October 19th, 2015

Search and Save Standards-Based Content in Seconds

Are you tired of unsuccessful searches for new classroom content? See how NYLearns makes it easier than ever before!

See all of NYLearns’ free educational resources aligned to NY State standards!

May 20th, 2015

3 Standards for Effective Readers and Learners

Unlock imaginations and increase student achievement with the new literacy and library resources, now available on NYLearns.

Introducing the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum.

The Information Fluency Continuum framework is based on three standards essential for students to become effective readers and learners.

Standard 1: Using Inquiry to Build Understanding and Create New Knowledge

Standard 2: Pursuing Personal and Aesthetic Growth

Standard 3: Demonstrating Social Responsibility

These standards contain benchmark skills for grades 2, 5, 8, and 12. You can find them on NYLearns by visiting the Standards tab and selecting Information Fluency Continuum from the Subject Area dropdown. Then just choose your grade level and one of the three standards to view the corresponding benchmarks.

Library media specialists can also find the standards in the alignment tool, so they can align their curriculum maps to the Information Fluency Continuum.

Check out the new literacy and library resources to engage student inquiry and spark independent learning.

As always, if you have any questions you can send us a message on Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #AskNYLearns

May 6th, 2015

Celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week

All year, educators around the world devote the majority of their days to teaching and learning. This week is an opportunity to celebrate those educators who have the ability to make lasting impressions on their students. Celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week with us by sharing your favorite teacher on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #EducatorsElevated

February 26th, 2015

Want to Diversify Your Lessons? Start with Our Featured Content.

What if I told you that you could find all of the standards-aligned instructional content and educational resources you need in one place no matter what grade level or subject area you teach?

Look no further than NYLearns’ Featured Content section. Located under the Educational Resources tab on the main menu, Featured Content offers new instructional content and educational resources, updated weekly by our team of experienced educators.

Each week, new resources like lesson plans, multimedia, activities, rubrics, web-based practices, and more, are highlighted in our Featured Content area. Plus all of our content is grouped by grade level, making it easy to quickly find content for elementary, middle school, or high school students.

Our content team delivers quality resources that can be used your classroom immediately to help ensure student success.

New Social Studies CM’s Are Here!

Also be sure to check out the over one hundred model Social Studies curriculum maps featured on NYLearns. Based on the new social studies framework released by NYSED last spring, NYLearns’ social studies curriculum maps are packed with key ideas, conceptual understandings, concept specifications, and references to specific Common Core Standards.

You can find the new social studies curriculum maps by visiting My Curriculum in your My NYLearns section once you’ve logged in. Use the NYLearns Model Common Core Maps tab and select “Social Studies” in the Subject Area box to find the right map for your classroom.

Coming in April, we’ll also have standards-aligned educational resources and assessments for every social studies curriculum map. Until then, you can use the current framework as a template to add your own resources or assessments when necessary.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook & Twitter for weekly updates on the latest classroom activities, including our featured content for the week. As always, send us your questions using the hashtag #AskNYLearns

January 9th, 2015

Over 100 Model Social Studies Curriculum Maps

Be sure to check out the over one hundred model Social Studies curriculum maps featured on NYLearns. Based on the new social studies framework released by NYSED last spring, NYLearns’ social studies curriculum maps are packed with key ideas, conceptual understandings, content specifications, and references to specific Common Core Standards.

You can find the new social studies curriculum maps by visiting My Curriculum in your My NYLearns section once you’ve logged in. Use the NYLearns Model Common Core Maps tab and select “Social Studies” in the Subject Area box to find the right map for your classroom.

Also coming in April, we’ll have standards-aligned educational resources and assessments for every social studies curriculum map. Until then, you can use the current framework as a template to add your own resources or assessments when necessary.

Follow NYLearns on Facebook & Twitter for weekly updates on the latest classroom activities, including our featured content for the week. As always, send us your questions using the hashtag #AskNYLearns

November 19th, 2014

3 Easy Ways to Find Educational Resources

Did you know that NYLearns has hundreds, no, thousands of free educational resources available to use in your classroom right now? Not only that, but our content specialists update the featured content weekly to reflect current events and seasonal trends.

That means you can stop wasting your valuable time sifting through thousands of potentially unusable search engine results for classroom activities, and start using NYLearns’ standards-aligned educational resources to build curriculum that reflects the state standards and performance indicators you need to teach.

Here are three ways you can quickly find educational resources and instructional content aligned to NYS standards:

1. Search by Keyword, Grade Level, or Subject Area

This one seems pretty straightforward, but did you know that you can also narrow your search results to include specific types of materials and resources?

Click on the check box in front of the content type to search for Lesson Plans, Learning Experience/Units, E-Books, Interactive Maps, Web-based Practices, and more.

