Typing at the Speed of Thought

For anyone looking to improve their typing speed, this website is for you (or your students, computer apps and keyboarding teachers). This site turns the practice into a game, timing you and recording your progress over time. You can also play without logging in just to kill time.

Check it out.

TeacherTube

Although I've been using YouTube videos in the classroom for several years now, TeacherTube is a great resource for anyone who doesn't want to have to spend as much time finding school related videos without digging through tons of crap that you wouldn't want to use in the classroom.

Check it out.

Humor: Chamomile Tea

A teacher (especially an English teacher) looking for a good laugh could do worse than checking out this page, supposedly the actual responses of two students in a college class.

Check it out.

Ancient Egyptian Virtual Temple

I don't teach history, but I do find a lot of this stuff interesting.  The Ancient Egyptian Virtual Temple site could make for a great teaching tool for a history or mythology class.

Downloading Teaching Materials is Tricky Business

I have officially spent money on .pdf teaching guides now and I have mixed feelings.  Teacher's Pet Publications has earned my respect.  I downloaded two of their literature plans and was really impressed.  Over a hundred pages of supplemental material is well worth $15-$30 (price appears to only depend on what format you choose).  Unfortunately...

Not all of my downloading experiences have been positive.  Perhaps TPP has spoiled me with the value and cost of their materials.  I also downloaded from Prestwick House, which on the surface appears to be a more established and reliable source... so it didn't bother me so much paying a whole 29.99 for just a pdf (which, for the same price at Teacher's Pet Publications, I could have gotten the pdf and a hard copy).  To my surprise, the pdf was less than 30 pages.

Why pay 30 bucks for a 30 page pdf file when you could get a 130 page pdf file for around half the price?  Good question.  Needless to say, I feel pretty ripped off by Prestwick House and I can't see myself buying anything from them again.  I know this blog doesn't get a lot of attention, but I hope that anyone who does read this will pass along this warning:

Prestwick House is a ripoff, and I would be leery of any other .pdf selling company that doesn't post page counts for their products.

Teacher's Pet Publications

My wife just introduced me to Teacher's Pet Publications.  This site is an awesome resource for anyone looking for a ton of language arts teaching materials for a decent price.  She is already using some of the materials, and I will likely download several of the pdf files soon (using Dracula for my English IV group this year!).

Online Calculators

These definitely aren't tools that I will likely use in the classroom, but they might be useful to anyone teaching math or science.

Check out web2.0calc by clicking here.
Check out eCalc by clicking here.