Websites for educational materials

April 12, 2007 12:03 PM

What websites facilitate the sharing of classroom materials? YouTube but with quantum physics quizzes instead of cat videos?

Worksheets, quiz and test questions, lesson plans, bibliographies, complete curricula, reading materials... Where can you go to find these resources for specific subjects? Where can you share your own? Discuss these resources? Do these exist for undergraduate and graduate level courses?

Sites that are specific to a certain subject like physics or math are okay as are general sites but I'm not interested in sites that are otherwise limited for instance to a specific institution like MIT's Open Courseware project.

posted by stuart_s to education (8 comments total)

http://sakaiproject.org/

Sakai is an online Collaboration and Learning Environment. Many users of Sakai deploy it to support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration.

Sakai is a free and open source product that is built and maintained by the Sakai community. Sakai's development model is called "Community Source" because many of the developers creating Sakai are drawn from the "community" of organizations that have adopted and are using Sakai.
posted by Eringatang at 12:48 PM on April 12, 2007

There is quia for K-12, but it sounds like you are looking for college-level. Here is a list of Virtual Learning Environments, like Moodle and Sakai.
posted by mattbucher at 12:49 PM on April 12, 2007

Moodle and TeacherTube are a few good ones.
posted by landedjentry at 12:50 PM on April 12, 2007

Wikiversity and Wikibooks, maybe? Did you see this short thread on the blue the other day about Open Courseware (not open source learning management systems like Moodle and Sakai)? Those however, tend to be university-based.

I think sites are often subject specific, like Math. Some universities are making a concerted effort to put materials on Google Video - hit the Specific Genres option for Educational materials on their advanced search page.

In K12 you'll find a number of lesson plan sites.

I often find great resources via Stephen Downes' daily newsletter.

e.g. wait a few days and see what Yahoo! is up to with this new site (http://teachers.yahoo.com/).
posted by idb at 1:14 PM on April 12, 2007

I've had the best luck looking at social bookmarking for tags or words on the subject (e.g., tag-physics). Merlot has some activities, but no discussion forums.

Mailing lists from associations can be a good resource for niche higher ed topics. A search found this list. You might be able to locate something that is suitable. Downes is a great newsletter, but it discusses news of interest to educational technology and instructional design more generally, rather than at the syllabi/activity level.

Sakai/Moodle are platforms/CMSs and to my knowledge won't provide any course outcomes/assignments, etc. But it could be used to start your own.
posted by ejaned8 at 2:07 PM on April 12, 2007

Moodle, Sakai, etc... aren't exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for existing communities whatever backend they may be using that connect educators from unaffiliated institutions. Yahoo! Teachers is the sort of thing that I am looking for. It's seems geared to k-12 teachers. That's fine but I'm also looking for communities geared to higher level students.

But thanks for all of the suggestions. They're all helpful in finding my bearings in unfamiliar territory.
posted by stuart_s at 2:38 PM on April 12, 2007

WikiEducator "is an evolving community intended for the collaborative planning of education projects linked with the development of free content."
posted by mbrubeck at 3:03 PM on April 12, 2007

Shameless self-plug:

www.k12hotlinks.com

Check out the "Multimedia" section for some good links to educational documentaries and video sites.
posted by jmnugent at 6:29 PM on April 12, 2007