210 Digital Resources and Librarians
E ducation librarians have been scrambling to select and recommend Webbased lesson plan sites appropriate to the needs of their patrons. The scramble to find and provide extensive lists of lesson plan resources, however, may be counterproductive and ill suited to the real needs of practicing teachers. A focused
Webliography with only very high-quality lesson plan resource sites may be best for audiences who are information literate. The Webliography presented in this chapter is designed with this thought in mind.
Education librarians have always faced the problem of helping their patrons access high-quality lesson plans. In the past, specialized resources such as ERIC, Education
Index, KCDL, homegrown indexes, and vertical files provided some access to information about lesson plans, which users then needed to locate in the broader world of printed information and in “gray literature.” Today, however, the Web has deluged the education community with an almost endless supply of freely and readily available lesson plan resources. Education librarians face a range of choices, from The
Educator’s Reference Desk Lesson Plans (http://http://www.eduref.org/
Virtual/Lessons/) to the Zoology Lesson Plans site (http://www.teachnology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/science/biology/zoo/).
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A Webliography of Web-based Lesson Plan Resources 211
My experiences as an education librarian, curriculum materials librarian, and assistant professor of library science supported the notion that lengthy Webliographies filled with multitudes of above-average Web sites were useful and used by preservice teachers. However, my current position as head librarian at Conserve School, an innovative college-preparatory boarding school, indicates that such webliographies may not be of interest to highly information-literate teachers. Instead, highly selective Webliographies linking to high-quality sites with excellent resources and easy access are better choices. Thus, the Webliography offered in this chapter consists of sites that concentrate and provide or link to high-quality lesson plans; it is not comprehensive.
The criteria used to select sites for this Webliography were based on two main factors.
First, a small group of K–12 teachers was surveyed to identify what criteria they felt were important in selecting lesson plan Web pages for teachers. This resulted in the following: sites that are rich with high-quality lessons, deep in the number of lessons they hold, and easy to use. Second, the Evaluation Criteria for GEM Collections
(http://www.thegateway.org/, select “Documentation”) were used as a supplementary guide because they have been cited and used by a wide variety of other well-respected lesson plan sites such as AskERIC. Because GEM’s three criteria divisions—Authoritativeness/Quality, Size/Significance, and Cost/Accessibility—mirrored the criteria the teachers provided, the two sets of criteria were combined to produce the set of criteria used to select sites for this Webliography.
(See table 1.)
On occasion, sites that did not meet all the criteria listed above were allowed into the Webliography because of unique or exceptional qualities that made up for what they lacked. Sites fitting this description are so noted.
The following resources were used as starting points and references to identify resources for this Webliography: the teachers of Conserve School, the “CMC/EBSS
Webliography of Lesson Plans and Teaching Activities” (Lare and Brownson 2001);
Internet Resource Directory for K–12 Teachers and Librarians, 2001–2002 (Miller
2001); and Google.com searches on “lesson plan” or “lesson plans” combined with appropriate topical or subject areas.
The Webliography consists of two sections: a general section that provides a

212 Digital Resources and Librarians
Table 1. Criteria for Web-based Lesson Plan Selection
1. Quality a. Author, sponsors, and/or affiliations are identified.
b. Bias and stereotyping are avoided in lesson plans selected.
c. Selection criteria for including lesson plans are used and preferably provided as part of the site.
d. Intellectual property rights are respected.
e. Listed links are annotated.
f. Links to lesson plans are kept in good working order.
2. Impact of the Site a. More than 100 lesson plans are included or linked to.
b. Site is affiliated with a known educational entity.
3. Accessibility of the Site a. An index, table of contents, and/or searchable database is available for users.
b. Multiple access points are provided to each lesson plan (e.g., audience and subject area).
c. Users are not required to pay for access to the site.
d. Users are not required to register to use the site.
e. No special software is needed to access the lesson plans.
selective collection of lesson plan sites that cover all discipline areas, and a discipline- or subject-specific section that lists sites that are more limited in their coverage. Both sections are listed alphabetically by title of the lesson plan site.
The Educator’s Reference Desk Lesson Plans site contains more than
2,000 lesson plans covering all grade levels and thirteen subject categories.
It attempts to be comprehensive and has gone a long way toward this goal recently, although it still has some gaps to fill: the preponderance of lesson plans are directed at the elementary and middle school levels, and some subject fields are more thoroughly covered than others. Nevertheless, the lesson plans included are consistently of high quality and have great annotations, and the links to the lesson plans always work. Finally, the search engine for Educator’s Reference Desk Lesson Plan collection is quite advanced when compared to other lesson plan sites: users may limit their searches by grade level, require words, and search within specific fields
(such as title or description).

