Amateur radio, often called ham radio, is a hobby enjoyed by many people throughout the world. An amateur radio operator, ham, or radio amateur uses two-way radio to communicate with other radio amateurs, for recreation or self-edification. The origin of the word “ham” is unknown.
As of 2004 there were about 3 million hams worldwide with about 700,000 in the USA, 600,000 in Japan, 140,000 each in South Korea and Thailand, 57,000 in Canada, 70,000 in Germany, 60,000 in UK, 11,000 in Sweden, and 5,000 in Norway.
Governance and amateur radio societies
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) governs the allocation of communications frequencies world-wide, with participation by each nation by representation from their communications regulation authority. National communications regulators have some liberty to restrict access to these frequencies, or to award additional allocations as long as radio services in other countries do not suffer interference.
In some countries, specific emission types are restricted to certain parts of the radio spectrum, and in most other countries, International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) member societies adopt voluntary plans to concentrate modes of transmission in specific frequency allocations within IARU guidelines, to ensure most effective use of available spectrum.
Many countries have their own national (non-government) amateur radio society that coordinates with the communications regulation authority for the benefit of all Amateurs. The oldest of these societies is the Wireless Institute of Australia, formed in 1910; other notable societies are the Radio Society of Great Britain, the American Radio Relay League, and Radio Amateurs of Canada.
How to become a Ham
In most countries, amateur radio operators are required to pass a test in order to be licensed. In return, hams are granted operating privileges in allocated segments of the entire radio frequency spectrum using a wide variety of communication techniques.
Once licensed, the radio amateur is issued a callsign by its government. This callsign is unique to the operator and is often a source of pride. The holder of a callsign uses it on the air to legally identify the operator or station during any and all radio communications.
In many countries, amateurs are required to pass an examination to demonstrate technical knowledge, operating competence and awareness of legal and regulatory requirements, in order to avoid interference with other amateurs and other radio services. In the majority of countries, there are a series of exams available, progressively more challenging and granting progressively more privileges in terms of frequency availability, power output, and permitted experimentation.
In many countries, amateur licensing is a routine civil administrative matter, with considerable worldwide improvement in the past 15 years. In some countries, however, amateur licensing is either inordinately bureaucratic (e.g. India), or amateurs must undergo difficult security approval (e.g. Iran). A handful of countries, currently only Yemen and North Korea, simply do not permit their citizens to operate amateur radio stations, although in both cases a handful of foreign visitors have been permitted to obtain amateur licenses in the past decade.
A further difficulty occurs in developing countries, where licensing structures are often copied from European countries and annual license fees can be prohibitive in terms of local incomes. This is a particular problem in Africa and to a lesser extent in poorer parts of Asia and Latin America. Small countries or those with weak administrative structures may not have a national licensing scheme and may require amateurs to take the licensing exams of a foreign country in lieu.
Amateur licensing in theUnited Statesserves as an example of the way some countries award different levels of amateur radio licenses based on knowledge and telegraphy skill. TheUnited Statessystem has evolved into three-levels of license. The entry-level license, known as Technician, is awarded after an applicant successfully completes a 35-question multiple choice written examination. The license grants operating privileges on all bands above 50 MHz. A Technician who passes a 5 word-per-minute Morse code test is further granted privileges in portions of the 10-, 15-, 40-, and 80-meter amateur bands. The next grade, known as General, requires passage of the Technician test, the 5 word-per-minute telegraphy test, as well as a 35-question multiple-choice General exam. General-class licensees are granted privileges on portions of all amateur HF bands, in addition to the Technician privileges. The topUSlicense class is Amateur Extra. The Extra class license requires the same tests as General plus a third multiple-choice exam. This exam has 50 questions. Those with Amateur Extra licenses are granted privileges on allUSamateur bands.
Morse Code requirement
Commercial and military use of Morse Code radiotelegraphy has almost completely disappeared. As a result, there is a growing demand for Morse testing to be dropped from amateur radio licensing requirements. Until recently, amateurs operating in the short-, medium-, or longwave bands were required by international regulation to pass a Morse code telegraphy exam.
At the 2003 World Radio communication Conference (WRC-03) this requirement was made optional leaving it up to individual nations to decide whether or not Morse testing should be required. As a result, many nations, e.g. Canada, Japan, many nations of the European and Oceania, have dropped the requirement while others have yet to make a decision (e.g. USA, India, China, most Arab and Caribbean countries). Presently countries dropping the requirement represent 12% of world Amateurs. While some countries are dropping the requirement for an entry level license, countries like Japan chose to maintain the telegraphy test requirement for it’s highest class license. U.S. Amateurs recently commented in favour of keeping the telegraphy test for at least the highest class license by a 55% to 45% margin  when answering a request by the FCC to respond to a Notice of Proposed Rule making (RM 05-235). The FCC proposal seeks to remove the telegraphy test requirement for Amateur Radio altogether.
Morse code is normally sent on the ham bands by keying an unmodulated single-frequency transmission on and off. This communication mode is referred to as CW (Continuous Wave). Statistics show Morse Code use (CW) continues to be the second most popular mode on Amateur Radio with use by Amateurs averaging about 30-35%.
Privileges of the Amateur
In contrast to most commercial and personal radio services, most radio amateurs are not restricted to using type-approved equipment, allowing them to home-construct or modify equipment in any way so long as they meet national and international standards on spurious emissions.
As noted, radio amateurs have access to frequency allocations throughout the RF spectrum, enabling choice of frequency to enable effective communication whether across a city, a region, a country, a continent or the whole world regardless of season or time day or night. The short wave bands, or HF, can facilitate worldwide communication, the VHF and UHF bands offer excellent regional communication, and the broad microwave bands have enough space, or bandwidth, for television transmissions and high-speed data networks.
Although permitted power levels are moderate by commercial standards, they are sufficient to enable cross-continental communication even with the least effective antenna systems, and world-wide communications at least occasionally even with moderate antennas. Power limits vary from country to country, for the highest license classes for example, 2 kilowatts in most countries of the former Yugoslavia, 1.5 kilowatts in the United States, 1 kilowatt in Belgium, 750 watts in Germany, 400 watts in the United Kingdom and 150 watts in Oman. Lower license classes are usually restricted to lower power limits; for example the lowest license class in the UK has a limit of just 10 watts.
Some suggest that the amateur portion of the radio spectrum is like a national park: something like the Yosemite of natural phenomenon. Through the licensing requirement, radio amateurs become like trained national park guides and backpackers. Where the backpackers and guides know about the beauty of the parks as well as the rules of engagement with wildlife in the park system, radio amateurs learn to appreciate and respect the beauty of the very limited electromagnetic space and the rules of engagement of human interaction within that space. In contrast, all of humanity benefits from the radio spectrum’s existence, although it can not actually be seen.
What does one do with amateur radio?
An amateur radio operator engaging in two-way communications.
Amateur radio operators enjoy personal two-way communications with friends, family members, and complete strangers, all of whom must also be licensed. They support the larger public community with emergency and disaster communications. Increasing a person’s knowledge of electronics and radio theory as well as radio contesting are also popular aspects of amateur radio.
A good way to get started in amateur radio is to find a club in your area to answer your questions and provide information on getting licensed and then getting on the air. If you are in the U.S., you can find a club near you by going to the American Radio Relay League‘s Affiliated Club Search page.
