Announcing TeacherRated.com: where K-12 can find, share, rate and review the best online educational resources

TeacherRated.com is a free resource website created by teachers for teachers. Using TeacherRated.com, educators quickly locate the very best teaching tools, lesson plans, reference websites and student activities available online because resources are suggested, rated and reviewed by teachers.

Whether searching for lesson plans, teaching resources or student activities, many educators turn to the Internet for help. With thousands of education-related websites available to teachers, finding quality teaching resources is typically time-consuming and often frustrating. Search engine results and websites that catalog their own 'favorites' can be useful, but many teachers want more; they want honest and unbiased recommendations from their fellow teachers about what is really going to work in the classroom. Launched in August 2008, TeacherRated.com (http://www.teacherrated.com) allows teachers to quickly find the best educational resources on the web because resources are suggested, rated and reviewed by their fellow teachers.

At TeacherRated.com finding resources to use in the classroom is free and easy. Teachers search by keyword/grade level or browse by subject area (subject areas include The Arts, Blogs for K-12 Teachers, Educational Games, ESL, Health and Physical Education, Language Arts, Math, Research and Reference, Science, Social Studies, Teacher Resources and Technology for Teachers). Search results and subject area resources are listed according to their rating and provide a description of the resource, an indication of grade level, and a screenshot of the website. Teachers can also read reviews written by their colleagues on how they have used these resources in the classroom.

Teachers don't have to be technology experts to participate in the TeacherRated community. Users can easily rate resources that already appear on the site by mousing over a simple five star rating scale that each resource has and clicking on the number of stars they want to give to the listing. All user ratings are automatically averaged so that teachers can see what their peers consider 'highly rated' resources. Those educators who want to share their personal experience can also add their own reviews and provide details as to how they have used a particular tool in the classroom by filling in a simple form.

Sharing is easy on the TeacherRated.com website. Built-in functionality allows teachers to share existing listings with others by email or through social bookmarking/network sites such a Del.icio.us, Google, Facebook, Digg, etc. Teachers wishing to add an online resource to TeacherRated.com simply choose a subject area(s), write a description and click 'submit'. Sharing resources with teachers all over the world is simple on TeacherRated.com.

The TeacherRated.com team knows how pressed for time the typical teacher is and has designed the website with this in mind. Busy teachers can subscribe to RSS feeds that publish new additions to TeacherRated.com, and subscribers can choose to receive a feed citing 'all' new resources or a feed from a specific subject area.