A Webliography of Web-based Lesson Plan Resources 213
The Curriculum Archive
URL: http://www.buildingrainbows.com/CA/ca.home.php
The Collaborative Lesson Archive has changed into a commercial site: the Curriculum Archive. It includes “thousands” of lesson plans in all grade levels and in twelve different subject areas. The site has a tremendous diversity of lesson plans, and users can browse by grade level or subject, or do free-text searches. However, the site suffers in quality because there is no editorial selection process in place. Although it mentions
“the originality of your ideas and the quality and completeness of your presentations are very important to your lesson's revenue generating potential,” these criteria are not defined. Teachers who have their plans posted earn money, according to a remuneration schedule. Nevertheless, the site is worth mentioning because of a unique feature offered: users are allowed to add comments and elaboration on previously published lesson plans. These comments and elaborations are not only very useful but also allow an online conversation about teaching and lesson plans, which is not normally part of lesson plan sites.
Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
URL: http://thegateway.org/
The GEM collection is tremendous and includes links to more than 24,000 educational resources. Each site is selected based on strict evaluation criteria (see above) and is precisely cataloged, enabling GEM’s search engine to be one of the best available for lesson plan searching. Unfortunately, GEM has some problems. First, users looking specifically for lesson plans will be ill served by browsing the subject and keyword portions of the site or by using the search engine because lesson plans are mixed with so many other types of resources and not identified as a separate resource type. Second, there is a problem with the types of items the GEM site collects. The lesson plans linked to from GEM are published on the Web at large and not stored on GEM’s site. Thus, the lessons are not of a consistent format and GEM’s links are often broken or in need of updating.
Lesson Plan Library
URL: http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/
Sponsored by the Discovery Channel, the Lesson Plan Library includes hundreds of science and social science lesson plans for teachers of upper elementary to high school students; a scattering of humanities and language arts lesson plans also are included.
The lesson plans are created by teachers and curriculum writers specifically for the
Discovery Channel Web site and designed to tie into one of the Discovery Channel’s programs or videos, although using those programs is not necessary. The lesson plans are of excellent quality and filled

214 Digital Resources and Librarians with links to related Web-based resources. Finally, the lessons may be searched by grade level and/or subject area by selecting categories from a series of dropdown menus, but no keyword searching function is available.
McREL Resources: Lesson Plans
URL: http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/
McREL (Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory) is similar to GEM in that it provides links to hundreds of lesson plan collections and individual pages that are published on the Web at large. Thus, quantity is excellent, but McREL has less quality control than one might like. However, McREL stands apart from GEM in that it provides users access to its own high-quality lesson plans, which are listed under its Connections+ link. These lessons cover all grade levels within thirteen subject areas and are linked to the McREL Standards Database (http://www.mcrel.org/standardsbenchmarks/).
WebQuest Page
URL: http://Webquest.sdsu.edu/Webquest.html
This site contains more than a thousand WebQuest lesson plans and activities for students at all grade levels and on a wide variety of topics. All lesson plans are Web quests, and most are presented in a format based on the WebQuest page’s template.
The lessons are of high quality, and there is an editorial process for inclusion in the site, but no published criteria. Finally, searchers can use both a grade/subject matrix and an advanced search engine to find lessons on exactly what they need.
ArtsEdNet Lesson Plans
URL: http://www.getty.edu/education/search/
Sponsored by the J. Paul Getty Museum, ArtsEdNet provides a wealth of information about the arts, and the lesson plans provided are simply superb. In addition to great lessons, ArtsEdNet provides teachers with thorough background information and beautiful images, where appropriate. The lesson plans can be accessed by grade level and then by title, or by starting alphabetically by title, and although not obvious, the general ArtsEdNet search engine will also let one search for the lesson plans by keyword.
EdSiteMent
URL: http://edsitement.neh.gov/
EdSiteMent claims to provide the best of the humanities on the Web and its lesson plan section is filled with innovative resources that encompass

