FREE Educational and Personal Resources

CLASSROOM RESOURCES

Kutasoftware (https://www.kutasoftware.com/)

Kutasoftware has a huge selection of FREE math worksheets for the secondary students including Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Calculus.  These worksheets also come with answer keys (bonus!).  You or your school district can purchase the software in order to create individualized worksheets and tests. 

I use this quite frequently in my classroom to reinforce topics in my remediation classes.  I project the questions from the Kutasoftware worksheet on my SMARTBoard and then have students send in their answers through our central response system (also known as clickers).   

Coursesites (https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html)

Coursesites is powered by Blackboard, where an educator can create up to five classes for FREE.  This blended learning environment is a great way to keep your students engaged, share websites, and link videos to their current unit. 

I used Coursesites this year in one my units to “flip” my classroom.  The students really enjoyed it, but I will warn you, like starting anything for the first time it requires a lot of time, effort, and most of all patience.  This program is a very similar to Blackboard, and I found it very interesting to be on the other side of the program as the educator running the course, instead of the student. 

Google Drive - Sheets (https://www.google.com/sheets/about/index.html)

Google Sheets is a great resource in order to share information in real time or whenever is most convenient for the classroom teacher and their students.  Sheets can be viewed online through a computer, tablet, or on a Smartphone.   Google Sheets is FREE and your work will ALWAYS be automatically saved. 

Personally, I love everything Google Drive has to offer.  My school district is pushing the Microsoft OneDrive, but my heart is with Google.  Google Sheets makes it so easy to share information with your students, especially when we were working with scatter plots, finding the line of best fit, and analyzing trend lines.  All students have access to the same data, they download it on their computer, and then each student is free to explore on their own.  This year I did a project with my Algebra I students on vehicle depreciation where we used Google Forms to submit each vehicle and then used Google Sheets to draw conclusions about vehicle depreciation.

PERSONAL RESOURCES

Pinterest (www.pinterest.com)

Pinterest consumes whatever “free” time I have.  I use this for cooking, crafts, education, and well just about anything you can possibly think of.  There are plenty of pins that contain humor, which is my favorite thing about Pinterest, besides that it is FREE.  If I have a stressful day at work I can always count on Pinterest to cheer me up. 

 

Twitter (www.twitter.com)

I am currently new to Twitter.  I am taking EDUC 638 as well this course and EDUC 638 has multiple assignments where you have to use Twitter.  I was against this at first for the fear of becoming attached to it, much like I am with Pinterest.  However, I cannot believe that I have not used Twitter sooner.  There is so much you can learn and share with thousands of other educators.  My experience thus far has been amazing, and it is FREE professional development.  Twitter has become a daily part of my life.  I encourage you all to check it out. (Note: If you are interested here is my Twitter username: @ramantonioli)

References:

Coursesites. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html

Kutasoftware. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.kutasoftware.com/

Pinterest. (2014). Retrieved from www.pinterest.com

Sheets (2014). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/sheets/about/index.html

Twitter. (2014). Retrieved from www.twitter.com