May 2, 2009
10,000 Resources for K-12 Teachers

RESTON, VA – Busy teachers looking for new ideas for their classrooms now have access to 10,000 online learning resources, all reviewed and approved by master teachers. The resources—websites offering a wide variety of content for all subjects in grades K-12—are presented by nonprofit TeachersFirst (www.teachersfirst.com), one of the web’s leading sites for teachers.

TeachersFirst celebrated its eleventh anniversary in April. The service has thousands of members in more than fifty countries, and averages more than 50,000 page views daily.

The resource reviews include not only descriptions and highlights of each resource, but practical suggestions for implementation in the classroom. All reviews are available, sorted by subject and grade level, at www.teachersfirst.com/matrix.cfm, or searchable by keyword at www.teachersfirst.com/search.cfm.

About two dozen new resources are added each week. Some are created by TeachersFirst staff, the rest are carefully selected existing websites—not only education-oriented resources but general-interest sites that have value in the classroom.

The 10,000-resource milestone was reached with the selection of Woices, an innovative service that allows students and teachers to create sound recordings keyed to geographic locations. The recordings, available worldwide on the Internet, can provide curriculum connections for a wide variety of subjects and ages. The extensive TeachersFirst review is available at www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=10000.

TeachersFirst.com is a service of The Source for Learning (www.sourceforlearning.org), a not-for-profit corporation providing enhanced learning through technology. Candace Hackett Shively manages TeachersFirst and is Director of K-12 Initiatives for Source for Learning. She said, “The Web is now accepted as a valuable addition to teachers’ planning, but the number of potential sites can be overwhelming and their educational usefulness varies tremendously. Our users know they can trust the resources we recommend, because our editors are professional educators in the trenches: teacher-leaders who are experts in their subjects and grade levels. It’s high-quality one-stop shopping—and for less-experienced users, each review can be a mini professional-development lesson.”

The Source for Learning is also the creator of www.PreschoolFirst.com, www.TeachersAndFamilies.com, and the upcoming www.GrowUpLearning.com, slated to launch in 2009.