Illuminations and Curriculum Specific Tools

Illuminations and Curriculum Specific Tools

101 Days of Free Tech for Teachers, Day 12
Make learning math fun with Illuminations. This resource offers tons of math games and brain teasers for students who can choose to either challenge others or themselves. Illuminations also provides lesson plans for teachers that incorporate these games and interactives into teaching math and are searchable by NCTM or Common Core standards. There is also a section for success stories where teachers can collaborate and share ways this site helped their classes.

How We Decide Which Free Tech Tools to Feature
Yup, there are thousands of apps, tools, services, websites, and other offerings — many free — designed for teachers and students.  So, how do we sort through all of those to feature the ones which are most useful and interesting?  Well… we start by sorting through thousands of these things… then we talk to the presenters in the SimpleK12 Teacher Learning Community and watch their videos closely… then we talk to many of the members in the Teacher Learning Community, teachers just like you who are using these apps and tools day in and day out.  We've been doing this for over 30 years and have, in that time, developed a sense for what's good and bad.  Have we missed something that we should feature here?  Most certainly.  So, let us know in the Comments section what we should take a look at and we'll throw 'em into the hopper.

Carolina Fransen is the EdTech Apps and Tools Editor at SimpleK12.com.  She writes regularly about the use of educational technology in K-12 classrooms.  If you have an app, tool, website, or service that you think we should know about, please send your information or tip to editor@simplek12.com.