Middle Grade
Business and Information Technology Connections
Educator Resources
Except for Learn NC and NC Wise Owl, which are on most teachers' "favorite" list, this resource page has been arranged alphabetically. Pages outside of the WCPSS website will open in another window.
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Learn NC
A program of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill School of Education, is a statewide network of educators
using the power of the Internet to improve K-12 education in North Carolina.
This website offers a wide array of quality resources for K-12 classroom
instruction and teacher professional development, all tied to the North
Carolina Standard Course of Study.
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NC Wise Owl
Computer
and Technology Skills
Units to Go! Classroom-Ready Resources (Grades 4-8)
Kaleidoscope
Available
at no cost, Kaleidoscope is a comprehensive site for busy educators striving
to integrate the North Carolina Computer Skills and Information Skills
curricula into the Standard Course of Study. This
web portal takes North Carolina teachers and students on a week-by-week
journey through a typical school year, linking students to rich online
learning resources, while modeling "best practice" for the
integration of Internet content in the classroom.
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Assessment Tools
QuizLab
Create your
own online quizzes, share quizzes with other WCPSS teachers, or select
from the huge library of teacher-created quizzes housed by QuizLab. Save
time with automatic scoring and recording. Assess and track student
progress.
Make
reports available to students and parents. Keeps student data secure
Quia
Another great, subscription based, online quiz-making site. Additionally,
you'll find online games and pre-made quizzes in more than 40 subject
areas. Templates for creating twelve different types of online games,
including flashcards, matching, concentration (memory), word search,
hangman, challenge board, and rags to riches (a quiz-show style trivia
game)
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Bulletin Board - Free Electronic Discussion Page
QuickTopic
For any one-topic group discussion, use the QuickTopic free bulletin
boards instead of just email! Your messages will be in a private
central place, and each of your friends can opt to participate by
email or just
use the web forum. That's because QuickTopic's super-easy single-topic
web bulletin boards are also fully email-enabled: you can get and
post messages via email. Use it on your web site too.
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Calendar Creator
Localendar
A free web-based calendar that serves a variety of purposes
in the school setting. Use it to make your pacing guides
quickly available
from your
home and school computers. Encourage your administrators
and school organizations to use it and then merge their "public" events
into yours so that you can better plan for days that the
ball team will miss your last
period class, etc.!
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Career Development
CareerShip: An Online Career Exploration Adventure. This site includes an interactive career interest inventory, career summaries based on career clusters, as well as a career search engine. GREAT site!
Lesson
Ideas
NC
Career Explorations - Online interest inventory using the Holland
Profile
NC Job Bank
Career Overview -
Career Information, Job Search, Education and Job Descriptions
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Classroom Management Ideas
Student
Computer Monitoring Software
Lanschool Monitor
Through a monitoring computer
located typically at the teacher's station, the teacher can monitor
the entire classroom through thumbnails, or by
clicking on a thumbnail observe a single computer close-up. This
powerful package allows a teacher to broadcast her screen to the entire
class as a teaching tool, broadcast another student's computer to others,
broadcast to individual students who need additional help. In
the case of off-task or misbehaving students, the teacher can capture
the screens of students, blank their screens, or even collect an internet
history for the day of a specific computer.
Teacher's Guide
Teachers can log on to this site and chat with other teachers about classroom
management. Share your ideas with how to discipline students and see how
other teachers have respond to difficult situations.
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Computer SkillsTest of North Carolina
Links to help your students understand and prepare for the NC Computer
Skills Test. This page also includes links to information about the
background and history of the NC computer skills curriculum. (This
test is also known
as the NC Eighth
Grade Computer Competency Test.)
New Computer Skills
Curriculum - Grades 6-8 - Organized by Strand
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Copyright Basics
Website sponsored by the US copyright office.
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Current Events
Newspapers in Education
This links to the News and Observer site. The Newspaper in Education
program is a cooperative effort of newspapers and thousands of
schools
in
the
U.S., Canada
and
other
nations where
the newspapers is used as a tool of instruction. Publishers provide
copies of their newspapers to schools, sponsor teacher education programs,
offer instructional resource materials and generally help schools develop
newspaper use for student learning.
http://www.usatoday.com/educate/home.htm
The USA education site was designed to be used in the classroom to support
almost every discipline. There is much available for Business and Information
Technology teachers. Use alone or in conjunction with the current day's USA
Today newspaper.
For matching grant information, contact Sharon Roddey (sroddey@usatoday.com).
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E-mail
This was specifically designed for young students - FREE
http://gaggle.net/learn.html
Though WCPSS has allows e-mail accounts for MG students, many schools have
chosen to not participate in that program. Since E-mail is part of the BCT
curriculum, you may want to register your school with Gaggle.net. It offers
an extremely high level of control as you can monitor everything!
Gaggle Allows you to: * Block SPAM * Automatically monitor messages
* Block pornographic e-mail * Review student messages
* Block curse words * Block e-mail with outsiders
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Hardware Accessory Suppliers
Madison Computer Corporation, New York City - Optical mice are very reasonably priced and reliable.
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Hoovers Online
www.hoovers.com
Highlights companies and businesses throughout the world. You don't have
to subscribe to get information on businesses. It highlights important articles
from major newspapers regarding the business world. Excellent site to use
when
your your students are researching companies.
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Intel's Journey Inside
Take a fascinating look inside the world of computers and the internet. The
Journey Inside video, recommended in the MG Keyboarding curriculum guide,
is no longer available. This fantastic web-site has taken its place.
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Keyboarding
Alt
Keycodes for Windows (Special Character Codes)
Business Letter Unit Info - http://writing.colostate.edu/references/documents/bletter/
This is a great way to introduce the purpose of business letters, types of
business letters, formats of letters, and letter writing strategies. It is
most useful when
explaining the subject line and attention line in letters.