Radio amateurs use a variety of modes of transmission to communicate with one another. Voice transmissions are the most common way hams communicate with one another, with some types of emission such as frequency modulation (FM) offering high quality audio for local operation where signals are strong, and others such as single side band (SSB) offering more reliable communications when signals are marginal and using smaller amounts of bandwidth.
Radiotelegraphy using Morse code remains surprisingly popular, particularly on the shortwave bands and for experimental work on the microwave bands, with its inherent signal-to-noise ratio advantages. Morse, using internationally agreed code groups, can also facilitate communications between amateurs who do not share a common language. Radiotelegraphy is also popular with home constructors as CW-only transmitters are simple to construct when compared to voice transmitters.
The explosion in personal computing power has led to a boom in digital modes such as radio teletype, which a generation ago required cumbersome and expensive specialist equipment. Hams led in the development of packet radio, which has since been augmented by more specialized modes such as PSK31 which is designed to facilitate real-time, low-power communications on the shortwave bands. Other modes, such as the WSJT suite, are aimed at extremely marginal propagation modes including meteor scatter and moonbounce or Earth-Moon-Earth (EME).
Similarly, fast scan amateur television, once considered rather esoteric, has exploded in popularity thanks to cheap camcorders and good quality video cards in home computers. Because of the wide bandwidth and stable signals required, it is limited in range to at most 100 km (about 62 miles) in normal conditions.
Most of the modes noted above rely on the simplex communication mode, that is direct, radio-to-radio communication. On VHF and higher frequencies, automated relay stations, or repeaters, are used to increase range. Repeaters are usually located on the top of a mountain or tall building. A repeater allows the radio amateur to communicate over hundreds of square miles using only a relatively low power hand-held transceiver. Repeaters can also be linked together, either by use of other amateur radio bands, by wireline, or, increasingly via the Internet.
While many hams just enjoy talking to friends, others pursue interests such as providing communications for a community emergency response team; antenna theory; communication via amateur satellites ; disaster response; severe weather spotting; DX communication over thousands of miles using the ionosphere to refract radio waves; the Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) which is a composite network of radio and the Internet; Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS), which is a system of remote positioning that uses GPS; Contesting; the sport of Amateur Radio Direction Finding; High Speed Telegraphy; or low-power operation.
Most hams have a room or area in their home which is dedicated to their radio and ancillary test equipment, known as the “shack” in ham slang.
Emergency and public service communications
In times of crisis and natural disasters, ham radio is often used as a means of emergency communication when wire line and other conventional means of communications fail. Recent examples include the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the 2003 North America blackout and Hurricane Katrina in September, 2005, where amateur radio was used to coordinate disaster relief activities when other systems failed.
On September 2, 2004, ham radio was used to inform weather forecasters with information on Hurricane Frances live from the Bahamas. On December 26, 2004, an earthquake and resulting tsunami across the Indian Ocean wiped out all communications with the Andaman Islands, except for a DX-pedition that provided as a means to coordinate relief efforts.
The largest disaster response by U.S. amateur radio operators was during Hurricane Katrina which first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane just north of Miami,Florida on August 25, 2005. More than a thousand ham operators from all over the U.S.converged on the Gulf Coast in an effort to provide emergency communications assistance.
In the United States, there are two methods of organizing amateur radio emergency communications. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), sponsored by the ARRL, and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), usually organized by municipal or county governments. RACES authorization comes from Part 97.407 of the FCC regulations.
In New Zealand the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART) provides the AREC – Amateur Radio Emergency Communications (formerly Amateur Radio Emergency Corps) in the role. They won the New Zealand National Search and Rescue award in 2001 for their long commitment to Search and Rescue in NZ.
Amateurs are often professionally involved in areas which complement their hobby, such as electronics, emergency services, or aviation. This often sees hams as being at the forefront of the development of ‘STSP’ (Short Term Special Purpose) repeater systems and other complex radio linking systems able to easily be inserted by trampers or aircraft into a search area. Being able to provide VHF or UHF radio into an emergency or disaster area means that teams on the ground can use relatively common and portable handheld radios to liaise with base, or with other agencies. VHF-based communications supported by cross banding or STSP repeaters are gradually replacing portable HF systems because of their flexibility, and the relative portability of their antenna and power systems.
DXing, QSL cards and awards
Many amateurs enjoy trying to contact stations in as many different parts of the world as they can on shortwave bands, or over as great a range as possible on the higher bands, a pursuit which is generally known as DXing.
Traditionally radio amateurs exchange QSL cards with other stations, to provide written confirmation of a conversation (QSO). These are required for many amateur operating awards, and many amateurs also enjoy collecting them simply for the pleasure of doing so.
The number of operating awards available is literally in the thousands. The most popular awards are the Worked All States award, usually the first award amateurs in the United States aim for, the Worked All Continents award, also an entry level award on the shortwave bands, and the more challenging Worked All Zones and DX Century Club (DXCC) awards. DXCC is the most popular awards programme, with the entry level requiring amateurs to contact 100 of the (as of 2005) 335 recognized countries and territories in the world, which leads on to a series of operating challenges of increasing difficulty. Many awards are available for contacting amateurs in a particular country, region or city.
Certain parts of the world have very few radio amateurs. As a result, when a station with a rare ID comes on the air, radio amateurs flock to communicate with it. Often amateurs will travel specifically to a country or island, in what is known as a DX-pedition, to activate it. Big DX-peditions can make as many as 100,000 individual contacts in a few weeks.
Many amateurs also enjoy contacting the many special event stations on the air. Set up to commemorate special occurrences, they often issue distinctive QSLs or certificates. Some use unusual prefixes, such as the call signs with “96” that amateurs in the US State of Georgia could use during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, or the OO prefix used by Belgian amateurs in 2005 to commemorate their nation’s 175th anniversary. Many amateurs decorate their radio “shacks” with these certificates.
Some hams enjoy attempting to communicate distances with very low power. Signals on the order of 5 watts or less are heard all over the world by these QRP (low power) operators. Some amateurs never use more than a few watts of transmit power. By setting up efficient antennas and using expert operating techniques, they can make regular international contacts and get immense satisfaction from their achievements.
Contesting is another activity that has garnered interest in the ham community. During a period of time (normally 24 to 48 hours) a ham tries to successfully communicate with as many other amateur radio stations as possible. Different contests have different emphases, with some aimed at chasing DX stations, or stations in a particular country or continent. In some the focus is on operating a station running on emergency power (i.e. portable generators or batteries) to contact other such stations (Field Day), to simulate hurricane or other emergency disaster conditions.
In some contests all operating modes are permitted, while others may be limited to single mode such as voice or CW (Continuous Wave, more commonly called Morse Code). Often, hams join together to form contest teams.
Many hams enjoy casually gaining a few points in a contest, other chasing rare stations who are more likely to make an appearance in these events, others try to set the best possible score using a very limited home station. The serious competitors spend a lot of time in training, spend a lot of money in building up a world class station, and will often travel to a rare country or prime geographical location in order to win.
Amplitude Modulation is a mode and an activity that enjoys status as a nostalgic specialty on the shortwave ham bands (1.8 – 29 mHz, or just above AM broadcast band to just beyond the CB band), and draws a wide range of enthusiasts from rock star Joe Walsh, WB6ACU, to the Federal Communications Commission’s Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH.
Participating Station, “Heavy Metal Rally”
Conversations are often configured as “round tables” where several participants spend time developing and presenting their thoughts in a storytelling fashion. Listeners reflect on each transmission much as families did when they listened to the old wooden floor console in the early days of radio. Many find this style of communicating more satisfying than the rapid-fire style of operating that can seem rushed and shallow by comparison.
