For Plato Users

A great new resource that gives ideas, lessons, help, and best practice on using Plato in your classroom is the Roadmap to Success newsletter. Teachers may subscribe to this free E-mail newsletter. Click the title and it will allow you to subscribe.

Technology -- How to Recover (Almost) Anything

Found a great article from PC World on getting those things back from your computer that you accidently deleted, erased, or reformatted. Most of us know that stuff goes into the Trash Can when you delete files, etc. from your hard drive, but.....what happens when you also have emptied that Trash Can?

Kirk Steers from PC World, gives easy to understand answers to these questions. Read his article for hints and answers!

Curriculum Maps have Moved!

Check out the new Curriculum News Blog. It has the full-year listing of the curriculum maps and wish list. Go to the PTS Home page. In the Table of Contents on the left, click Curriculum News and you are taken directly to the blog! Enjoy!

New Teacher Sites

There are many many great sites for helping teachers find lesson plans, peer-support, mentors, professional development courses for all levels that it is impossible to list them all. Give these a try! All are free to join.

• A New Teacher Guidebook


• TeachersFirst


• Teachers.Net


• Teachers Network


• TeacherVision


• Ideas for New Teachers and Education Students


• Inspiring Teachers

E-Training Available!

Through a new initiative, the U.S. Department of Education brought together some of the nation's most effective teachers and practitioners to share the research-based practices and data analysis to make a difference in student achievement. During this time, these educators have shared their expertise through the U. S. Department of Education's Teacher-to-Teacher Workshops offered in various locations throughout the United States. These workshops were taped and made available nationwide over this website through a special contract with the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC).

In order to more broadly share the information, these workshops have been taped and converted to online courses delivered using the video-streaming format. They are designed so teachers can experience on-demand professional development in specific content areas to increase their knowledge and skills for improving student achievement. To ensure access, all programs are closed captioned.

Each course is designed to be valuable for single teachers or groups of teachers. Each course is delivered in segments-usually about 15 minutes long-of video interspersed with reflective questions and small tasks that foster understanding. An entire program, including activities, is about 2 hours long.

By enrolling in these professional development courses, educators also have access to the electronic Professional Development System, or ePDC. This password-protected system provides a personal portfolio so that participants can track and manage their professional development activities. The portfolio is updated after a participant completes a Teacher-to-Teacher course and is used to track additional professional development activities.

The site, Teacher2Teacher , is free and clicking the title will take you to it.

Looking for Curriculum related Websites?

T.H.E. Journal has once again updated their listing of great websites in the 2007 verison of "Educational RoadMap to the Web, 2007". Here you find sites listed by subject (Fine Arts, Guidance & Psychology, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Special Education, PE & Health, Safety & Security, and Technology). Each subject is further broken down such as Science into Earth, Life, Phsyical, and Space Sciences. Enjoy!