Screenshot_1

2. Search by Content Provider

All of our educational resources come from reputable content providers like Karpeles, LearnZillion, and the New York State Education Department – just to name a few.

You can narrow your searches to only include resources from a specific content provider. We’ve compiled a list of unique keywords that allow you to browse specific collections of content providers within NYLearns based on your own interests.

Screenshot_2

3. Search Featured Content and the Featured Content Archive

New instructional content and educational resources are featured every week to our community of users in the NYLearns Featured Content section.

Screenshot_3

The featured content archive is arranged by Elementary, Intermediate, and Commencement level as well as by Activity, Learning Experience, Lesson Plan, Rubric, and more.

Screenshot_4

Plus, NYLearns subscribers can save all of their favorite educational resources in their ePortfolios to add to curriculum maps, build formative assessments, create planbooks, and add to their teacher websites.

So what are you waiting for? Start delivering results with NYLearns.  Click here to browse our database of standards-aligned educational resources and instructional content that’s ready to be plugged into your curriculum immediately.

October 21st, 2014

A Better Way to Organize Your ePortfolio

Every NYLearns account includes free unlimited cloud storage for things like documents, videos, bookmarks, and anything else you might use in the classroom.  That’s right, we said UNLIMITED CLOUD STORAGE!

However, we’ve noticed that some users are deleting their documents from their ePortfolio once they’ve used them, presumably to avoid clutter.

Not a good idea.

One of the great advantages of storing all of your teacher resources in your ePortfolio is being able to connect them to all of your teacher tools. For example, you can add a homework assignment to your teacher website, add an assessment to a lesson plan using your ePlanner, or even add a video to your curriculum map!

But, if you delete from your ePortfolio a document that’s linked to more than one tool, your Curriculum Map and your website for example, it breaks the link in both instances.  Frustrating, I know.

If you’re worried about clutter, create new folders in your ePortfolio based on grade level, subject area, month, or, for the avid uploaders, even the week.  That way you can keep all of your documents in your ePortfolio so they’re easily accessible anywhere you have an internet connection, and you can still find everything quickly.

So stop worrying about storage and start uploading!

If you have any questions, or just want to send us feedback, send us a message on Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #AskNYLearns.

September 23rd, 2014

NYLearns Vertical Viewer

A New Vertical View of the New York State Standards

As educators, we are aware that standards increase in complexity and sophistication as students advance.  So how can NYLearns users see the increase in rigor within a particular strand of a standard as a student moves from grade to grade?

Introducing the NYLearns Vertical Viewer.

The Vertical Viewer is designed to demonstrate the vertical alignment of the state standards throughout the grade levels and provide further clarity of the depth and complexity of the standards.

How the Vertical Viewer Works

Clicking on a cell in the Vertical Viewer allows you to locate educational resources and assessment items that can be used during instruction.  You may elect to look at resources for your grade level, or you may elect to locate resources from a previous grade level for review and reinforcement, or from a higher grade level to use with advanced students.

For example, a 4th grade teacher can look at grades PreK-3 and see what students should have been taught within a specific domain of the standards before they reach her.  The same teacher can also look at grades 5 and beyond to see what she should be preparing them for.

The Vertical Viewer is also a helpful tool for administrators who are writing curriculum, because a review of the vertical articulation of the standards can help to ensure that the appropriate concepts are being taught at the appropriate level and that concepts are not being repeated in multiple grade levels.

You can find the Vertical Viewer under the Standards tab on the NYLearns main menu.

Thanks for watching, and remember, if you have any questions feel free to reach out to our help desk or send us a message on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag: #AskNYLearns

August 21st, 2014

NYLearns Back-to-School Webinar #1 Recording

If you missed this week’s first NYLearns back-to-school PD webinar, “Save Time: Plan Your Year with Standard-Aligned Educational Resources & Instructional Content from NYLearns”, check out the recording below:

Webinar highlights include:

  • Standards – Explore a searchable database of NY P-12 Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics, as well as the New York State Learning Standards.
  • Educational Resources – Find thousands of high-quality Educational Resources that are aligned to the New York State Academic and Common Core Standards.  This classroom-ready content is searchable by keyword, subject area, grade level, and course.
  • Assessment Builder – Research thousands of questions, along with their alignments to standards and performance indicators, that have been entered directly from released NYS Assessments and NYS Regents Exams.

Be sure to join Marla Witkowski Wednesday, August 27 at 4:00 PM for the next free PD webinar, “1 Hour, 6 Teacher Tools, Endless Possibilities”. Register now: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/756940967

June 24th, 2014

NYLearns Summer Curriculum Writing 2014

Ask NYLearns – Episode 1: Summer Curriculum Writing
Maximize your summer vacation by using NYLearns to get a headstart on your curriculum writing.

Read the rest of this entry »