Discovery Education

Tool Title: Discovery Education

Main Features: Discovery Education is a service of The Discovery Channel. It offers digit resources for teachers. This includes streaming educational videos in all subject areas, interactive textbooks, quiz generators, and sample lesson plans. There are also frequent webinars on topics related to teaching and using the website to enhance your class experience. It also has an exhaustive list of links to other resources available, sorted by subject.

Level of Difficulty: The website is fairly easy to use. It also has guided sections split into 3 levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each one explains different ways to use the site so that teachers can get the most out of it based on their level.

Application in the Classroom: This tool is meant to used for curriculum enhancement, to make your classroom more dynamic. By mixing in videos, primary documents, and interactive texts, you can make your lessons more engaging for your students. It also allows some student access from home, so that part of their homework can be on the site.

Conclusion: I think the tool is worth learning. It actually took very little learning for me. Things are set up in a way that make sense to average computer savy users, and there are lots of written guides to help along the way. The only downside is that only some of the materials are available without a user name and password, which are only given out through school districts. You need to work for a school or know someone who does to access the full site.