It was great to learn about so many websites with teacher information in class last Saturday. One of the websites I checked out was Merlot. When I searched the General Education "library," one of the first references that came up was a site about webquests, which I found interesting because Eric had mentioned that a webquest would be a good avenue to take for our final project. So, naturally, I decided to browse through the webquest site, which was created by Bernie Dodge (http://webquest.org/index.php).



The webquest site had a great general home page that described a webquest. My favorite part was the link to actual webquests that could be used. There was a great second grade webquest for the book Dinosaurs Before Dark, a sixth grade webquest for Mesopotamia, and some others. Neither of these are for my grade level (fourth grade) but they are great examples of a webquest. Webquests, I learned, should involve higher order thinking skills, and not just a regurgitation of information. The site also lets you create your own webquests, but you have to pay $20 for a two year subscription. I didn't think that was a bad price, plus they give you a 30 day free trial.



MERLOT also led me to a math site called "Who Wants Pizza?" created by Cynthia Lanius at
www.mathrice.edu/~lanius/fractions/index.html. This is a great interactive website where kids can manipulate different fractions. I especially liked it because it shows kids how fractions can be the same fraction, but represent different amounts. For example 1/3 or a pizza is not the same as 1/3 of a cookie. Kids can take different shapes and stretch them or shrink them down to see different fractions. I would use this site in my classroom by linking it to my Edline page, where each student can log in a explore different links on my math page at school.

The second listserv site I visited was How Stuff Works. I found two great links that I will use in my classroom when teaching science. The first is a video about electromagnets, which will be great when I teach my electricity and magnet unit in the spring (http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11956-magnetism-electromagnetism-video.htm). The second was a video showing how wind vanes work, which I teach in my weather unit. Kids always have difficulty remembering the difference between a wind vane and a wind sock, so this video link will be great (http://videos.howstuffworks.com./hsw/16796-hands-on-weather-ii-a-look-at-wind-video.htm)! The video even shows how to make your own wind vane! Both will be great to use with kids!

Both MERLOT and How Stuff Works are two sites that are brand new to me! I'm excited to use them on a regular basis to enhance my teaching!