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ONLINE TEACHER RESOURCES BOOM, BUT ONLY A FEW HANDLE SPECIAL ED

September 2, 1999

Teachers lounges are sprouting up all over the Internet, providing places for educators and paraprofessionals to exchange notes on everything from creative new bulletin board designs to ice-breaker activities for the first few weeks of school. Most sites address general ed. teachers, though some of those also include specific resources for special educators. A few others are devoted solely to teaching students with disabilities. Most of these are operated by current and former special ed. teachers, who have recognized the dearth of information for special ed. teachers and paraprofessionals.

As the Internet continues its explosive growth, the potential number of sites for teachers is unfathomable. So providing a comprehensive look at them all here is equally unmanageable. Instead, below is a look at a handful of useful sites geared specifically for special ed. teachers:

• Kay Smith, a Las Vegas administrative specialist and former special ed. teacher, put up her own site to share information she has collected from other teachers and the Internet over the years. Her Special Educator's Web Pages feature more than just lesson plans. She also posts an extensive list of sites that are good for kids and many link pages for teachers and parents.
• Teachers Helping Teachers is primarily devoted to all sorts of teaching needs, but it also includes a page of detailed explanations of strategies and lesson plans for special ed. teachers. Each educator who submitted ideas included an e-mail address for questions and further discussion. In addition, Music Therapy for Young Children with Special Needs offers several interesting ideas.

Few sites for general ed. teachers contain useful, specific special ed. information. Some, however, are worth checking out for their general strategies for classroom management and their creative ideas. As many special ed. teachers and paraeducators have known for years, lessons learned in general ed. classrooms may lend themselves to adaptation for students with disabilities. Following is an alphabetical look at a few sites for general educators:

• Connected Teacher is a relatively new site, launched by the operators of Connected Classroom, a site to help teachers integrate use of the Internet into their daily lesson plans. Teachers can find a limited selection of lesson plan ideas and lengthy lists of other Internet sites with useful information. None of the lesson plans posted on the site pertain to special education, and none of the site's nine different sections of web links are specifically devoted to special ed. However, a handful of quality special ed. links are included in the "health and physical education" link pages.
• Highwired takes one of the most unique approaches to helping teachers and students online, but it contains no specific special ed. applications. Solely addressing high school level teachers and students, the web site connects actual high schools and allows them to share projects. The site is primarily devoted to student newspapers around the country, giving teachers access to news from the student's point-of-view.
• The New York Times Learning Network features a lesson plan archive and guidance on how to use the daily newspaper as a classroom tool. It also includes resources for students and parents, but nothing specifically related to special education.
• Scholastic Inc. has put an amazingly broad set of resources for teachers, parents and students online, drawing from its wide variety of branded educational products. Though its "In School" site is primarily a showcase for its products, it also provides some handy worksheets and other lessons that can be downloaded and photocopied for use in the classroom.
• Teachers.net has the most features for special ed., with specific bulletin boards for educators to exchange thoughts and several link pages with more information on students with disabilities. The site also has a handy search function that turns up a list of lesson plans with the phrase "special education" in them. Teachers.net also has a very comprehensive reference section, with links to online encyclopedias, dictionaries, maps, libraries and other resources.
• TeacherVision.com, another brand new site, is an extension of FamilyEducation.com, an educational Internet portal for parents and children. While its lists of lesson plans and ideas are even slimmer than Connected Teacher's, it is eagerly accepting submissions from teachers. The site offers participants the chance to win classroom-related prizes in exchange for their ideas. TeacherVision also provides a lengthy list of other Internet sites with lesson plans and information for teachers.
• Ask Jeeves, an Internet combination of a really big encyclopedia, a friendly librarian and a shelf-full of manuals on everything from etiquette to driving to household chores, also takes a crack at answering teachers' questions. To get any useful results, however, questions must be quite specific, and searchers must be willing to follow multiple links after "Jeeves" posts its search results.8