Citation
Machine - When teaching how to format citations properly
on the "Works
Cited" page, the Landmark Project's Citation Machine
is an invaluable tool!
Lessons for Students to Do At Home
Keyboarding Games
Games and Neat Links
Online Typing Tests
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Lesson Plan and Teacher Tools
Educator's
Reference Desk - Formerly "Ask Eric"
Business Ed. Lesson Plans and Resources by Tonya Skinner
Computer Skills Help Documents
Website
Index by School Subject Areas
Internet Search - Tools for teaching internet search habits
Internet
Flash Cards - for SchoolNotes members (free membership)
Microsoft
Classroom Teacher Network - Lessons plans using your MS products
Technology Skills Lesson Plans by Grade Level
USA Today - Has plans for integrated technology lessons and business lessons
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Marketing Education
www.mark-ed.org
The
Marketing Educator's Resource Center
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New Teacher Support
Center
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Professional Organizations
NBEA
NCBEA
ACTE
NCACTE
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Puzzle Design
PuzzleMaker
by Discovery School
Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents.
Create and print customized word search, crossword and math puzzles
using your word lists.
Create Your Own Puzzles and Online Games
http://clear.msu.edu/dennie/matic/
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Dictionaries
and Thesauruses
American Heritage Dictionary http://www.bartleby.com/61/
Almanacs
Fact Monstor by
Info Please http://www.factmonster.com/
US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov
Info Please Almanac http://infoplease.com/almanacs.html
World
Atlas and Maps
Atlas
http://geography.about.com/library/maps/blindex.htm?PM=ss11_geography
Country Studies http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/
World Factbook http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
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Rubrics
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics but does
not have the time to develop them from scratch.
Rubric
Builder - Landmark Project
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Student Games and Educational Links
Business Computer Technology and Keyboarding
Challenging
Games and Brainteasers appropriate for your classroom
reward day
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Student Organizations
DECA - National
DECA Program Information
FBLA - NC
CECNC Program Information
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Teachers.Net
The ultimate teacher resource.
Lesson plans, Teacher chat, Articles of interest, etc.
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TechLearning
www.techlearning.com
A resource for education technology leaders.
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Thinkquest
ThinkQuest is an international competition where student teams engage
in collaborative, project-based learning to create educational websites.
The winning entries form the ThinkQuest online library. The library contains
unique educational web sites that have been
created through ThinkQuest competitions and programs.
Thinkquest Library - Business and Industry
www.thinkquest.org-b&i
Thinkquest Library - Computers and the Internet
www.thinkquest.org-c&i
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Translations Online
http://www.freetranslation.com
Translate your text to the foreign language of choice, but be sure to
let your reader know through a disclaimer that the translation was automated
through a web-site. Just as in English, foreign words may translate correctly
but offer
an improper connotation.
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Tutorials
PowerPoint http://www.actden.com/pp/
www.wannalearn.com
Over 350 categories of free, first-rate, family-safe online tutorials, guides
and instructionally oriented Websites!
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Warm-Up Activities
Vocabulary Builders for Students in Middle School
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/words/junior/
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Web Design
Homepage
for Teachers - Take this Web Workshop using the Web Wizard
ClassWeb
Sponsored by David Warlick's Landmark Project, this site serves as a tool to
help educators gain the knowledge, skills, and awareness needed to build class
webs.
It also includes a mailing list group that is a forum for the collaborative
development
of
ideas
and applications for teacher-constructed class webs.
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech139.shtml
Before you get started - read these great site building tips.
Sample MG Business Classroom Page
School Notes
Teacher Web (http://teacherwebsite.com/default.htm)
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Webquests / Web Research
Career
WebQuest
In Search of Self...Planning for My Future
This
project will get your students started considering your future career
possibilities. It is ideal for students in the Exploring Career Decisions
class and other "Exploring" electives.
Computer Crime - A Web Investigation.
An investigation that incorporates ojectives from the North Carolina Business
Computer Technology and Computer Skills curricula relating to computer
ethics and security. It also includes writing objectives from the Language
Arts Curriculum.
North
Carolina is My Home - Great Places to Visit!
A web assignment incorporating objectives from the North Carolina Business
Computer Technology and Computer Skills curricula with the 8th grade Social
Studies curriculum. It includes internet research with database objectives.
Spreadsheet Project - What Would it Take to Survive on My Own?
This webquest uses the 8th grade novel, Where the Lilies Bloom, as a springboard.
The student is asked to imagine being thrust into a similar situation as
Mary Call Luther, suddenly being responsible for providing for a family.
The students research the internet and other resources to determine how
much money it would take for them to survive. From their research, they
develop a spreadsheet budget. This webquest is easily adapted to the Exploring
Life Skills objectives relating to managing personal and material resources
to achieve goals.
Spreadsheet Project - NHL Salary Creator
http://www.berksiu.k12.pa.us/webquest/neiswender/default.htm
This webquest incorporates higher order thinking skills, internet
research, and spreadsheet creation.
Telecommunications
Explorer - A simple web activity that generates good class discussion.
WebQuest
Helps
http://www.thematzats.com/jennings/index.html
Learn to create a web-quest.
http://trackstar.hprtec.org
TrackStar helps instructors organize and annotate Web sites (URLs)
for use in lessons and webquests. The resource list remains
visible allowing
the user to easily stay on track. To view a good introductory "track," go
to the Trackstar homepage and input Track id: 67025.
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© Wake
County Public School System, Career & Technical Education
Send Comments to: Diane Walters
West Millbrook Middle School
Last updated:
March 17, 2011
