Internet for Educators Resources

Accessibility

• AccessIT: The National Center on Accessible Information Technology in Education.
• Accessibility Color Wheel: An online tool that helps you select appropriate color combinations for people with color blindness.
• Access Keys: This online tool tests Web pages for color contrast and brightness between the foreground and background elements.
• Adobe Accessibility Resource Center: Learn how to use Adobe products to create accessible content.
• Color Laboratory: Simulate colors the way they would be seen by individuals with color blindness.
• Colorblind Web Page Filter: Test Web pages to see what they might look like to individuals with various forms of color blindness.
• Cynthia Says Portal: Online tool that evaluates Web pages for compliance to Section 508 standards and/or the WCAG guidelines.
• Evaluating Websites for Accessibility: A set of general procedures and tips for evaluation of Websites.
• Fangs Screen Reader Emulator: This is a Firefox extension that creates a text representation of a Web page similar to how it would be read by a screen reader.
• Jaws: Screen reader software for Windows. A demo version is available.
• List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools: The tools in this list were designed to test Web pages for accessibility.
• NCAM: National Center for Accessible Media.
• Section 508 Standards: These standards define Web accessibility.
• WAVE: Free, online Web accessibility evaluation tool provided by WebAIM.
• WebAIM: A resource site providing information and tools to support accessibility on the Web.
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Home of the WCAG standards for Web accessibility.

Adobe Creative Suite

• Adobe Accessibility Resource Center: Learn how to use Adobe products to create accessible content.
• Adobe TV: Videos and video tutorials featuring Adobe products. There are tutorials, project examples, and creative ideas available.
• Device Central Help and Support: Access help, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips for Device Central, which is used to develop content for mobile devices.
• Dreamweaver Help and Support: Access the help system, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips for the Dreamweaver website authoring software.
• Fireworks Help and Support: Access help, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips for the Fireworks image editing software.
• Flash Help and Support: Access help, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips for the Flash software.
• Install CS4 Products: A video tutorial showing how to install the Creative Suite 4 on Windows and Mac.
• Kuler: Use this tool to generate color themes for your website.
• Kuler Tutorial: Learn how to use Kuler.
• Kuler Resources: Adobe page with information about Kuler.
• PhotoShop Help and Support: Access help, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips for PhotoShop image editing software.
• Troubleshoot FTP Issues in Dreamweaver CS4: Here are a set of tips and things to try if you have trouble connecting Dreamweaver to a server using FTP.

Code Resources (HTML/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP)

• Dynamic Drive: Free scripts for DHTM, and JavaScript. This site also has a CSS library.
• Free CSS Templates: Choose from a variety of nice looking CSS templates and download them for free.
• Hexadecimal Triple Color Codes: Information about the three digit color codes used when creating Web pages.
• Web Colors: Information about the different types of color codes available when creating Web pages.
• JavaScript Source: Free copy and paste JavaScript files.
• PHP.net: Download PHP and find full documentation.
• W3Schools: Free Web building tutorials.
• HTML Validation: W3C markup validation to check your HTML and XTML.
• CSS Validation: W3C CSS validation tool.
• Link Checker: Use this tool to check the hyperlinks on your web page. It will report working and broken links quickly.
• Media Types: Specify media-dependent style sheets.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Plagiarism

• Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers: A quick guide to copyright and fair use in pdf format.
• Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center: Links to multiple articles. Includes a copyright FAQ section.
• The Campus Guide to Copyright Compliance: This is an online tutorial about copyright issues prepared by Boise State University Academic Technologies. A self test is also provided.
• Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video: A report from the Center for Social Media.
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video: More information from the Center for Social Media.
• Creative Commons: Information about various types of licenses for content.

Digital Images

• Flickr: Image sharing site where you can upload, share, or obtain images. Some images are available under the Creative Commons license.
• MorgueFile: Images free for use in creative projects.
• Wikipedia List of Public Domain Images: Scan the list of links for images useful in your educational project.

Digital Storytelling

• Center for Digital Storytelling (Examples): See examples of digital storytelling.
• Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling: Examples, information, and more.
• Wikipedia Article with Links: Read what others have written and explore links.

Educational Technology

• eCampus News: Technology news for higher education.
• eSchool News: Technology news for k-20 educators.
• Tech Learning: Information for teachers, tech coordinators, administrators and more.
• Tech Soup: Articles, product reviews, and more.
• The World Almanac of Educational Technologies: This is a Wiki book containing articles about educational technology.

Encyclopedia

• Citizendium: Citizens Compendium--A wiki encyclopedia project. The general public contributes information under the oversight of experts. Contributors use their real names.
• Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Historical Collections Online

• Internet Archive: Books, audio files, and film resources that span back over one hundred years.
• The American Memory Project: Find images, documents, information, sound and movie files. These are organized into collections by topic.
• The Library of Congress: The Library of Congress is located in Washington D.C. It contains millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts. The Web site contains links to a vast array of resources including information and multimedia collections. Resources are available for teachers, researchers, kids and families. An RSS feed is available to subscribe to library news.
• The Louvre Museum: This museum is located in Paris, France. It is home to the famous Mona Lisa that was painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The Web site contains a vast amount of information about the museum and its exhibits. Multimedia presentations and virtual tours allow exploration of the museum through the Internet.

