“MILKING” THE NET:

A few key words and tips to help teachers locate resources

ONE of the following: ONE of the following:

resources
reference
lesson plan(s)
Teacher(s), teachers activity, activities, ideas
Education, educational glossary, terminology, vocabulary
Instructor, instruction bibliography, book(s), text(s)
Professor exercise(s)
(Name of subject, Classroom materials
i.e. “geography” Learning learning objects
[or, sometimes, of WebQuest
adjective derived School(s), schooling challenge(s), quiz(zes) test(s)
from it, i.e. Didactic [see below] exam(s), examination(s)
“geographic”]) development, training
notes, reports
games, puzzles
software
diagrams
Or try these as additional sources of
information:
(teachers’, professors’) bulletin, news, newsletter
journal, magazine
preparation, training
association, society

The above prompts will elicit general educational sites. If you need to prepare a lesson in a
relatively short time, you can also try a more specific topic search; for example, if you type
“nuclear energy lesson plan” (without inverted commas) in the Google search box, you’ll be
directed to a number of sites that can be of some interest. (To speed up the search and the
discrimination of the sites, you can also try changing the order of the keywords in the search
box. Useful information is also given in the URL; you can concentrate on .org, .edu, and on
web sites by educational entities such as schools and universities.

At this point, once you’ve reached a good link, you can also try modifying the URL obtained by
deleting its last segment(s) one by one [the part(s), separated by a slash]. For example, if you’ve
found the URL http://www-stp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Lenergy.htm; you can also find related topics
by simply deleting “Lenergy.htm” directly in the address bar. It doesn’t always work, but it is well
worth trying.

 Websites of general interest:

Some links to foreign-language sites:

www.teachingenglish.org.uk. For lesson plans.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools. For all subjects.
www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/tutors/lessonplans/lplansform.shtml. Idem.
www.educationwebsites.co.uk.
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk. Excellent resources for history, among others. Look for “Learning,”
“Education Department”. (Ex: www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.htm)
www.bl.uk. British Library: OK, but not fantastic.
www.bnf.fr. French National Library: fantastic site (for French!) See “Dossiers pédagogiques
(dossiers – explorations – ateliers – dossiers icono. – classes BNF – action pedago.)”
www.nga.gov. Worth visiting.
www.francococca.com. Site created by an Italian maths/computer science teacher (liceo scientifico)
in Italian. Deserves a visit for creativity, hopefully stimulates emulation.
www.gamtorino.it, www.museoscienza.org Italian sites with English options (beware of “Italish”,
translator unknown: Google?)
www.eun.org. European site with numerous l.o. (“learning objects”).
http://www.ebsi.umontreal.ca/jetrouve/. Delightful site in French.

 Using original texts and diagrams.

The texts downloaded may obviously be exploited in a number of ways that do not require extreme
linguistic expertise on the part of the teacher:
 words and expressions may be deleted to form a gapped comprehension test, with or without
supplying the students with the vocabulary;
 important words may be highlighted in bold type and then used to form a bilingual glossary,
provide definitions (by means of matching or completion exercises, etc.) or be used as a
language exercise in pairwork practice (“Ask your partner the meaning of the words in bold
type,” etc.);
 the text may be given to the students in scrambled form, for them to sort out;
 labels in diagrams can be erased with an image editing program such as Corel Paint, Adobe
Photoshop or even Microsoft Paint (which is already included in all Windows versions), in order
to create labelling exercises.

 Specific sites that enable the teacher to create exercises and tests.
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/wintutor/ Tutorial (in English), Hot Potatoes “half-baked” software to
design on-line tests/exercises using any language. Definitely worth taking a look at for 6 different
formats: gap-fill, crossword, matching, multiple choice, jumbled, ordering.
www.cyberteacher.it. Site of Paolo Cutini, official translator of “Hot Potatoes” software: for Italian
tutorial.
http://www.lucagalli.net/ Quiz Faber: even simpler to use than Hot Potatoes.
www.puzzlemaker.com. Self-explanatory.

 Warning: Be aware of the origin of the sites you use; if you are unable to monitor the quality
of the English yourself, perhaps it is better to stick to those originating in English-language
countries. Otherwise, you risk running into some very bad specimens of “English”, typically
containing mistakes of every kind (especially grammar and spelling) or expressions uncommon
in current usage. On the other hand, be on the lookout for mistakes (typos and non) even in
“authentic” sites…