Much of the conversation revolves around do-it-yourself experimentation, repairs, and restoration of popular, vintage vacuum-tube equipment, which has been rising in value because of nostalgic demand. But contemporary transceivers also include AM among modes, and can sound quite good on transmit and receive as a way to encourage a newcomer to check in and introduce themselves.
Frequencies to look for AM activity include 1885, 1930, 3885, 7285, 14286 and 21425, and often include “special event” stations using unique call signs, such as W3F,  K3L  and W3R , The Radio History Society’s station pictured at right. The sound and visual impact of vintage radio are powerful lures.
VHF, UHF and microwave weak-signal operation
While many radio amateurs use use VHF or UHF frequencies primarily for local communications, other amateurs build up more sophisticated systems to communicate over as wide a range as possible.
Despite the common misconception of ‘line of sight’ a VHF signal transmitted from a walkie-talkie (or as hams call it a Handi-talkie or HT for short) will typically travel about 5-10 km depending on terrain, and with a low power home station and a simple antenna to around 50 km. With a large antenna system like a long yagi, and higher power (typically 100 or more watts) contacts of around 1000 km are common. Such operators seek to exploit the limits of the frequencies’ usual characteristics looking to learn and experiment with radio technology. They also seek to take advantage of “band openings” where due to various natural occurrences, radio emissions can travel well over their normal characteristics. There are numerous causes for these band openings and many hams listen for hours to take advantage of their rare manifestations, which may be of fleeting duration.
Some openings are caused by intense excitement of the upper atmosphere, known as the ionosphere. Other band openings are caused by a weather phenomenon known as an inversion layer, where cold air traps hot air beneath it, which forces the radio emission to travel over long weather layers. Radio signals can travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres due to these weather layers.
Others bounce their signals off the moon (see moonbounce). The return signal is heard by other hams who have equipment suitable for EME (earth-moon-earth) operation, as it is known. The antennas normally required can range from parabolic dishes of up to 10 metres in diameter to an array of directional (usually of the yagi type) antennas.
Digital signal processing has revolutionised weak signal communications by radio amateurs. Using freely available software tools and modern computers, radio amateurs can achieve results they would only have dreamed of only 10 years earlier. For example, reflecting signals off the moon, once the realm of only the very best equipped amateur stations, has become feasible for much more modest stations. Instead of a large dish or an array of 8 antennas, it has become possible for stations with 400 to 1000 watts transmit power and a single well designed antenna to make contacts using moonbounce.
Licensed amateurs often take portable equipment with them when travelling, whether in their luggage or fitted into their cruising yachts, caravans or other vehicles. On long-distance expeditions and adventures such equipment allows them to stay in touch with other amateurs, reporting progress, arrival and sometimes exchanging safety messages along the way.
Many hams at fixed locations are pleased to hear directly from such travellers. From in a yacht in mid-ocean or a 4×4 inside the Arctic Circle, a friendly voice and the chance of a kind fellow-enthusiast sending an e-mail home is very well received.
See maritime mobile amateur radio for further details about operation in this way at sea.
Some countries’ amateur radio licences allow for phone patching, or the direct connection of amateur transceivers to telephone lines. Thus a traveller may be able to call another amateur station and, via a phone patch, speak directly with someone else by telephone.
Mr Kamal Edirisinghe from Sri Lanka operating portable Amateur Radio station south of Stockholm,Sweden
Low power operations
There is a sub-culture of amateur radio operators who concentrate on building and operating radios that operate at low power. This activity goes by the name QRP which is an international Q code for “reduce power”. QRP operators use less than 5 watts output on Morse Code and 10 watts on voice.
Operators can carry small portable QRP tranceivers on their person.
An international organization that promotes this activity is called the QRP Amateur Radio Club International  (QRPARCI).
Many records for low power communications over great distances have been set using slow speed telegraphy sent and received by computer .
Past, present, and future
Despite all these exciting specialities many hams enjoy the informal contacts, long discussions or “Rag Chewing”, or round table “nets”, whether by voice, Morse code, or computer keyboard.
Even with the advent of the Internet, interest in amateur radio has not diminished in countries with an advanced communications infrastructure. This may be because hams enjoy communicating using the simplest hardware possible, as well as finding the most technically advanced way, advancing the art of radio communication at both ends, frequently beyond what professionals are willing to try to risk.
Nonetheless, Voice over IP (VoIP) is also finding its way into amateur radio. Programs like Echolink, the Internet Radio Linking Project and app rpt/Asterisk use VoIP to tie hams with computers into radio repeaters across the globe. This nascent use is finding applications in emergency services as well, as an alternative to expensive (and sometime fallible) public safety trunking systems.
Some critics point out that in traditional strongholds such as Japan, the United States and Western Europe, amateur populations are ageing Supporters counter that this merely reflects demographic reality in these ageing countries, and in any case is an ethnocentric position. In China and Eastern Europe, young amateur populations are growing rapidly despite equally unfavourable demographics, and young people are also flocking to the hobby in rapidly developing regions such as India, Thailand, Malaysia and the Arabian Peninsula.
Amateur radio innovations and technology
Throughout their history, radio amateurs have made significant contributions to science, engineering, industry, and the social services. For example, Guglielmo Marconi, founder of practical radio communications, often boasted that he was “only an amateur”. Other innovative hams have, historically, included Howard Hughes; Robert Goddard; David Hampton (‘Furby’ inventor) and many Nobel Prize winners. The economic and social benefit derived from amateur radio research has founded new industries, built economies, empowered nations, and saved lives.
Amateur radio represents a unique research and development (R&D) opportunity for exploration and personal growth, nurturing research and hands-on education. This creates an environment for new technologies. Existing at the intersection of the social, economic, cultural and scientific spheres, some radio amateurs have used this position to invent and innovate from a unique perspective. Many now-commonplace communication technologies have their genesis from hams.
Recent exponential growth in commercial wireless communication systems has taxed existing commercial spectrum allocations, and industry is eager for expansion. Some segements of amateur radio allocations in the UHF and microwave frequency spectrum are threatened in many countries. Historically, amateur radio operators, sometimes employees of large communications firms, are involved in the development of new communication technologies in underutilized portions of the radio spectrum. Amateur radio operators were the among the first, for example, to explore the microwave spectrum.
A current, (year 2005) problem includes proposals by some companies to transmit internet data over power lines. Known as BPL, this technology can create significant radio frequency interference to a wide variety of other spectrum users. While the U.S. Federal Communications Commission appears to be sympathetic to the industry, many European regulators have demonstrated mixed views and Japanese regulators have rejected an application in that country. Amateurs have been responding to the threat by conducting substantial research, and by gathering evidence of the BPL system’s non-compatibility with many services including amateur and other commercial users of the medium wave, shortwave and lower VHF spectrum. As of 2005, field trials in the U.S., where the situation looks most problematic for hams, have generally been unsuccessful in meeting generally accepted radio pollution standards, and are often discontinued after brief attempts to attract customers. However, the threat to the amateur radio service has not been realized from BPL technologies, and, indeed, recent advances have actually been endorsed by the American Radio Relay League. leaving the viability of BPL to market competition rather than threat of widespread harmful interference.
In a growing environment of wireless use, amateur radio’s place is assured, and continued leveraging of progress for wireless can only be sustained through such assurances.
