The best teacher resource I discovered when I was student teaching two years ago was http://www.discoveryeducation.com/, also known as United Streaming. That's because many do not know that there is much more to this website than the United Streaming videos. This website was introduced to me by a veteran teacher of 15 plus years, who was teaching in the 4th grade classroom of one of my resource students in a primary school in Southern Illinois. I went to this teacher looking for suggestions on how to make my 3rd-5th grade, self-contained and resource room more interactive and technologically integrated, as she had a substantial amount of new technology and hands on manipulatives.
I found this website to be useful in that setting, in a high school setting teaching juniors and seniors, and currently in a middle school setting. I have used discoveryeducation.com in large inclusive classrooms with students at varying levels of learning and in small groups of students, with as little as two. This website has lesson plans, videos, blackline masters, interactive games, and ready-to-use resources for every academic subject, including foreign languages.
The website is also easily accessible and teacher-friendly. It provides tabs and folders that makes it easy for me to organize My Content, resources that I would use during instruction, My Builder Tools, which I would use to build quizzes, writing prompts, and assignments to assess or enhance that instruction, and My Classrooms where I can set up activities for an entire class in the computer lab or for individual students doing enrichment or enhancement activities. This website has an abundant amount of other classroom enhancing resources that you can search through. The resources are standards based and the information is reliable. In addition to these classroom enhancing resources, there are also those designated toward your career. There is a specific tab for Professional Development, where they offer information that guides you toward becoming more proficient in the field.
The only negative aspect to this website, is the fee charged. This may be an obstacle in a district or school that does not have a subscription, however, I can see many principals and administrators being easily swayed in the direction of purchasing it. Again, this website was useful to me during student teaching and it has been increasingly useful since then. I intend to continue to use this in my classroom, even as it is constantly changing; so is the face of and new uses for discoveryeducation.com.
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