In the past week, I was asked to take a look at and promote two educational websites. Getting the word out about their wares may be best achieved through word of blog. I am happy to give them some press because they are great sites and because the day of the textbook may actually be over.
For a long, long time I’ve realized that I can create vivid, engaging units with resources on the web. When you teach a CyberEnglish class you kind of think digital first, paper second. It’s been a long time since I’ve advocated for the purchase of a new textbook. The ones we use in our department are in embarassing shape, but for the little we use them, they suffice. Instead, we use paperback novels, digital copies of poems, stories, and articles, or we print what we need from Web resources. This means we can create fully customized unit plans that meet our students’ needs.
Sites like Shmoop and Thinkfinity, and Read, Write, Think are a huge help to teachers who want to think outside the book.
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