When travelling abroad, the visitor must hold a reciprocal license with the country in which she or he wishes to operate. Reciprocal licensing requirements vary from country to country. Some countries have bilateral or multilateral reciprocal operating agreements allowing Hams to operate within their borders with a single set of requirements.
Band plans and frequency allocations
Through ITU agreement, frequencies have been set aside for amateur radio. From there, national telecommunication agencies decide which of the international allocations can be used within their borders. National amateur radio societies often have band plans to further divided those allocations, often by use.
Amateur radio in popular culture
Amateur radio can be found throughout popular culture as a plot device. An example from Hollywood is the 2000 film Frequency. In it, the two main characters, a father and son (played by Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel respectively), communicate via amateur radio after the father has died. This is, of course, impossible, but makes a fine plot device. A wealth of additional information may be found at the main article link shown above.


- Develop a foundational understanding of learning theories driving current technology development and adoption for K-12;
- Develop a foundational understanding of prominent technology integration models;
- Consider their own values guiding effective technology integration in the classroom.
Technology integration in the realm of education refers to the meaningful implementation of technology in educational settings to achieve learning goals. This chapter seeks to answer the question: what is effective technology integration? Though on the surface this may seem like a simple question, it is actually quite difficult to answer, because doing so is dependent upon our beliefs and values, how we view learning, and how we view technology’s role in the learning process. To approach this question, we will proceed in this chapter by 1) revisiting some common learning theories and how they might influence our perspective of technology’s role in learning, 2) exploring the beliefs and values that individuals and institutions might apply when evaluating technology use in the classroom, and 3) providing an overview of some common technology integration models that are used to help teachers better understand the process and goals of technology integration.
Ever since there have been educators trying to teach students, there have been theories that guide how those educators view the process of learning. These learning theories encompass our beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how a person learns.
Debates surrounding learning theories have existed for millennia, and even in the modern world, there is great diversity in how scientists, psychologists, and educators view learning. Some of the major learning theories that shape modern conversations surrounding technology integration include behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, constructionism, and connectivism. Each of these theories has been studied and written about at length, and it is impossible to devote sufficient time and attention to each theory in the limited space provided in this chapter. Rather, all educators should study competing learning theories and develop their own understanding of how people learn. In this chapter, we will merely provide an extremely high level overview of each of these theories, what each entails, and what each might mean for teaching and learning with technology.
Behaviorism was popularized in the mid-20th century as psychologists studied behavior patterns and response systems in humans and other animals. Behaviorism treats learning as a response to stimulus. That is, humans and other animals are trained to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli, such as salivating when a dinner bell rings or repeating a memorized fact to receive some external reward. Teaching and learning, then, is a process of conditioning students to properly react to stimuli, and technology can help facilitate this training by providing incentives to learning, such as games or other rewards, or by providing systems to efficiently develop stimulus-response conditioning, such as drill-and-kill practices.
Cognitivism arose as an alternative to behaviorism in part because behaviorism treated the processes of the brain as an imperceptible black box, wherein understanding how the brain worked was not considered important for helping people learn. Cognitivism, therefore, dealt with brain functions and how information is processed, stored, retrieved, and applied. By treating humans as thinking machines, rather than as animals to be trained, research in cognitivism for teaching and learning focused on helping people develop efficient teaching and studying strategies that would allow their brains to make meaningful use of presented information. Through this lens, technology can help in providing information and study resources that assist the brain in efficiently storing and retrieving information, such as through the use of mnemonic devices or multiple modalities (e.g., video, audio).
However, both behaviorism and cognitivism tended to treat learning the same for all humans, despite their age, culture, or personal experiences. Recognizing that these factors might influence how learning occurs, constructivism arose as a means for understanding how individual and social factors might influence the process of learning for different groups of people and individuals. Constructivism holds that learning is constructed by learners on top of previous experience, attitudes, and beliefs. This means that for learning to occur, new learning experiences must take into consideration these human factors and assist the individual in assimilating new knowledge to their existing knowledge constructs. Thus, if you are teaching students about fractions, you must teach them using language that they will understand and connect their learning to experiences in their own lives that will have meaning for them. Technology can help the constructivist learning process by making abstract concepts and facts more grounded in personal experiences and the values of learners and also by allowing the learning experience to be differentiated for individual learners (e.g., through personalized developmentally-appropriate software).
Believing that knowledge is constructed in the mind, some then took constructivism to the stage of a pedagogical process and called it constructionism. From the constructionist viewpoint, the most effective way to teach in a constructivist manner is to have students construct artifacts in the outside world that support and reflect their internal construction of knowledge. For instance, if a student needs to learn about basic engineering concepts, in order to build the internal mind models necessary to understand engineering, students must construct external models, which might take the form of a bridge or catapult. Technology can support constructionist approaches to teaching and learning by empowering students and teachers to create and construct external models reflecting internal mind models with resources and possibilities not available in the real world. By using a simulation, for instance, students can construct any structure or machine without the need of expensive materials, or they might seek to understand economic principles of supply and demand by creating a simulated community that allows them to influence supply chains in ways that would not be possible in the real world.
Even with these competing theories, some still believed that learning experiences and processes as they actually exist in the real world were not fully represented, and this has become especially obvious now that we live in a society that is heavily networked and connected via electronic and social media. All traditional views about learning had placed knowledge and learning squarely in the mind or body of the student, but modern technologies in particular lead us to consider whether all memory, information processing, and other aspects of learning traditionally ascribed to the mind might not also be distributed with external devices. Connectivism holds that the process and goals of learning in a highly networked and connected world is different than learning in the predigital world, because learners are now persistently connected to information sources and other resources through their electronic devices, such as smartphones or laptops. From the connectivist perspective, learning need not be isolated to the mind, but becoming a learned and capable citizen in a digital society requires learners to become connected with one another in such a way that they can make use of the network as an extension of their own mind and body. Thus from a connectivist perspective, the goal of education is to more fully and efficiently connect learners with one another and with information resources in a manner that is persistent and in which learners can make ongoing use of the network to solve problems. From this perspective, technology can be used to improve learning experiences by more fully connecting students with one another and information resources in a persistent manner.
Each of these learning theories views the learner, the learner’s relationship with society, and the learner’s relationship to technology quite differently. For that reason, when we begin to consider what constitutes effective technology integration, we must acknowledge that different people and groups who have differing assumptions about how students learn will view technology integration very differently. A connectivist would believe that guiding students to use modern technologies to develop networked relationships with peers and experts in the field is an essential element of learning. However, this may require very little information processing and recall to be occurring in the mind of the learner, which would seem dubious to a cognitivist. Similarly, a constructionist would look to an architecturally sound structure created in a physics engine as evidence of understanding of mathematical engineering concepts, while a behaviorist might consider such an artifact useless in determining the student’s ability to recite foundational mathematical equations that every engineer should know. In short, the effectiveness of technology integration requires evidence that the integration is effective, but what is believed to be effective for learning will depend upon our view of learning.
Thus, the first step toward defining effective technology integration for yourself is to consider how you define learning and what constitutes evidence of learning. Similarly as teachers work within educational institutions, the criteria by which they and their students are evaluated will rely upon one or more of the learning theories mentioned above. If there is misalignment between how the teacher views learning and how the institution views learning, then misunderstandings will arise, because what the teacher views to be effective technology integration may not be recognized or valued by the institution and vice versa.
