Digital Learning CommonsDigital Learning Commons

Teaching Resources Training Outline

Total Time: 1–2 hours

Quick Intro (5 minutes)

DLC Site

Screencast Watch the Site Overview screencast

  • Point out the Search box (appears on every page) and the About section.
  • Explain differences between Students, Educators, and Parents sections.

Teaching Resources

Support student learning, plan lessons, supplement classroom curriculum, and help students prep for the WASL with these rich resources.

Useful Tools (10 minutes)

Screencast Watch the Teaching Resources overview screencast

Screencast Our bookmarking system

  • Point out the Bookmarks tab and provide a brief overview.
  • Point out the Alignments and explain how they work.
  • Ask participants to click on DLC Standards Correlations, and provide a brief overview.

Apex Learning ClassTools (15–20 minutes)

AP ClassTools, English ClassTools, Math ClassTools, Science ClassTools, Social Studies ClassTools, and World Languages ClassTools can be used to supplement a curriculum or as the primary source of content in your classroom. Each subject is developed by experienced instructional designers and subject matter experts to align to state and national standards.

My School Page: This is the default homepage. It includes three areas: Tools, Announcements, and Current Enrollment. To return to this homepage, click on the Go To My School icon at the top of the page.

  • Tools includes classroom set-up and orientation information.
  • Announcements are used to communicate with students.

Current Enrollment: This is where the classrooms are listed. Each classroom can contain more than one ClassTool, and students can be enrolled in more than one classroom.

  • Click on a ClassTool to access the content. A new window will open. Use the outline on the left-hand side of the window to navigate through the course content by unit (e.g., 1: Getting Started).
  • ClassTools are broken down by units, lessons, and activities. The top of each content page shows where you are within a ClassTool. Example:

    UNIT 7 > LESSON 5 > ACTIVITY 2 : Comparing the Early Colonies
  • The appendix, which links to additional student resources, is listed after the final unit in the outline.

Beyond Books (15–20 minutes)

Screencast Watch the Beyond Books screencast

Beyond Books offers an interactive curriculum for middle- and high school students, teacher-support materials, and self-assessments. You can use these supplementary instructional resources to enhance your curriculum and your students' classroom learning experiences.

Beyond Books is organized by the following subjects:

  • Literature & Language Arts
  • Science
  • Social Studies
  • World Languages
  • Electives

My School Page: This is the default homepage. It includes three areas: Tools, Announcements, and Current Enrollment. To return to this homepage, click on the Go To My School icon at the top of the page.

  • Tools includes classroom set-up and orientation information.
  • Announcements are used to communicate with students.
  • Current Enrollment is where you can access the Beyond Books Classroom and content.

Pick a Program: You'll find a list of the programs here, organized by academic discipline. Scroll down, click on the title of the program you wish to review, and you will be led to the Program Outline page. From the program outline page, you can choose to focus on a specific lesson or chapter.

Program Structure and Contents: Beyond Books currently offers 26 individual programs. These programs are organized by academic discipline (Social Studies, Science, Literature and Language Arts, World Languages, and Electives) and subject area (e.g., American History, Introduction to Literature, Life Science). Each subject area is organized by the following sections:

  • Contents Page
  • Introduction Page
  • Unit and Focus Areas
  • Focus Topics
  • Links
  • Activities and Interactive Features

Live Tours: In this area you will find links to some live tours and the program outlines for each subject area (e.g., American History).

ALP WASL Prep Resources (10–15 minutes)

Screencast Watch the ALP screencast

ALP (Accelerated Learning Program) is designed to be used by math and reading teachers to help students practice and review skills covered in the WASL. ALP Math is for middle and high school students, and ALP Reading is for middle school students (but can also be used in high school for review and special education). Refer to the ALP User's Guide on the DLC site to learn more about this resource.

Navigating Math and Reading

Learn more: To learn more about each resource, click on Getting Started in Math and click on Home in Reading.

Lesson content: Click on Getting Started/Introduction for introductory math lessons, and then navigate by strand (1.0–10.0). For Reading, click on Index or mouse over Lessons; ALP Reading has two sections: Reading Literature (Narrative) and Reading for Information (Informational).

Rubrics: Rubrics are a useful "test prep" resource, offering valuable tips and practice on the types of questions that appear on the WASL: multiple choice, short answer, and extended response.

Assessments: ALP assessments address entire strands (Math) or sections (Reading) and include a review. The assessment itself is intended to be completed online by students. ALP automatically scores all multiple-choice questions and the results are immediately available to students. Teachers must score the Short Answer and Extended Response questions.

Tools: Click on Tools in Math or Reading to access vocabulary. Math also links to helpful math websites. The vocabulary for each is essential terms that students should be familiar with to complete the lessons.

Thinkfinity (15–30 minutes)

Screencast Watch the Thinkfinity screencast

Thinfinity (formerly MarcoPolo) provides free, high-quality educational resources to teachers and students. They make it easy to integrate Internet resources into your classroom. These standards-based resources include lesson plans, student materials, reviewed Web resources, and interactives. To see how Thinkfinity resources align to state standards, go to Thinkfinity in Washington. Thinkfinity also provides professional development support to teachers via regularly scheduled distance learning sessions.

Search Thinkfinity: This search function is located in the upper-right hand corner of the Thinkfinity homepage. The Thinkfinity search engine provides access to all of the educational resources created by the Thinkfinity Partners plus Partner reviewed materials. Results are displayed and sorted with the most relevant ones appearing first.

Partner Search: Thinkfinity Partners are listed on the right-hand side of the homepage. You can go directly to a Partner website by clicking on its image. Then you can explore each of the partner's sites and content individually instead of all at once.

Teaching Resources: Teaching resources are located in the blue box below the Thinkfinity icon. Click on the More icon to access this section. You can access specific materials from the left-hand navigation box or the main section of this web page. You'll find various materials and ideas to help integrate Marco Polo into your curriculum.

  • About: Find information about how Marco Polo was developed and how the system is structured.
  • Thinkfinity Content: Explore Thinkfinity's wide variety of lesson plans, standards related content, and other educational resources.
  • How to Use Thinkfinity: Find guides and tips that will support you in using Thinkfinity in the classroom.
  • Thinkfinity Resources: Additional resources.

InTime (10–15 minutes)

InTime features online video vignettes of PreK-12 teachers integrating technology into their classrooms using numerous teaching strategies. This project was funded by a grant from the United States Department of Education's PT3 program (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology).

Finding a Video: InTime features nine different videos for each lesson. All of the activities portrayed in the videos on the InTime site were taped in real PreK-12 classrooms. You can search for a video within the following categories:

  • Content Area
  • Grade Level
  • Learning Element
  • Multicultural Education Element
  • Learning Element
  • Information Processing Element
  • Democracy Element
  • Preservice Teacher Technology Competency
  • Teacher Knowledge Element
  • Teacher Behavior Element

After Selecting a Category: Once you choose a category of interest, a list of related videos will appear. The videos are listed by grade level. Each set includes nine different videos, and each video contains information and footage related to the title. When you click on a title, a new window will open. The video will play on the left and the lesson plan will be located on the right. Clicking on the links included under Software and Hardware will take you to specific information about the software and hardware used in the video.

To view a video, choose any link and follow the instructions above.

After Selecting a Video: Each video segment and lesson plan will provide you with information regarding some of the following categories: purpose, directions, objectives, activities, national technology standards alignment, tools and resources, credits, timeline and course outlines, insight, technology requirements, and teaching strategies.

Assessments (2–5 minutes)

Return to the Digital Learning Commons website. Click on the Training Evaluation link, which appears at bottom of every page on the site.