A Webliography of Web-based Lesson Plan Resources 215 a surprisingly broad range. The site does emphasize Western humanities resources, but an effort to represent more than just non-Western cultures is obvious. Also of note is the fact that most of the lesson plans here are aimed at the elementary grades, though all K–12 grades are represented. Finally, like ArtsEdNet, EdSiteMent provides more than just excellent plans; it also provides invaluable background and resource information.
Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC)
ENC.ORG is now goENC.COM; URL: http://my.goenc.com/
This web page is no longer being maintained because the Eisenhower National
Clearinghouse (ENC) is no longer funded by the U.S. Department of Education and has discontinued operations as of September 29, 2005. The site is now goENC, a subscription based database that contains much of what the Eisenhower National
Clearinghouse (ENC) contained.
The description of the closed Clearinghouse can be compared to the new gpo
ENC by readers:.Science and mathematics teachers will be enthusiastic about ENC’s quality and extensive range of resources. The lesson plans ENC links to are arranged first by subject, then by subcategory, and again by a secondary subcategory so that searchers can easily zero in on specific topics. The search engine on the site is also quite advanced and lets searchers apply a variety of useful limits to their searches. Finally, the lesson plans that ENC links to are not their own, but each is extensively annotated and ENC seems to do a better job than GEM at making sure its links are working and that the quality of the lessons it links to is maintained.
ibrary of Congress Learning Page
URL: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/
Focused primarily on American history, the Library of Congress’s collection of lesson plans is filled with excellent resources for teachers of all grade levels. Although the innovative history lessons are valuable in and of themselves, the real attraction here is the fact that the lessons make extensive use of primary resources provided by the LOC in its online American Memory collections (http:// memory.loc.gov./). The site is searchable by theme, topic, discipline, or era.
There is an alphabetical title index.
Math Forum Internet Mathematics Library
URL: http://mathforum.org/library/resource_types/lesson_plans/
Math Forum is funded by the National Science Foundation and is mounted at Drexel
University. Its lesson plan site provides access to both Math Forum lesson plans and other high-quality math lesson plans sites. All grade levels are represented, and an incredibly large

216 Digital Resources and Librarians range of mathematical concepts is covered. The lesson plans are multipage and could be considered “sites” in and of themselves. The quality of lessons is consistently excellent. In terms of access, users have myriad ways to find the plans that fit their needs: they can choose to browse by topic or grade level, browse individual lesson plan pages or lesson plan collection sites, conduct keyword searches, or browse all the entries alphabetically by title.
National Geographic Lesson Plans
URL: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/
High-quality lessons sorted by geography standard and grade level, links to online maps created by National Geographic, and plentiful links to additional resources make National Geographic’s lesson plan site the best geography lesson plan site on the Web. Educators at all levels will be pleased with the content they find here, and the ability to search for lesson plans based on a standard will be appreciated. Of particular interest is that each lesson plan page also provides links to related lesson plans and activities pages, a unique and noteworthy practice.
New York Times Daily Lesson Plan & Lesson Plan Archive
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/archive.html
Sponsored by the New York Times, the Daily Lesson Plan and its associated
Lesson Plan Archive provide teachers with excellent current events lesson plans in all subject areas. Lessons are intended for grades 6 to 12 and draw on articles published in the New York Times. Elementary teachers wishing to use the site will need to adapt the lessons to their local class needs. The lesson plans are high in quality, linked to standards information, and obviously created with care. Accessing the lessons is a breeze, users can search by keyword, subject, or grade range, and they can browse by subject or browse through the recently published lessons.
PE Central
URL: http://www.pecentral.org/
PE Central was designed for physical education and health teachers. Its lesson plan section is filled with practical lessons that are generally activity based and short. The quality of the lessons is consistent; each is reviewed not only by an editor, but also by an advisory board of peers before it is published on the Web site. Users can access the lessons by using the site’s robust search engine to search for lessons with many

A Webliography of Web-based Lesson Plan Resources 217 different combinations of criteria, including grade level, sport or health issue, author, materials needed, and/or date last updated.
The number of lesson plans and lesson plan sites on the Web today is phenomenal.
Even the most information-literate person would have a difficult time sifting through the sites and identifying the best ones. However, as search engines advance in quality, savvy educators are finding it easier to zero in on individual lesson plans that exactly meet their needs. Lesson plan sites and those who select them for Webliographies need to keep in mind the ability of users to search for exactly what they need across a very broad spectrum of the Internet without ever using a search engine or site designed to provide access to a relatively small selection of lesson plans. Webliographies built without careful attention to the quality, impact, and accessibility of the sites and pages linked to will drive information-literate users away. Rather, careful and discriminating selections based on a keen awareness of the information literacy level and needs of one’s audience will help keep Webliographies useful and valuable tools.
“Evaluation Criteria for GEM Collections.” Available online from http://www.geminfo.org/
Select “Documentation”(Retrieved 18 April 2006.)
Lare, G. A., and A. Brownson. 2001 (June 4). “CMC/EBSS Webliography: Lesson Plans and Teaching Activities.” Available online from http://www.uncc.edu/cimc/. (Retrieved
18 April 2006.)
Miller, E. 2001. Internet Resource Directory for K–12 Teachers and Librarians, 2001–2002.
Greenwood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited.
All URLs are current as of April 18, 2006.