ABSPD

The Adult Basic Skills Professional Development, or ABSPD, is a part of Appalachian State's Reich College of Education and has been offering adult educators in North Carolina workshops, training materials, and week-long summer institutes since 1988. ABSPD is now partnering with NC State and NCCCS to provide credentialing workshops to all basic skills instructors. At the ABSPD website, you can view a link to the NCCCS training calendar, links to the GPS toolkit and descriptions of content standards in addition to numerous other teaching and training materials.

Visit http://abspd.appstate.edu/ to learn more information.

North Carolina Community Colleges System Website

The North Carolina Community Colleges System Website is a place where you can access important information regarding College and Readiness policies and procedures, credentialing information, and a calendar listing all of the upcoming training, conferences, and other professional development opportunities.

The steps for accessing the website are below:

Step 1: Go to www.nccommunitycolleges.edu.

 

Step 2: Click on Colleges.

Step 3: Scroll down until you find College and Career Readiness.

 Step 4: At the College and Career Readiness page, look for the Training Calendar.

Step 5: Select Instructor Credentialing Calendar to view all of the course offerings for the current year. See your Policies and Procedures Manual for further information regarding course offerings and requirements.

NC Online

NC Online is a website designed to provide Basic Skills educators in North Carolina with quick and easy access to a variety of professional development options including online courses and credentialing information. The Steps for accessing the website are below:

Step 1: Go to http://ncbsonline.net and click on Enter.

Step 2: At the NC Online Home page, click on the link to Online PD.

Step 3: From the Online PD page, you can either click on Enter Here, which will take you to the Online PD Directory of courses, or you can access the Virtual Library from this page as well. 

The Virtual Library allows you to search a repository of information from lesson plans in all subject areas to information about the National Reporting System (NRS).

The Online PD Directory offers access to free webinars and online courses in many different areas of Basic Skills that you can participate in without having to leave your home or office.

Science Animations

As most of you may have experienced, when teaching science, it's often helpful to utilize drawings/diagrams. Nowadays, we are lucky enough to have the internet and all of its possibilities. One such involving science is animations. Below I've listed links to a number of science websites that contain interactive animations pertaining to all aspects of science. You can show these on the projector, and/or your students can investigate them at their computers!

http://www.cellsalive.com/index.htm --has a great interactive animation of plant and animal cells

http://www.kscience.co.uk/animations/anim_1.htm --has hundreds of animations in biology, chemistry, and physics

http://www.science-animations.com --has some interesting animations on gravity, electricity, earth-moon-plants, etc.

Let me know if you've found any others, and I'll add them to the list!

The Learning Network

The Learning Network is a blog published by The New York Times Company that provides free teaching and learning material based on NY Times content. The lessons range from opinion questions to news quizzes to word-of-the-day lessons. Students are also encouraged to comment on any posts and join in on conversations with their peers.

I recently used a segment called "163 Questions" with my students. They were asked to browse a list of 163 questions that had been posed to students on The Learning Network over the past year. Once they found one of interest to them, they could click on the question and read an article with a brief synopsis of the issue. Then, they were encouraged to review previous student responses in the "Comments" section, looking for specific types of responses. At the end, they composed a response to the question based on their opinion, as well as any research they had done on the site. The students could then submit their writings as additional comments and have their voice be heard!

To visit The Learning Network, go to: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/.

If you'd like to check out the "163 Questions," you can go straight to http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/163-questions-to-write-or-talk-about/.

Create A Graph

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has a really great interactive tool called "Create A Graph." Your students can enter data into a program and create bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts. There are various types of designs students can choose from, including background and type of shading. They can also label their graphs and print or save them when they finish. This website could be used in a variety of different subjects, and students will be able to practice creating graphs without wasting paper and supplies!

To reach the page, you can follow this link: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx?ID=4e00b446060e4635bbdbcd0f8bd68a21

Here is an example :)

History Buff

History Buff.com is operated by a non-profit organization whose main goal is to provide primary source materials for students studying history. They have a wonderful newspaper archive with .pdf copies of newspaper articles dating back to the early 1700s. Reading these articles would be a great way for students to learn about major historical events and how they were received in the public. They also have a section for reference materials and even "historical panoramas" where the students can visit (via the Internet!) famous historical locations in our nation's history.

Visit www.historybuff.com to check out some of these resources!