Below are ten Websites that I have found useful in this program and That I think will be very useful when I begin teaching in the classroom.
MIT Open Course Ware
This is a fantastic resource for High School Physics teachers. These pages a full of material created by MIT for the high school level. I look at this as material that MIT thinks high school physics students should know. It has lessons, labs and even exam problems. Like some of the other sites, I do not plan to send the students here but I can see myself coming here almost daily.
PhET: Interactive Simulations
This is perhaps the gold mine of interactive Physics demonstrations. They all run on Java so they cannot be embbedded into SMARTBoard, however If I have them set up ready to go in the background it is a simple matter to switch from the presentation to the simulation and the back. I hope to further develop the concepts for the students while using these challenges and simulations to have some fun.
The Physics Classroom
On this site, there are many more demonstrations, lesson ideas, Labs and other classroom material, but they are not as in depth as the previous site. I will most likely use this site for reference and gaining ideas for myself, but I do not see myself sending students to this site. I absolutely love the problemsets offered on this site as they tend to bring in more real world situations to help illustrate the physics concepts.
Harvard Science Lecture Demonstrations
I will probably use every single one of these videos in my classroom. I can see opening up each associated topic with one of these videos to get the students wowed and thinking about the concepts. I will then teach the lesson using many other demonstrations and problems and then at the end of class revisit the video and see if the students can explain what happened using what they learned during the class.
American Association of Physics Teachers
This is a fantastic community of Physics teachers around the country. In addition to this website I will also join their association. With membership I will get full access to the site along with all of the many lessons, labs, demonstrations, conferences, other anything eles you can think of. Physics teachers helping physics teachers get through to the students.
Google News
This is a simple site that will aggregate a buch of different news sources, so you are not getting your information from just one source. In addition to this, students can set up a personalized version that will add topics such as education, physics, sailing, gardening, or any other key words you can come up with. While not directly related to physics, I will still show this to my students for use in finding current events happening in physics and other areas.
Teacher's Guide to Using Facebook
This is a fantastic guide for teachers on how to use Facebook. It starts out by diving into how to set up your privacy settings and how to make yourself un-searchable, but it then goes past this and talks about different ways to use Facebook as a teacher. I'm not sure I will use this in my classroom, but I will use it to ensure my Facebook is properly hidden and I will share it with all of my fellow teachers and even offer to help them get started.
Facebook
Everyone knows what Facebook is, however I would like to be able to use it for my class. Facebook is where the students are. Some parents do not allow their children to use Facebook but I believe these are in the minority and becoming smaller everyday. If I can have this one more place to post assignments, and be available for help then why not use it. Of course I would need Digital responsibility, but this can be done with Facebook.
Twitter
There are two uses I have in mind for twitter. One is to have a running feed going somewhere in the classroom and be following NASA, Physorg, Scientific America, etc. Today's events happen faster due to the internet and I want my students to be prepared. The second use is for my own tweeting. I would post tweets reminding students of assignments that are due. Like Facebook, I will have o use good Digital citizenship, however this is one more way I can get information out to the students.
Google+
This last one is brand new and isn't really even available yet, however I see so much potential for it in education. I can have video "hangouts" to help with homework. I can keep all of the students in their own circle which eliminates any of the issues of privacy. I believe schools will initially balk at this but it will catch on. Facebook has laid enough ground work for this to come in and succeed.
