FREE QUICK LESSON PLANS/ 'HOW TO' INSTRUCTIONS

I mention about two somewhat similar websites/ projects offering free lesson plans though the scope differs for both.

Quickies, www.pedagonet.com/quickies/quickies.html is an online resource for accessing and using available free lesson plans. Though not too many categories on offer but some resources are worth a look and use. The categories are few - Mathematics, Language Arts, Health, Physical Education, Science and Professional Development. I explored few topics and discovered some good ones like Shiatsu, Yodagami, etc. Some of the links lead to promotional products and so not much of a use if looking for a free stuff. Good to try and use some of the free resources.

Other resource explored was WikiHow, www.wikihow.com/Main-Page.
WikiHow is a Wikipedia product and open to participation. The resource site is to cater to 'How To' requirements, to find out how a particular thing, object, phenomenon, etc. is done/ executed/ etc. The site offers lots of categories ranging from Education to Hobbies, Computers, etc. The site is quite comprehensive and an active one. Lots of articles on offfer, read a few from Science and they were quite interesting like 'How to Create a Battery from a Lemon'. The site also provides the option to embed the article in a blog or website. One can use the available articles or may start their own as well.

Good resource to try and if convinced and satisfied use it with students ( instructions provided on the site about using wikihow with students).

FREE COURSE DELIVERY TOOL

Instructional Architect, http://ia.usu.edu is a good online tool for course creation. The tool created and provided by NSDL is a simple to use tool which helps to do the following :

• Create course using online resources
  
• Access and use from similar courses in NSDL directory
• Make use of NSDL resources to build the course
  
• Provide separate student id for accessing the courses

To know about how to create a course, visit the 'Take The Tour' option. Also, 'How to Use the IA' is another option which can help to get started with IA.

Overall, a nice tool to use !!

KIDS SEARCH WEBSITE - KIDS QUINTURA

Quintura for Kids, http://kids.quintura.com/ is an excellent search site for kids. Apart from the safety issue, this website provides an interesting interface. The interface is quite inviting, especially for the kids and provides them with a 'click to select' option for search. One may start the search by clicking on any of the basic categories displayed and then (clicking) on any of the displayed sub categories. One may click on the displayed icons like for music, tv, etc. and begin the search. The kids would surely enjoy working on the site. The site also offers the option to embed the search in the website, blog, etc. by copy-pasting the generated code through the 'Embed' option.

A safe site for kids browsing !!

PDF UTILITIES

Sharing a couple of online PDF utilities that might be useful. Two utilities are Booklet Creator and PDFMeNot.

Booklet Creator, http://bookletcreator.com is a free pdf utility which allows to create an e-book out of the PDF file. The e-book created could be handy in case one wants to print out the pdf in a booklet form. Simply select the pdf file and click on 'Create Booklet' to have the pdf file in a printable booklet form.

PDFMENOT, www.pdfmenot.com is an online utility to help convert the pdf document into a slide show form. This utility could be handy if one has a pdf file and wants to display it in a slide show form. One may also embed it in other web platforms with the help of the code generated after the upload.

COLORS IN LIFE

Color in Motion, www.mariaclaudiacortes.com , is a beautiful site that teaches so much about colors and that too in so many beautiful ways. I must admit that i have not seen anything so creative and innovative for so many years now. Hats off to Claudia for this wonderful site that teaches so much about color. Right from the conception of the site to the delivery, the website stands apart. Exploring the site is real fun and education as well. Infact, one sees colors actually talking to you.

The Menu offers three main sections to choose from - Movie, Stars and Lab and each of these section has lot to offer and teach. The Movie teaches you what each color symbolises, what each color represents and much more. The Stars section is where one can find out the compatibility, main traits about each color. The Lab section is where one can play around with colors, express onself, work on a project and more.

I, personally, discovered a lot by exploring this site and hope its true for you as well.

A wonderful colorful site, just too good a site to resist !

FREE JIGSAW CREATOR

Jigsaw Puzzle Promo Creator is an excellent, yet a very simple tool for creating jigsaws in executable file formats. The software can be downloaded from www.tibosoftware.com. The wizard guides the user to the process of creating jigsaw and also provides options like 'Specify a Backgound Image', 'Specify a Banner', change the text colour, etc. The output file is an executable file ( .exe extension) and looks nice with scattered jigsaw pieces.

A good tool !

REFERENCE/ SEARCH WEBSITE - KNOWPLAY

KnowPlay, http://www.kplay.cc/ is a useful search site which allows search across multiple search sites/ engines like Google, AltaVista, Ask, About, etc.

Another good feature of the site is that it allows for various types of search, be it Web Search, be it Reference Search, be it Media Search, be it People Search, etc. To add to it, under each different search, different parameters or options could be specfied to get the desired specific result. One such example of Reference Search is shown in the image below.

A very handy site for use.

FREE EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Sharing about a highly useful and nice free educational/ academic content available on the web. HippoCampus, http://hippocampus.org is a site which offers some real good content for use. The content has been divided into various subject categories and within that on the basis of topic/ subtopic.

The topics are detailed out really well and contains lot of relevant animations as well. The Subjects covered include Algebra, Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, etc.

Another feature of the site is that one can customise it for the students by creating an acoount on the site, putting relevant and appropriate announcements and selecting relevant courses for delivery.

A good educational resource site