As such, teachers need to decide for themselves what learning is to them and also understand what learning means in the institutions in which they operate. So, before you can ask yourself what is effective technology integration, you must first ask yourself the following two questions:
- What are my beliefs about learning and how learning occurs?
- What are my institution’s beliefs about learning and how learning occurs?
Beliefs and Values
Once you understand how both you and your institution view the learning process, then you can move to the next step and consider your beliefs and values with regard to technology. Some people might value the acquisition of technical skills for the sake of technical skills to be a good thing, while others might believe that technology should only be used if it is helping students to learn content better or to learn more. Though all students should learn some level of technical skill competency in order to make them suitable for the modern workplace (e.g., productivity software, keyboarding, basic programming), most technologies in education are not focused on this type of learning.
Rather, when we talk about technology integration, we are generally talking about using technology to improve the learning of content knowledge, such as science, math, history, or language arts. When viewed in this way, teachers and institutions need to consider how well new technologies will help them to teach age-old content in better or more more efficient ways and what are the opportunity costs associated with a shift to new technologies.
There is a common myth in education related to technology adoption that older or more experienced teachers are less likely to adopt new technologies and to innovate upon their practice than younger teachers. Though this may sometimes be the case, many people do not stop to consider why this might be happening. Evidence suggests that age ultimately has nothing to do with a person’s willingness to innovate, but rather, experience may help people to more quickly identify the transient nature of some changes or that some so-called innovations are actually harmful or ineffective for students.
In the case of technology in education, experienced teachers may have a wealth of understanding of how their students learn and how they can teach in effective ways, whereas new teachers may be eager to try new things and to adopt technologies that they think will help them be effective in the classroom. The problem is that sometimes the most eager teachers are also the least capable of making informed decisions, because they may lack the experiential knowledge necessary to make informed choices about these technologies, how much time to invest in learning them, and what to expect in terms of student outcomes. In every case, a teacher’s beliefs and values will drive how they view technology integration, whether old or young, and their willingness to use technologies in their classrooms.
Similarly, schools and districts have their own beliefs and values about technology, how it should be used, and how it will impact students. For this reason it is important for us to understand each of these groups’ beliefs and values, how they may be different, and how this influences the process of technology integration. Though personal beliefs and values are complicated and will vary between different people, we will consider four areas of belief and value that guide teachers and institutions in their technology integration practices. These include: Proof, Facility, Compliance, and Institutionalization.
First, proof deals with the efficiency or efficacy of a technology to help improve student learning. Proof requires some form of discernible or measurable outcome and will be most important to teachers in the classroom or to principals and other administrators who invest time and money into technology and must prove that it is improving student achievement. From a teacher’s or principal’s perspective, if a technology does not directly improve students’ ability to learn in a discernible or measurable way, then the value of that technology will be dubious. Teachers are stressed for time and they do not want to invest the effort necessary to learn and implement new technologies if they are not going to see actual results in how their students are learning. Likewise, principals face financial and other stressors which require them to provide evidence of student learning and that they are being wise stewards of institutional resources.
Proof might be slightly different for teachers and principals, however, due to their level of vision and operation. A teacher will want evidence that a technology works in her classroom through the creation of student artifacts or saved time, while a principal might want evidence that a technology works in all classes, preferring more generalizable research evidence over anecdotal evidence from one or two teachers. This means that teachers and principals might not always see eye-to-eye when it comes to identifying meaningful evidence for technology integration, because a classroom teacher will not care about what the research says if she is not seeing success in her classroom, and a principal might not care what an individual teacher says as long as the evidence from other teachers is strong.
Second, facility deals with the ease at which a new technology can be learned, implemented, or managed at the teacher- or student-level. Teachers want to use tools that are easy to learn, and the greater the learning curve associated with a new technology the less likely a teacher will be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to learn it. Similarly, if the technology requires teachers to invest a large amount of time troubleshooting or providing tutorials to students, then they are much less likely to use it. That is, teachers value technologies that they can pick up, easily use, and put away. Technology support personnel value these technologies as well, because it means that they have to provide less support to teachers in learning and troubleshooting them, but principals and other administrators may not believe that facility is very important in comparison to other values, because in their eyes the value of the technology for learning might outweigh the cost in terms of time or effort. Thus, a principal might require all teachers to learn a new technology, because she believes that it will drastically improve student learning, even though that technology is very difficult to use and requires high levels of support.
Third, compliance deals with the legal and ethical requirements of technology use in contrast to their pragmatic use. Those who value compliance will ensure that new technologies meet security requirements or legal requirements regarding student security. Teachers and administrators rarely think about compliance when integrating new technologies, or if they do, they only do so as an afterthought. Rather, strategic technology support personnel deal most heavily with this issue and seek to ensure that technologies that are used in the classroom and across institutions will not pose legal risk to the institution. Thus, the teacher may have students use an online blogging platform without letting school or district personnel know, because those same personnel might tell her to stop, because the platform does not meet mandated security, accessibility, or privacy requirements. Similarly, filtering of web searches is typically managed at the school or district level to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations, while classroom teachers might complain about how strict filtering systems are or may have little say in determining what is allowed and what is banned. In short, compliance seems to be one driving factor for technology integration but only insofar as dedicated professionals in schools and districts are involved in the technology integration process.
And fourth, institutionalization deals with infrastructural compatibility, cost, lifespan, and management scale of new technologies. When a teacher purchases a new device or set of devices for her classroom she may not think ahead about the long-term costs associated with those devices (e.g., the price of apps or software updates, breakage, replacement), whether or not the devices are compatible with the school’s technology infrastructure (e.g., can they access the network?), or the work involved in keeping those devices up to date and working. Rather, technology support personnel often understand these issues very well and this will guide them to prefer certain technologies over others. Some technologies are very easy to manage and are very secure but have very little value in the classroom, while others may have lots of classroom value but are so difficult to manage that technology support personnel will prohibit their use.
Differing Beliefs and Values
Based on these four values, it is easy to see why technology integration in school settings can be so complicated. On the one hand, a principal might value proof by wanting to use technologies that are shown through research to improve student learning, while the teacher may want to use a technology that is easy to learn, and a technology support professional might want to use a technology that is compliant and that can easily be implemented at an institutional level. The problem is that a single technology rarely does all things well, and for that reason, certain groups will gravitate toward certain technologies while others will take a very different view.
Thus, though a classroom teacher might want to purchase iPads, a technology administrator might want to purchase Chromebooks, and a principal might want to purchase PC or Mac laptops. Each person in this scenario has certain values driving why they are picking one technology over another, and if the teacher does not understand the reason why a principal or tech support professional might have a differing view about what technologies to adopt, this can cause problems for integrating technology, because the teacher may not be able to get the technologies that she wants, she may not have the support necessary to manage and support them, or she might be required to use a technology that she does not want to use.
In all cases, the best approach to technology integration involves considering the beliefs and values of everyone involved in the institution and making selections and necessary compromises to best meet their needs. As a teacher, you must understand at least at a basic level the beliefs and values that principals and technology support personnel are working under so that you can understand their perspectives and help to inform technology decision-making with your own. So, you must consider the following:
- What are the most important factors that will guide my own technology integration decision-making?
- How do I communicate and collaborate with others who may have different values?
