There's Nothing Useful to Me on the Internet

A few days ago, Dangerously Irrelevant asked teachers to identify their grade level / subject area's top ten websites.

Lots of interesting buzz surrounded this, but today Scott posted the opinions of a couple naysayers. The opinion of one was that there was a paucity of quality

"lesson plan ideas, handouts, and audio/video resources"

on the Web.

I've heard this argument before. And it ticks me off.

No one promised you that the Internet would be your own personal grab-bag of ready-made lesson plans, handouts, and a/v. Rather, the Web contains tons and tons of resources for MAKING YOUR OWN THINGS.

Handouts? Really? You can get all the 'handouts' you need at your local big-chain bookstore. Copying handouts from the Net isn't 'effective use of tech in education'. Rather, use a bit of the 'synthesis' skill we are supposed to be instilling in our students and mash up the best of some of those web standards like History Channel's History Classroom, Nova, PBS Teachers, and NASA kids with all the user-driven offerings of Web 2.0.

But just Googling 'lesson plans for _______' doesn't cut it. Of course you are going to be disappointed with the results. But that's hardly reason to criticize what the Net's got to offer.