Tool+and+Resources+List

=Tools for learning about our students, schools and districts=

Please list your three tools here.

[] Great Schools is a website that allows parents to find and compare schools, from preschool to high school, in their area. It looks at schools all over the country and rates public schools on test results, with the best schools recieving a score of 10. Kind of hard to navigate, and the information is limited. (elizabeth)

[] School matters is a website that also allows parents to find and compare school around the country. Test score average, class size, ethnic breakdown, and socioeconomic overview are given, plus more information and links to school websites. A little hard to navigate unless you know what you're looking for (elizabeth)

Schoolfamily.com is a website parents can use to locate schools in their area. The website also gives a link to the Department of Education in a given state to view the school’s test scores. A brief snapshot of the school’s demographics and the school website link is also given when searching for a school. There are also resources for parents to use that gives advice on student’s developmental, physical, and social health. In addition, there is a blogging community and countless resources and articles that parents with school aged children could utilize. (Shyra) K12directoryofschools.com is a directory of k-12 public and private schools. This website also gives a snapshot of the school’s demographic information and a link to the school’s website. It offers a map of the area around the school being researched. The website also advertises prestigious school in America and gives parents suggestions on what to think about when choosing a school. Furthermore, there are also links to current events and news in education. (Shyra) Publicschoolreview.com allows parents to not only get the demographic information about a school, but it gives information about the cost of living near the school. It also summarizes the school and school’s district financial information. There are links to find housing in the area and links to buy school memorabilia. Furthermore, there are links to the local news paper of the school being researched so that parents can read local articles about the school; and the site gives parents the option to compare schools. Like the other sites, there are also useful articles about issues in education and links to the school’s website. (Shyra)

[|www.schooldatadirect.org] This is a website educators, parents, or anyone can use to compare public schools around the nation. You are able to look up data, such as reading/math proficiency, student per teacher ratio, the percent of economically disadvantaged students enrolled, and more. (Adam M.) [] This website is called “School District Decision Making Information.” Educators or anyone involved in the teaching profession can use to determine whether or not a certain district is the right one for them. It provides one with information about America’s largest schools, school district expenditure patterns, and much more. (Adam M.) [|www.schoolbug.org] This is a website that anyone could use. The only problem with this site compared to the others is that the information it provides is very basic, e.g. total students, student to teacher ratio, the school location, the number of full time employees, the school grade levels, and the school demographics. (Adam M.)

http://www.teachertube.com/ This website allows us to view the activities that students and teachers construct in schools. The site takes after YouTube in the way that it is an education video search engine that provides a great resource for learning about the work performed in a variety of schools and districts. (Nick Mackall)

http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu/ This is actually a forum, The Inquiry Learning Forum, that was constructed and is currently being used as a center for research and learning at Indiana University. This forum allows members to interact with fellow grad students as well as instructors to share lessons, resources, and professional growth. Similar to "Teachertube", the ILF has videos that display progress and growth in an academic environment. (Nick Mackall)

http://www.schooltube.com/ This is a video search engine similar to YouTube, but it's primarily meant to be used for academic purposes only. The tool allows teachers and students to share media and learn about progress being made in schools all over the country. (Nick Mackall)