Technology Integration Models
Once you have a basic grasp of your own approach to learning and the beliefs and values that will guide your technology integration, you are ready to begin exploring how to make this happen effectively. Technology integration models are theoretical models that are designed to help teachers, researchers, and others in the education field to think about technology integration in meaningful ways. There are many, many technology integration models that are used by different groups. Some models are very popular while some are only used by very small groups of people, and some are very similar to one another, while others are very unique. Rather than provide an exhausting description of each technology integration model, we will now proceed by providing a brief overview of a few that we believe to be most widely used or valuable to help you begin thinking about technology integration in your classroom. The models we will explore will include the following: TPACK, RAT, SAMR, and PIC-RAT.
TPACK is the most commonly used technology integration model amongst educational researchers. The goal of TPACK is to provide educators with a framework that is useful for understanding technology’s role in the educational process. At its heart, TPACK holds that educators deal with three types of core knowledge on a daily basis: technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge. Content knowledge is knowledge of one’s content area such as science, math, or social studies. Pedagogical knowledge is knowledge of how to teach. And technological knowledge is knowledge of how to use technology tools.
These core knowledge domains, however, interact with and build on each other in important and complicated ways. For instance, if you are going to teach kindergarten mathematics, you must both understand mathematics (i.e. content knowledge) and how to teach (i.e. pedagogical knowledge), but you must also understand the relationship between pedagogy and the content area. That is you must understand how to teach mathematics, which is very different from teaching other subject areas, because the pedagogical strategies you use to teach mathematics will be specific to that content domain. When we merge content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge together, a hybrid domain emerges called pedagogical content knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge includes knowledge about content and pedagogy, but it also includes the specific knowledge necessary to teach the specified content in a meaningful way.
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org
TPACK goes on to explain that when we try to integrate technology into a classroom setting, we are not merely using technological knowledge, but rather, we are merging technological knowledge with pedagogical content knowledge to produce something new. TPACK or technological pedagogical content knowledge is the domain of knowledge wherein technology, pedagogy, and content meet to create a meaningful learning experience. From this, educators need to recognize that merely using technology in a classroom is not sufficient to produce truly meaningful technology integration. Rather, teachers must understand how technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge interact with one another to produce a learning experience that is meaningful for students in specific situations.
RAT and SAMR
RAT and SAMR are very similar technology integration models, though RAT has been used more often by researchers and SAMR has been used more often by teachers. Both of these models assume that the introduction of technology into a learning experience will have some effect on what is happening, and they try to help us understand what this effect is and how we should be using technology in meaningful ways.
RAT is an acronym for replace, amplify, and transform, and the model holds that when technology is used in a teaching setting, technology is either used to replace a traditional approach to teaching (without any discernible difference on student outcomes), to amplify the learning that was occurring, or to transform learning in ways that were not possible without the technology (Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber, 2006). Similarly, SAMR is an acronym for substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition (Puentedura, 2003). To compare it to RAT, substitution and replacement both deal with technology use that merely substitutes or replaces previous use with no functional improvement on efficiency. Redefinition and transformation both deal with technology use that empowers teachers and students to learn in new, previously impossible ways.
The difference between these two models rests in the center letters, wherein RAT’s amplification is separated into two stages as SAMR’s augmentation and modification. All of these stages deal with technology use that functionally improves what is happening in the classroom, but in the SAMR model, augmentation represents a small improvement, and modification represents a large improvement.
Both of these models are helpful for leading educators to consider the question: what effect is using the technology having on my practice? If the technology is merely replacing or substituting previous practice, then it is a less meaningful use of technology. Whereas technology use that transforms or redefines classroom practice is considered to be more valuable.
Building off of the ideas presented in the models above, we will now provide one final model that may serve as a helpful starting point for teachers to begin thinking about technology integration. PIC-RAT assumes that there are two foundational questions that a teacher must ask about any technology use in their classrooms. These include:
- What is the students’ relationship to the technology? (PIC: Passive, Interactive, Creative)
- How is the teacher’s use of technology influencing traditional practice? (RAT: Replace, Amplify, Transform; cf. Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber, 2006)
The provided illustration maps these two questions on a two-dimensional grid, and by answering these two questions, teachers can get a sense for where any particular practice falls.
For instance, if a history teacher shifts from writing class notes on a chalkboard to providing these notes in a PowerPoint presentation, this would likely be categorized in the bottom-left (PR) section of the grid, because the teacher is using the technology to merely replace a traditional practice, and the students are passively taking notes on what they see. In contrast, if an English teacher guides students in developing a creative writing blog, which they use to elicit feedback from peers, parents, and the online community on their short stories, this would likely be categorized in the top-right (CT) section, because the teacher is using the technology to transform her practice to do something that would have been impossible without the technology, and the students are using the technology as a tool for creation.
Experience has shown that as teachers begin using technologies in their classrooms, they will typically begin doing so in a manner that falls closer to the bottom-left of the grid. However, many of the most exciting and valuable uses of technology for teaching rest firmly in the top-most and right-most sections of this grid. For this reason, teachers need to be encouraged to evolve their practice to continually move from the bottom-left (PR) to the top-right (CT) of the grid.
With these foundational understandings, you are now ready to apply your knowledge to real-life scenarios. Here are a few brief descriptions of how teachers might use technology in a classroom setting.
As you read each, consider whether these examples exhibit effective technology integration, what more information you might need to make an informed evaluation, and what factors you believe are most important for making this determination:
- A teacher uses PowerPoint as part of her lecture.
- Students are asked to keep an online journal in a blog.
- Students pass a touch-enabled tablet around the room and write a collaborative poem.
- Students play an online role-playing game about John Smith and Pocahontas.
- Students write answers to math problems on an interactive whiteboard.
- Students organize geometric shapes in patterns on an iPad.
- A teacher creates a video to introduce herself to her students on the first day.
- Students make an animated video to tell a story.
- A teacher designs a WebQuest (inquiry-driven online lesson) for students to complete on their own time.
- A teacher uses Facebook to remind her students about homework.
This chapter has provided a theoretical foundation for considering how we might determine the effectiveness of technology integration in educational settings. As you can probably tell, there are no easy, universal answers for determining whether a particular use of technology is meaningful or effective. Rather, our determination of effectiveness relies heavily upon our own understanding and acceptance of learning theories, our beliefs and values, and the technology integration models that guide our thinking. Thus, as you approach technology integration in your own teaching, you should use these foundational understandings to articulate the value of your decisions and to guide you in making choices that will be beneficial for your students.


Guide to Finding Lesson Plans
According to the Facts on File Dictionary of Education, a curriculum guide differs from a lesson plan in that it includes “one or more aspects of curriculum and instruction, such as philosophy, policies, aims, objectives, subject matter, resources and processes” (p.138), while a lesson plan “ includes the instructional objectives and methods for a particular functional unit or period of instruction” (p. 271). The Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) has many materials containing lesson plans, primarily in the form of curriculum guides, in both print and microfiche formats. However, lesson plans can also be found on various websites. This guide explains how to find lesson plans in print, online, and on microfiche.
Many lesson plans are embedded within curriculum guides. If you are looking for lesson plans on a specific topic, see the Guide to the Curriculum Collection which includes a “Call Number Guide by Subject.” Find the call number that corresponds to your subject. For example, if your subject is American history, the call number will be 973. Then you can either use the Online Library Catalog and run a call number search to see titles within that call number range, or you can browse bookshelves in the Curriculum Collection in Room 112, Main Library. Curriculum guides are shelved separately from the textbooks and other materials and begin with the prefix “CURR.” Look at the Map of the School (S-) and Curriculum Room to determine where they are located.
