Educational Search Engines Are Great For Teachers and Parents

Educational search engines are an incredible resource for both teachers and parents. Perhaps the best one I have used is education-world.org, which is a virtual library of educational information. The site is very user friendly and easy to navigate. You have the option to search the site with their search tool or their mini site guide which has virtually everything categorized for you.

I like the mini site guide because it has everything well organized into six major categories: lesson planning, professional development, technology integration, school issues, administrator's desk and more resources. You can easily find everything from lesson planning to parent issues, making it an invaluable tool for both teachers and parents alike.

The WMIA Educational Foundation Is Now Accepting Applications for 2008 Scholarships

The WMIA Educational Foundation is now accepting applications for 2008 scholarships. WMIA stands for Woodworking Machinery Industry Association, and offers scholarships that range from one to five thousand dollars. These scholarships are intended for talented students working towards careers in wood technology, machinery and other related fields of study.

Eligible students must have graduated from high school before July 1 of the year in which they intend to utilize the scholarship money, and must meet academic requirements to be accepted by an accredited college. Existing college students are also eligible to apply as well as prior scholarship winners (they can receive a second scholarship).

Get Free Educational Clipart on the Internet

If you are a teacher and looking for some free educational clipart for your students then you need to turn to the Internet because there are loads of resources available. A great resource I have found is at teacherfiles.com where they have free educational clip art, lesson ideas and printable resources for teachers.

Here is just a taste of some of the educational clip art they have:

Titles/headlines, which have school related words and work perfect as titles or headlines for newsletter.

Monthly signs, which are exciting signs for the different months of the year that work great for monthly calendars or lesson plans.

Unit theme titles, which are great for common themes like science, history and math.

Free Educational Materials for Teachers for Black History Month

Black History Month is celebrated every February, and is a great opportunity for educators to share big historical events with their students. Recently, Thinkfinity.org announced that they have created a special section of its home page that offers free educational materials for teachers to utilize during Black History Month.

Thinkfinity.org is a website that currently has over 50,000 educational resources for students from kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade. Some of the highlights of the Black History Month section include the Underground Railroad, Dr. Martin Luther King, the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education, and many student interactive exercises.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Of 1974

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act often referred to as FERPA or the Buckley Amendment was passed by the US Senate in 1974. It is often referred to as the Buckley Act because one of its biggest proponents was Senator James Buckley of New York. The Act was established to protect the privacy of parents and students and has different policies and implications to students under the age of 18 and those over 18.

For students under the age of 18, the law requires that parents have access to their children's education records and provides an opportunity for them to get records they deem to be inaccurate corrected. It also requires school districts to obtain written permission from parents before releasing information from the child's educational records.

For students over the age of 18, basically college students, the law allows for only certain information to be released to the public by the educational institution. The information that is allowed to be public is the student's name, phone #, dates of attendance, enrollment status (full or part-time), degree and awards earned, and major. For student athletes they will also make public an athletes height, weight, and date of birth.

Get Free Online Educational Games for Your Kids

If you are looking for some educational games to play with your kids you should look to the Internet. You will be amazed at the amount of free online educational games you can find.

A great site I have found with tons of free games is funschool.kaboose.com, where they have games for children of all ages and some are actually pretty fun for parents. They have games for preschoolers all the way up to sixth graders, and they are well categorized by ages and grades.

There are also many other sites offering free educational games, you just have to do some searching and you will find something that matches your child's tastes.