I have not used this site personally but it looks like an excellent resource. I am pretty sure that Ali Newbold mentioned she had used it and it is very good.
My Place for Teachers contains an exciting range of educational materials designed to support teachers in exploring issues and contexts presented in My Place, both the book and TV series. The teaching activities reflect and support the Australian Curriculum objectives for studies in both History and English for years 3–6. Things to look out for on the site include:
39 new clips from series 2
156 new English and history teaching activities that use the clips as a jumping-off point for classroom learning
12 new decade timeline entries with new photographic content
40 existing digital curriculum resources re licensed for use on the site
I have found an interesting/useful site called www.teachertime.com.au which has resources created by teachers and then uploaded to the site. You can search resources by subject area (KLA) and level (stage 1, 2 or 3). The resources uses terms like KLA (Key Learning Area), this is a term used by the NSW education department. My understanding is that stage 1, 2 and 3 are the a bit like our Strands in SACSA, they are levels of learning. The few resources that I looked at did not give me a good indication of what stage 1, 2 & 3 represented in comparison to year levels. Activities I viewed ranged from middle primary to lower and middle secondary.
Once you have brought up the website you click on the subject area and to narrow the search further by selecting the ‘Stage’. This will generate a list of resources. Open the resource you would like to look at. The preview did not work for me when I was using the site but you can download the resource as a Word document which takes less than 15 seconds (for those that I tried). You can then view it and save to your files. Once you have done this you can use the document as is or modify it to suit your classes needs. Some resources were in a ‘Notebook’ format which I could not open once download.
If you create your own free account you can upload and share your resources on the website as well. However you do not have to do this to access the resources.
At the moment this site only runs on the latest versions of Google Chrome and Firefox Internet browsers (they say they will be adding more browsers soon). These are internet browsers the same as Internet Explorer which is what most people use on their computer. You can have different browsers operate on your computer at the same time. You can download Google Chrome here. Put Google Chrome on your desk top and open it, put in the web address www.teachertime.com.au and it will function properly.
In summary:
There are some issues with Notebook files not being accessable without the appropriate software (there are however more Word docs than Notebook) and having to download Google Chrome (a 5 minute job).
Some resources are basic.
Some resources are excellent and should provide great lesson ideas in society and environment, science, maths and English.
