Ed Tech Starter Kit: What are the best Ed Tech resources you would recommend to a newbie (like me)?

I am relatively new to Educational Technology, and am interested in becoming an Ed Tech Integration Specialist in schools.

1. If you could recommend only a few resources to someone starting out as an Ed Tech Specialist (working with grades 5-12), what would you recommend? Or, for someone starting out, what would you recommend doing to get rolling (i.e. Where to start? Priorities?).

2. Are there websites / resources / databases where teachers share and rate lessons / presentations / activities?

3. Do you know of any quality-control / quality-ratings related to educational resources? (I heard that weebly education had one, but it was discontinued).

4. In the future, I imagine that students will be able to search online for posted and shared lessons that speak to their learning styles. For example, a student might search for a lesson on y = mx + b graphing, geared towards a visual learner who learns best with real world applications. Does anything like this currently exist or is in-process? In the future, I imagine Khan Academy might be able to create something like this.

5. One of the major challenges I (and other teachers I’ve spoken with) encounter when we look for teaching resources on the web, is that you get dozens or hundreds of hits (without any quality ratings or quality control) that you have to sift through--which can take longer than it would to create the resources yourself--to find a few good resources. For example, if I were teaching the Industrial Revolution in America for grades 7-8, I might go online to find related lessons and activities created and posted by other teachers (e.g. multi-media presentations; role playing activities; group projects, etc.). The problem is that my searches generally yield dozens of hits that I have to sift through: most of which aren't good enough (in my opinion) to use.

Do you have suggestions of how to avoid sifting through un-qualified hits and find higher quality hits more effectively?

Thanks for your help.

- Patrick