classic Audio Books. Available in MP3 or m4b for iPods, get classics from Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, Herman Melville, and more.
12. Adam Smith Academy. Download classic stories such as An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Tell-Tale Heart onto your iPod or iPhone. They are currently developing DVD packs for middle and high school as well.
13. PaperBackSwap. If you’ve got some old books you would like to exchange for different titles, you can join this free group to help facilitate trading books with others.

Music

Find new music and songs or some old favorites from these free resources.

14. Songs4Teachers.com. Browse through the list on the left to find over 125 free songs available to use.
15. Songs for Teaching. Sign up for their newsletter and get a free song download with every issue.
16. UK Magic. Download words and music for traditional songs from the UK.
17. Land of Nursery Rhymes. Find many of the classics here and download the music and words to use with your students.
18. KIDiddles. Get songs and music from this site. Sign up for their free newsletter and receive free downloadable songs with every issue.

Printable Worksheets

There is no reason to have stale printables for your students with so many free resources available on the Internet. Browse through these sites to find fun activities for your students.

19. Worksheets4Teachers. Create your own worksheets or download one already made. Printable certificates are also available.
20. abcteach. Get over 5000 free printable pages and worksheets from this site.
21. SoftSchools.com. With a focus on math and grammar, you can find worksheets for Pre-K through middle school.
22. SchoolExpress. With over 11,000 worksheets, you are sure to find something among these games and activities.
23. Math-Drills.com. Get free math worksheets organized by both themes and operations.
24. FREE Printables for Teachers. Find spelling challenges, anagrams, and more among these free printables.
25. MES-English.com. Get free flashcards and worksheets for students in K-6th grade.
26. Free Printables. Organized by category, you can find lots of printables to use in your classroom.
27. tlsbooks.com. Worksheets, flash cards, and even a summer writing journal are available for download at this site.
28. Busy Teacher’s Cafe. Free worksheets, file folder games, graphic organizers and more are available.
29. Math is Fun. Get worksheets for your math students at this site.
30. Education Creations. Sign up for free weekly worksheets or browse through the samples of worksheets for K through 6th grade. There is an option for a paid subscription, but you can get plenty of freebies without subscribing.
31. RHL School. The worksheets offered at this site claim to be truly unique. Give them a try and see what you think.
32. Super Teacher Worksheets. Get worksheets for spelling and math for grades 1-4. Also, sign up for their monthly contest when they give away free goodies for the classroom.

Other Printables

From dominoes to motivational forms to sticker sheets, these printables will bring fun to your classroom and your lessons.

33. Let’s Build!. Use Curious George in this lesson plan complete with free posters and more. Even sign up for a free visit from an engineer to your classroom.
34. SparkleBox. Find certificates, signs, labels, bingo games, welcome packs, and more at this fun site.
35. TimesaversforTeachers.com. Get tons of free forms such as tracking sheets, incident report forms, math symbols, and more.
36. Tools for Educators. These printables can be turned into dominoes, dice, board games, and bingo. Worksheets are also available.
37. Printable Certificates. This incredibly easy to use tool lets you create certificates to celebrate your students’ accomplishments.
38. A Kid’s Heart. Get photos, games, clip art and more from this site.
39. Stickers and Charts. Select from over 200 sticker sheets and over 75 sticker charts for free.
40. Instant Display. Download files to print lots of free posters. They also offer a few other downloads such as labels, flash cards, and displays.
41. Story It. Download story starters, print nursery rhymes, Aesop’s fables, and classic children’s poetry.
42. ClassroomProducts.com. Download free Word files to print motivational forms to use in your classroom.
43. Donna Young Homeschool Weekly Lesson Planners. Browse through the various lesson plan styles, then download these free files to custom-create a lesson planner for you.
44. Printable Graphic Organizers. Choose from selections such as Venn diagram, fishbone organizer, and more and download the file to use as much as you want.

Printables for Specific Groups

These free resources offer printables for children on the autism spectrum, ESL learners, preschoolers, and more.

45. TinSnips. The worksheets on this site are specifically geared to teaching children on the autism spectrum. Some are free and others are available for a fee.
46. Lanternfish. Aimed at ESL teachers, but also a good resource for anyone teaching the language arts, you will find plenty of printable worksheets.
47. ESL Teacher Resource. Handouts and quizzes are available here for ESL teachers.
48. English Banana. Get quizzes, games, and worksheets for your ESL students at this site.
49. Agenda Web. This site brings together free worksheets, exercises, songs, and more from all across the Internet for the ESL teacher.
50. ESL Printables. ESL teachers share printables on this site. In order to download, you have to also share some of your own worksheets, lesson plans, activities, or the like.
51. Preschool Free Printables–blurtit. Find links to tons of places with free printables for your preschoolers.
52. Under5s. Activities, games, crafts, songs, and more are available for download and geared specifically for preschool students.
53. Teaching Heart Back to School Printables. The free printables at this site are designed to be used by first year teachers just starting out in their careers.
54. MathAbacus.com. If you are teaching your students to do math with an abacus, you will love getting these free activity sheets and pages from the text (available for purchase).

Activity Kits and Programs

For a little more intense focus on a topic, get one of these free activity kits or free programs to aid in student learning.

55. Harcourt: Free for Teachers. Get activity kits for your classroom with themes ranging from national poetry month to pirates to Mother Goose.
56. Carl’s Corner. This site offers readers that have accompanying pocket chart pictures and sentences and homework sheets. In addition to the readers, there are also worksheets and more available for free. Free CDs are hopefully in the works.
57. Free SAT Exam School. Find practice tests, flash cards, study guides, articles, and more for teachers and students.
58. Supercharged Science. Get a free activity book, newsletters, videos, and more for your science students simply by signing up with this site.
59. Mineral Information Institute. Receive free downloads of science activity packets with a focus on natural resources for K-12. The packets are free to download or you can purchase accompanying posters (about $2 each).
60. Intel Education: Design and Discovery. Intel offers this free program aimed at teaching 11-15 year olds about engineering through design in this hands-on resource.
61. International Paper Life of the Forest. Receive a free packet including 10 full-color posters, 10 teaching guides, and one 16-page booklet to help you teach your students about forest stewardship.
62. Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Find free lessons and modules for teaching about climate and environmental research.
63. Science and Our Food Supply. This free curriculum kit offered by National Science Teachers Association is available to middle or high school teachers to help students learn about food safety.

Software

Software and be an expensive accessory for your classroom, so take advantage of all these free programs.

64. Nvu. Download this free software to help you create a beautiful website for your class. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require any experience with web design.
65. SmartDraw. This free software helps you create awards and certificates for your students.
66. Discovery Educational Software. Most of the software at this site is for a fee, but they do offer a few free titles such as the Deal or No Deal game to help learn money and a program to help with learning addition.
67. EclipseCrossword.com. Create your own crossword puzzles with this free software for use with Microsoft Windows.
68. Giveaway of the Day. This site gives away free software downloads that would normally cost something each day. The free download is available for 24 hours only. Subscribe to their RSS feed so you can get notifications of what software is available each day.
69. Mazemaker Plus. Create mazes for your students with this software. You can even use pictures from your hard drive as templates for mazes.
70. Sheppard Software. Download free software for math, science, and history games designed for use in schools, homeschool, and tutoring environments.
71. Owl & Mouse. Get free software for reading, interactive maps, and medieval history.
72. SofoTex. Download all sorts of educati