How to separate the wheat from the chaff

In regards to finding teaching and learning technology, my greatest challenge which I repeatedly encounter in my searches for helpful information / resources is that, there don't seem to be any ratings / quality control.

The rating systems of amazon, iTunes, Youtube, etc. are extraordinarily helpful in finding high quality materials. However, I'm not encountering the equivalent in teaching and learning technology.

Generally, when I'm searching for something, whether it's a lesson plan for the historical context of To Kill a Mockingbird or a learning technology conference in the area or math teaching technology in general, I would like to find a short list of examples that have been deemed as high quality. I don't want to have to sift through dozens of un-qualified examples. However, I feel like I'm doing more sifting through chaff, then accessing gems which I can put to use.

Can you direct me to some resources, contacts / mentors, or give some guidance so that I can access what's considered by many to be the best (or better) stuff out there, in regards to learning and teaching technology?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Ruddy on November 9, 2011 at 8:14am

I have felt the same way, I spend loads of time searching through sites to locate 'the good stuff'. Here are three winners -

Real World Math - Math lessons on area, volume, etc using Google earth

http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/Lessons.html

http://illuminations.nctm.org/ is another favorite around here - the calculation nation stuff gets lots of use.

Learn Scratch - a visual programming language that will allow you students to create multimedia presentations and games using M.I.T.'s Scratch programming language. These are an excellent set of lessons.

http://learnscratch.org/

If there is anything in particular you are looking for, let me know.

Keep sifting my friend!

Permalink Reply by Patrick T Jordan on November 10, 2011 at 5:51am