Adam

Blog Editor

Whether searching for lesson plans, teaching resources or student activities, many educators turn to the Internet for help. With thousands of education-related websites available to teachers, finding quality teaching resources is typically time-consuming and often frustrating. Search engine results and websites that catalog their own 'favorites' can be useful, but many teachers want more; they want honest and unbias recommendations from their fellow teachers about what is really going to work in the classroom.

LessonGateway.com provides a free, easy to use, searchable database of K-12, teacher-contributed online resources. Launched in August 2008, LessonGateway.com allows educators to quickly identify useful websites by ranking & review. Teachers are encouraged to contribute useful resources, author their own reviews, rank other resources and describe how they feel about any item found in LessonGateway.com's database.

At LessonGateway.com finding resources to use in the classroom is easy. Teachers search by keyword or browse by subject area (subject areas include The Arts, Blogs for K-12 Teachers, Educational Games, ESL, Health and Physical Education, Language Arts, Math, Research and Reference, Science, Social Studies, Teacher Resources and Technology for Teachers). Search results and subject area resources are listed according to their rating and provide a brief description, an indication of grade level, supporting classroom tools (where appropriate), and a screenshot of the website.

Teachers don’t have to be technology experts to participate in the LessonGateway community. Users can easily rate resources that already appear on the site by mousing over a simple five star rating scale that each resource has and clicking on the number of stars they want to give to the listing. All user ratings are automatically averaged so that teachers can see what their peers consider "highly rated" resources. Those educators who want to share a personal experience can also add their own reviews and provide details as to how they have used a particular tool in the classroom.

Sharing is easy on the LessonGateway.com website. Built-in functionality allows teachers to share existing listings with others by email or through social bookmarking/network sites such a Del.icio.us, Google, Facebook, Digg etc. Teachers wishing to add an online resource to LessonGateway.com simply choose a subject area(s), write a description and click 'submit'. Sharing resources with teachers all over the world is simple on LessonGateway.com.

The LessonGateway.com team knows how pressed for time the typical teacher is and has designed the website with this in mind. Busy teachers can subscribe to RSS feeds that publish new additions to LessonGateway.com, and subscribers can choose to receive a feed citing 'all' new resources or a feed from a specific subject area. To aid teachers new to Internet navigation, LessonGateway.com provides brief video tutorials that help teachers quickly gain an overview of how to use the site effectively.

Of course, LessonGateway.com is always interested in pursuing new ideas to better itself. We welcome user input and are deeply interested in providing the very best service to our teachers. All those wishing to contribute their thoughts on this matter are encouraged to make suggestions through the 'Contact Us' area of the LessonGateway.com website.