Hoax and Malicious Software Information

• Computer Virus Hoaxes at About.com: This site describes some of the virus hoaxes out there. These e-mail warnings can lead people to delete necessary system files while attempting to remedy the so called virus.
• Gallery of Hoax Websites: The sites on this pate are hoaxes. They may be valuable when teaching information literacy. How do we spot a hoax?
• Hoax Websites for Teaching Web Evaluation: Another list of sites that are known to be hoaxes.
• Hoax Slayer: A site that lists e-mail hoaxes.
• Snopes.com: A site listing urban legends that spread around through the Internet.
• Stop Badware.org: A site that provides information about threats to privacy and security because of bad software.

Internet Connection Speeds

• Internet Speed Test: Find out how fast your Internet connection is.
• Speedmatters.org: Interactive map comparing Internet connection speeds in the United States.

Internet Search

• AltaVista: Search the Web, or search for images, MP3/Audio, Video, or News.
• Ask.com: All-purpose search engine.
• Blinx: Video search engine.
• Clusty: This meta-search tool queries multiple search engines and organizes the results into clusters.
• EduTube: Educational video search.
• EyePlorer: Graphical knowledge engine.
• Find Sounds: Search the Web for sound files.
• Google: One of the most popular search engines available.
• IMSA 21st Century Information Fluency Project: Free online resources for educators to help locate, evaluate, and use digital information effectively.
• KartOO: Visual meta-search engine.
• Librarian's Internet Index: A directory of Web sites hand selected by a group of librarians.
• Lycos IQ: A question and answer tool. You can also browser or search the questions and answers.
• Mamma: Meta-search tool that searches multiple search engines.
• Metacrawler: Meta-search tool that pulls results from multiple search engines.
• MSN Live Search: General all-purpose seach engine.
• Pic Search: Search the Web for images.
• Quintura: Visual search engine.
• Quintura for Kids: Visual search engine designed for kids.
• Search Engine Watch: Find articles, search tips, and statistics.
• Searchme: Visual search engine.
• Wikipedia List of Search Engines: Many different types of search engines are listed here and organized by category.
• Wiki Answers: A question and answer wiki.
• Yahoo! Answers: Ask a question and get an answer or answer someone else's question.

Language Translation

• Google Translate: Translate text or a Web page from one language to another.
• Yahoo! Babel Fish: Translate a block of text or a Web page.

Learning Materials, Lesson Plans, Curriculum

• Connexions: Locate small, reusable knowledge chunks that can be mixed and matched to create unique lessons.
• Curriki: Lesson plans, teaching activities, student worksheets, and more.
• MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. This site contains peer reviewed materials for online learning and teaching.

Micro-Level Design and Instructional Message Design

• Microlearning.org: Information, articles, and a blog about small-scale learning units and their relationship to the new media.
• Micro Instructional Design: Article about theoretical implications of micro-level instructional design for multimedia content.

Mobile Web

• CSS Mobile Profile 2: W3C specification for CSS used to produce Web pages for mobile devices.
• Mobiforge: Development community for mobile design.
• Mobi Online Cell Phone Emulator: See what your site looks like on a cell phone.
• Mobile Style - CSS Mobile Profile 2: An article that describes what is supported and what is not supported when writing CSS for mobile devices using profile 2.
• Selectors in the CSS Mobile Profile: A list of allowed CSS selectors for mobile devices.
• W3C Mobile Web Initiative: Information and a validation tool to check your website.

Multimedia Collections Online

• Internet Archive: A digital archive of Internet sites, images, audio, video, and text. The Way Back Machine is also available on this site. It allows you to view old copies of archived Web pages.
• Wikimedia Commons: A database of media files. Many of them are free to reuse. Please check terms of use.

QuickTime

• QuickTime Pro Tutorials: Tutorials on the Apple Web site that show how to work with tracks, create media skins, and develop slideshows.
• QuickTime in a Web Page: Learn how to use HTML code with JavaScript to embed QuickTime movies in a Web page. This version is best if you only have a small number of movies.
• QuickTime in a Web Page (External JS): Use an external JavaScript file to add QuickTime to a Web page. This version is much better when working with multiple QuickTime movies.
• QuickTime Support and Troubleshooting Page: Get help through linked tutorials and a discussion forum.
• QuickTime for Windows: Troubleshooting tips for the Windows version of QuickTime.
• QuickTime Developer Resources: Tips, code, and articles for advanced development.
• QuickTime Guides: Reference manuals and information for developers.
• QuickTime HTML Scripting Guide: Learn how to write code in a Web page to embed QuickTime.
• QuickTime Web Badges: Obtain the images used on Web pages to get QuickTime.

Web 2.0 Resources

• Google for Educators: Links to several great tools including Google Docs, Google Sky, Earth, Maps, and SketchUp.
• Google Sites: Create an easy Website. Google Sites replaces Page Creator.
• VoiceThread: Have group conversations with media enhancements. Create and record media-enhanced events.
• Wetpaint: Set up a Wiki for free on this site.

Web Browsers

• Firefox: The Mozilla browser available for Mac and Windows.
• Opera: A very nice browser available for Mac and Windows.

Website Evaluation

• Critical Evaluation Information: Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators: Multiple examples of evaluation instruments plus related information may be found here. Some of the information is a bit old, but still useful.
• Evaluating Internet Sources and Sites: A Tutorial: Evaluation criteria, and resources.
• Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask: This tutorial originates from the UC Berkely Library. It provides sound tips for evaluation of Web page content.
• The Good, The Bad, & the Ugly (or Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources): This site includes suggestions, evaluation criteria, examples, and a bibliography.