April 16

Website Worth Sharing: SweetSearch

sweetspotGoogle is great, but sometimes the sheer volume of results can be distracting or overwhelming, especially for our students. The folks at “Finding Dulcinea” knew that and developed SweetSearch http://www.sweetsearch.com/  an educational Search Engine that filters out all of the other “Stuff” and just gives educational results that have been screened for classroom use by teachers and librarians.

They have also collected an abundance of Social Studies content and put it all in one place: http://www.sweetsearch.com/socialstudies In your spare time you might want to check out the 101 Best Websites for Social Studies: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2010/march/101-Great-Sites-for-Social-Studies.html

If you focus on bibliographies, they have a page for that too: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2010/march/101-Great-Sites-for-Social-Studies.html

April 25

Website Worth Sharing: Digital Public Library of America

If you are looking for Primary Source documents and authentic materials to supplement your instruction, you should stop by the DPLA website. It has cataloged resources from Archives, Museums, and more. You can interact through their exhibits, timeline, maps, or just search using their search tool. The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. Another plus is it is the shortest web address I think I’ve ever seen. Quicker to type than Google and more reliable results! http://dp.la/