ASCD offers a wealth of online resources, covering up-to-the-minute information on leading education issues. For a guided tour, see "Quiet Please—The Library Is Online" in the May 2007 issue of Education Update, available atwww.ascd.org/portal/redirect.jsp?ProductID=107064. After taking advantage of ASCD's online offerings, where else can you turn for free, valuable information on the Web?
Research, Statistics, and More
The U.S. Department of Education is a popular destination for research, statistics, and teaching resources. For years, education researchers have turned to the department'sEducation Resources Information Center (ERIC) to search its vast database of citations covering academic and professional journals, reports, conference proceedings, dissertations, and more. In recent years, the site has added an increasing number of full-text documents in PDF format. If the full text is unavailable, ERIC can help visitors place the item on hold at the nearest library and often provides links to publishers' Web sites, where content may be available for purchase.
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) contains lesson plans, primary source documents, and other teaching resources gathered across federal government agencies.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the place to go with statistical questions on U.S. education—questions such as "How many teachers, principals, and superintendents are there in Maine?" or "What are the trends in dropout rates?" Click on Fast Facts to begin finding answers to questions like these.
Newsworthy
Education Week is the most prominent U.S. news publication covering K–12 education, and its Web site offers a wide range of free resources. Vistors can view top stories and a staggering range of blogs, including a blog coauthored by Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier. Register for free to access more content, including additional stories selected by the editors and the extremely useful Issues A–Z page, which provides quick news and information on leading education issues from accountability to year-round schooling.
Technology
To keep track of the ever-evolving world of education technology, eSchool News is a great one-stop resource. The site provides extensive coverage of emerging trends, a large news archive, and information on the hottest ed-tech topics.
For a more conversational look at issues in education technology, visit Will Richardson's blog, Weblogg-ed. Richardson discusses blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 technologies with an eye toward practical classroom application. For those still trying to get their heads around RSS, Richardson provides a great guide for beginners.
Navigating the Blogosphere
On ASCD's blog, Inservice, members and visitors engage in rich discussions about a variety of education topics. The blog also includes "BlogWatch," a feature that explores the education blogosphere, highlighting sites that are relevant to educators.
Blognetnews is a fantastic blog aggregator, pulling together the content from multiple blogs on one easy-to-navigate page. You can narrow your focus by topic, state, grade level, and popularity. Content can be pushed to you via customized RSS feeds or e-mail.
Google Blog Search allows users to explore the blog universe with the same familiar interface Google provides for Web searches. Find out what people are saying on any topic by simply searching a keyword or string.Technorati offers a similar service with the additional ability to sort blogs by authority and subject.
Wide World
The sources covered in this article are some of the best, but only the tip of the iceberg. Beyond searching on Google and other search engines, educators can browse the Librarian's Index to the Internet for a hand-picked selection of top sites on virtually any education topic.