Common Core State Standards
This free curriculum planning program allows teachers to design and develop lesson plans collaboratively. Teachers can also quickly search Common Core standards within the program to ensure their lessons align with state standards for education. In addition, lesson plans can be easily updated and altered to fit students’ needs. Individual teacher registration is required for free access. Schools can opt to pay a fee that allows an unlimited number of collaborators to work together on lesson plans.
K-5 Math Teaching Resources
Free, printable resources, activities, and games to supplement the Common Core State Standards in mathematics for grades K-5.
Learn Zillion contains video lessons and assessment tools for teaching to the Common Core State Standards in grades 3-12. The site was started at the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., and allows teachers from around the United States to contribute lessons. Users can browse lessons by grade level, domain, or specific Standard. Many lessons include additional resources such as slides, parent letters, and discussion protocol. Users can create an account and use the site to assign video lessons to students and track student progress.
NYC Department of Education: Tasks, Units & Student Work
A searchable collection of activities, student work, and instructional units aligned to the CCSS and created by educators in New York City.
ReadWorks is a non-profit organization that provides free lesson plans and teaching units on reading comprehension for grades K-6. The site is searchable and browsable by topic, grade, and standard. Lesson plans align with the Common Core State Standards and state standards.
Share My Lesson: Common Core State Standards Information Center
Share My Lesson was developed by the American Federation of Teachers and TES Connect, an online network of educators, and provides a space for teachers to share lesson plans and teaching resources. Share My Lesson contains lesson plans aligned to the Standards and created by and for teachers. In addition, users can browse lesson plans by state to find lesson plans that align with current standards. Users must create an account to use this free site.
Teaching Channel: Confused About Common Core?
A collection of over 270 videos from the Teaching Channel with information about and suggested activities that align with the Common Core State Standards.
A searchable collection of activities, student work and instructional units aligned to the CCSS and created by educators in New York City.
ReadWriteThink is a website focused on literacy for K-12 students. It provides detailed, research-based lesson plans that can be searched by grade level as well as area of literacy practice. The site also includes a wide variety of web resources, including instructional, reference, professional development, and interactive student resources.
Story Arts Online
Story Arts Online provides lesson plans and activities to help teachers incorporate storytelling in the classroom to teach language arts. The site was created by storyteller and author Heather Forest and funded by Bell Atlantic Foundation. The site also has suggestions as to how to use storytelling to teach math, science, social studies and the arts, and includes concise folktale plots and Aesop’s fables as retold by Forest.
This website allows users to search specific books or authors and provides supplemental reading sources and activities, such as author interviews, lesson plans, audio readings, and related booklists. A great resource for K-12 teachers and school or public librarians.
MSTE Online Resource Catalog
The Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed a number of interactive resources for aiding K-12 students in their math and science education. These lessons range from number and operations to data analysis and probability in mathematics and from basic chemistry to physics in science.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics offers lesson plans to those who register with NCTM. Students can register for $45/year and can extend membership beyond graduation. Clicking “Browse all Lessons” near the bottom of the page will allow you to sort by type of material as well as browse by grade level and subject area. There are over 170 math-related lesson plans housed on this site.
United States Mint Lesson Plans
This site uses U.S. coins to teach basic math and counting. Each lesson plan has been contributed by teachers and includes grade level and national standards information.
This site provides lesson plans for most subject areas and includes links to other information sources that can be drawn upon to create original lesson plans. The extensive listings about multicultural holidays and current events are especially useful.
Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media is a not-for profit organization dedicated to providing information and education to help children and teens navigate media and technology. Their site provides cross-curricular lesson plans that address digital literacy and citizenship for students in grades K-12. The lesson plans are free, research-based, and aligned to the Common Core State, International Society of Technology Education, and American Association of School Librarians Standards. Topics covered are: Internet safety, privacy and security, relationships and communication, cyberbullying, digital footprint and reputation, self-image and identity, information literacy, and creative credit and copyright.
Developed by the National Endowment for Humanities and other sources, this site contains links to 49 of the “top humanities sites” and lesson plans in the areas of history, English and language arts, foreign languages and art history. It also includes learning guides that provide tips for using sites for designing class curricula and activities. Sites are searchable.
Gooru provides an open and collaborative learning community online that makes available free K-12 educational materials. Educators can find interactive materials for instruction that are standards-aligned and can share personalized, custom collections keyed to the needs of their students. Interactive lessons are available in the disciplines of science, math, the social sciences, and language arts. Common Core Standards are available for math instruction from grades 6 to 12. Lessons are also available from a number of partner libraries, which are accessible directly through the Gooru site.
Kids.gov Lesson Plans
This site provides links to a variety of free lesson plans and teacher resources, primarily designed for K-8 students. In addition to subjects like history, math, and science, some of the other topics covered include money management, health & safety, and online safety.
Lesson Plan Library
The Lesson Plans Library contains lessons for grades K-12 in common and not so common subjects. Plans range in subject from literature and math to forensic science and meteorology. Written by teachers and educators, these lesson plans are both comprehensive and easy to follow. Most plans define what national academic standards the lesson plans meet. In addition, this site is also linked to several other “teaching tools” from The Discovery Channel.
Lesson Plans Page
This page allows for easy searching for specific lesson plans by subject (math, science, language arts, and art), grade level, and area within the subject searched. While this site contains lesson plans for K-12 grades, it does have a concentration of plans for K-6 grades. Includes an extensive selection of lesson plans for math, science, language arts, and art, especially for the lower grades.
Library of Congress Lesson Plans
The Library of Congress has teacher-created, classroom-tested lesson plans on United States social studies, geography, science, sports and recreation, journalism, and literature, among other subjects. All of the lesson plans use primary sources that can be found at the Library of Congress and are provided with each lesson plan. Lesson plans can be searched by topic or by era. Grades 3-12 are targeted. Standards can be found by searching within each lesson plan for state, grade, and subject.
Peace Corps WorldWise Schools Lesson Plans
Based on lessons used by teachers in the Peace Corps, provides nearly 300 standards-based lesson plans. Different concepts and subjects are illustrated using examples from regions and cultures. Searchable by grade level and subject area.
Smithsonian Education Lesson Plans
The Smithsonian Institution has many resources for educators, including hundreds of lesson plans in all subject areas and grades from preK-12. Lesson plans are searchable by subject and grade level and each lesson plan includes all of the materials needed (photographs, handouts, suggested strategies, reproductions, activities, standards information, and additional online resources). Lesson plans are created around an inquiry-based learning model and make extensive use of primary sources and museum artifacts.
Teacher.Net Lesson Bank
This lesson bank is interactive and allows for both retrieval and submission of lesson plans by teachers. One can search by subject area or education level, or search or browse the lesson bank by keyword. Some lessons are available directly online, but others must be requested from the teacher who submitted the lesson plan. All lessons include a direct link to the author/submitter of the plan.
United States Department of Agriculture Teacher Center
This website, produced by the nation’s experts in the field of agriculture, this site includes nearly 200 lesson plans for grades K-12 on all aspects of agriculture and agricultural history. Most lessons focus on facets of the American agricultural system, however there are several lessons on agriculture around the world. Lesson plans include science experiments, Web Quests, introductions to careers in agriculture, and agriculture as an aspect of the global economy.
The Concord Consortium
The Concord Consortium is a non-profit educational research and development organization based in Massachusetts. The STEM resource finder on the Consortium’s site provides free, open source educational activities, software, and models for teaching STEM subjects to elementary school through college students. The resources are keyword-searchable and allow users to browse by subject and grade level. Also includes a tool to find activities and models that adhere to the Next Generation Science Standards.
eGFI is a website provided by the American Society for Engineering Education, and it contains engineering lesson plans and class activities for K-12 teachers. Lessons and activities incorporate engineering concepts to teach math and science skills. The site also provides a list of engineering and technology outreach programs and web resources for teachers and students.
Provides environmental games appropriate for children in grades K-12 such as game shows, crossword puzzles, word searches and matching endangered species. Also contains teacher resources and lesson plans on the environment and science.
Spanning back to the beginning of recorded history, this comprehensive website provides everything you have ever wanted to know about food including history, law and regulation, inventions, nutrition, and historic cookbooks/recipes. Also included are lesson plans, a food reference guide, and a list of libraries and museums that specialize in food.
Teaching Earth Science: Classroom Activities and Lesson Plans
This website provides a range of lesson plans based on geography, geology, astronomy, and other earth sciences using maps, satellite images, and other projections. Also provides links to current topics in the earth sciences.
Includes a collection of more than 100 engineering-related lesson plans for students ages 8-18. Each plan provides a lesson focus, synopsis, target age levels, learning objectives, learner outcomes, activities, materials, and alignments to curriculum frameworks. Lesson plan topics include mazes, search engines, sorting, decision trees, periscopes, tennis, and more.
This site, administered by the U.S. Geological Survey, provides educational resources in areas like Biology, Geography, Geology, and Water. Resources are arranged by grade level. While some links are not strictly lesson plans, many of the resources listed on this site can be incorporated in the classroom as a supplement to an existing Earth Science curriculum.
9/11 Memorial These lesson plans, developed by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the New York City Department of Education, and the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, are written for use throughout the school year and across disciplines. Each lesson adheres to the Common Core Standards and remains grounded in the collections of the museum. These lessons do not require visits to the museum and can be used in any classroom.
Compiled by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), this page provides lesson plans for teachers who wish to teach about issues such as war, patriotism, peace, and tolerance.
American Memory Lesson Plans
Uses photographs from the Library of Congress American Memory Historical Collection to enhance lessons that are based on topics from our nation’s past. A few examples of lessons include: the Civil War, the Dust Bowl, Baseball Cards, Inventions, and many more.
Citizens, Not Spectators; Center for Civic Education
These lesson plans introduce students to the basics of the voting process and provide hands-on opportunities for students to experience registering and casting votes. Lesson plans are available for elementary, middle, and high school students. These lesson plans can be downloaded freely as zipped files. In addition, individual documents from each lesson can be found in the Resource Bank on this site.
The Civil War Curriculum The Civil War Curriculum page offers links to lesson plans related to the American Civil War for students from elementary to high school. Lesson plans include a complete outline, College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) standards, related resources, and downloadable content for each lesson. The entire Civil War Curriculum can also be downloaded by registering for free with the Civil War Trust.
Digital Cultural Heritage Community Curriculum Units
This extensive historical website provides resources for teachers who want to make learning about history interesting and exciting. Key features include an interactive timeline, online textbook, and history reference room. Includes resource guides, lesson plans and classroom handouts.
This extensive historical website provides resources for teachers who want to make learning about history interesting and exciting. Key features include an interactive timeline, online textbook, and history reference room. Includes resource guides, lesson plans, and classroom handouts.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Education Resources
This resource contains in-depth lesson plans about various aspects of economics, including employment growth, income taxes, and supply and demand. Additionally, the website offers a podcast series called The Economic Lowdown which gives students understandable explanations and real-world examples of economic and finance principles. The site also includes resources and activities for both students and teachers.
Federal Reserve Education
This website, maintained by the United States Federal Reserve, contains numerous K-12 and college lesson plans and publications on subjects such as banking, economics, government, money, and personal finance. Resources can be found by typing keywords into the search bar. Additionally, the Resources by Audience tab allows users to search for lesson plans and activities by grade level.
Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms
Designed specifically to support basic map and information acquisition skills at the K-12 levels, this website provides lesson plans based on 18 different maps. Divided into six different themes, each map contains several lessons for grades K-12.
The National Archives Experience: Docs Teach
Provides activities and over 8,000 primary source documents from the United States National Archives for use in the classroom. Users can find digitized primary source written documents, images, maps, charts, graphs, audio, and video that span the course of American history. Users can also find ready-to-use activities, or alter pre-existing activities to fit their needs.
National Council for the Social Studies
The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) supports elementary, secondary, and college teachers of history, geography, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and law. Their website includes K-12 lesson plans, as well as links to a host of additional resources. Lesson plans focus on current events or “teachable moments,” as well as historical events
National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC)
Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) and the Stanford University History Education Group have created the Clearinghouse with the goal of making history content, teaching strategies, resources, and research accessible.
Smithsonian’s History Explorer
Based on items at the National Museum of American History, this website brings the museum’s collections and research into your classroom. In addition to the tour guides, there are plenty of lesson plans and classroom curriculum suggestions.
Stanford History Education Group
The Stanford History Education Group site includes over 130 document-based lesson plans on US and World History, 80 history assessments featuring Library of Congress documents, and assessments on measuring student reasoning about online information. Lesson plans and assessments are free with an account. “The Stanford History Education Group is an award-winning research and development group that comprises Stanford faculty, staff, graduate students, post-docs and visiting scholars.”
Teaching with Historic Places
Contains over 100 free middle school lesson plans in the areas of history, social studies, and geography. Lessons are based on sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places and include maps, readings, photographs, questions, and activities. Each plan is linked to national standards in the relevant subject area.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Prepared by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this website provides helpful tips for educators that will be teaching the Holocaust to middle and high school students. There are also links to lesson plans provided on the site.
There are three microfiche collections of curriculum guides in the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) that may also be searched for lesson plans or other instructional materials. These are: the Kraus Curriculum Development Library, ERIC microfiche collection, and the American Primer collection. All microfiche are stored in Room 104, Main Library.
Kraus Curriculum Development Library
This microfiche collection of pre-K-12 curriculum guides covers a variety of subjects, including traditional areas (social sciences, mathematics, etc.) and other areas (Bilingual/English as a second language, special education, etc.). To search this collection, use the Kraus Curriculum Development Library Database. Curriculum guides added to the database since 2001 are available electronically. Older curriculum guides are available on microfiche in SSHEL.
Many ERIC documents on microfiche contain lesson plans and classroom materials. When searching the ERIC database, type your subject keyword and combine with the appropriate descriptor term(s) using the AND operator. EXAMPLE: mathematics and (lesson plans or problem sets). More descriptor terms can be found in the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (025.36 U5874t).The following is a list of possible descriptor terms that may be helpful:
- lesson plans
- curriculum guides
- state curriculum guides
- instructional materials
- teacher developed materials
- bilingual instructional materials
- study guides
- teaching guides
- learning modules
- class activities
- educational games
- course content
American Primers Collection
To search the American Primers collection, find American Primers: a Guide to the Microfiche Collection, (MFICHE428.6 Am35 index). It is located in Room 104 on top of the microfiche cabinets. Although this microfiche collection is mainly used for finding old textbooks and reading primers, it has a limited number of teaching manuals (lesson plans, teaching methods, learning games and activities, teacher’s guides to accompany primers) from the 1700’s to the mid-1930s. It mostly contains introductory reading materials from that period, such as primers, spellers, and alphabet books. However, this may be a useful resource if you are searching for historical curriculum materials.