Volume 2, No. 19                     2 May, 2003 [To view this newsletter on line: http://www.emck.net/eline/03_05_02.htm.]

...for 2003 are now open for registration - including 8 Arts Academies, two world languages academies, one for teachers of visually impaired students, and a host of core content offering!

The Help Desk's Arts and Humanities Resource Guide

Despite being an important part of the Kentucky Core Curriculum Test, Arts and Humanities tend to be buried in a mass of rhetoric aimed at the primacy of reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies. But with a little creativity, we can have our core content cake, and eat it too! The World Wide Web, as usual, comes to the rescue with lots of free resources, ideas, opinions, and lesson plans which brings the Arts home to you!

The Help Desk has altered its normal format for this edition, dedicating all except our "On-line Lesson Planning," "Software Resources," and "Professional Resources" categories to reflect and support this issue's focus. If you're not an Arts and Humanities teacher, don't throw this one away - many of these resources can provide helps and hints for any discipline!

On-line Lesson Planning	The Gateway to Educational Materials http://www.thegateway.org/ Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, The Gateway is an attempt to assemble access to federal, state, non-profit, and some commercial resources for instructional use in the classroom. There are resources sponsored by and hosted directly on the site, and access to thousands of resources off-site. Complete search and browse capabilities. A great general resource!
Content Area Resources - the Arts	Creative Writing The Online Poetry Classroom http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/ In its second year, and sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, this resource provides complete support for the poetry teacher, including ideas and online lesson plans. Story Arts Online http://www.storyarts.org/ Storytelling is a great way to stimulate student creative writing and personal narrative. Heather Forest, recording artist and storyteller, brings us this free-of-charge Web collection of resources and instructional ideas, including some aimed at the math, science, and social studies classroom. Also, don't forget Digital Storytelling (featured in The Help Desk June 7, 2002), for a way to make your student's stories into simple videos. Music http://www.classicalarchives.com/ This slick and fascinating website has literally thousands of classical music examples in MIDI, MP3, and WMA formats for play or download. First constructed and still managed by Pierre R. Schwob as a repository for MIDI sequences of classical keyboard performances, the site now boasts an international staff, and has composer biographies and other historical information along with the downloadable media. Subscription is requested but not required for almost all its services. Play Music! http://www.playmusic.org/ So let's have some fun! This fully interactive website has games, interviews with musicians and composers, resources/links...but mostly a great interactive introduction to music instruments of the orchestra. You can make this a study session for your young musicians, or use the site as an instructional tool in your one-computer classroom! A free service of the New York State Council on the Arts, with support from ABC, Inc. Performing Arts Children's Theatre Plays http://www.childrenstheatreplays.com/ Many of the children's plays from this site are downloadable in their entirety, and royalties for performances are quite inexpensive. There are plays for young people, and plays to be performed by young people. Sorted by subject and age level, and some with supplemental lesson plans and ideas. For a general source on the theatre, look to the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (featured in The Help Desk Feb. 7, 2003). ArtsWork http://artswork.asu.edu/ ArtsWork is a great general arts resource, containing standards, lesson plans, assessment help and ideas, and resources for dance, theatre, music, and visual arts. ArtsWork is a service of the Herberger College of Fine Arts, Arizona State University. Visual Arts Kinder Art http://www.kinderart.com/ Co-founded by Canadian art educator Andrea Mulder-Slater and accountant/amateur artist Jantje Blokhuis-Mulder, this website claims to be the largest collection of free lesson plans (over 800) for K-8 on the web. Many are inter-disciplinary, like this drawing lesson, and all are free. A dot-com, it contains banner ads and promotes its on-site store. Indiana University/Purdue University - Indianapolis http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/imls/ This website is a joint venture of the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis University Library and the Indiana Museum of Art Community Project. The important stuff for us are the "Educators Instructional Units" (it's mentioned on the home page, and under "Activities") - complete lesson plans tying art works and artists to a wide range of standards. Some are just ideas, but many are quite complete!
Software Sources	Software Review Sites Weeeell, as long as we're departing from our usual format! Rather than bringing you our usual free software suggestions, this edition of The Help Desk features two places you can go for reviews of software (and other resources) you or your school intend to purchase. http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/ A joint venture of the Southern Regional Education Board and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, EvaluTech provides reviews by teachers and media service representatives. Besides software, they provide reviews of information databases, websites and print materials. The review criteria are also available online, as well as links to other reviewers. http://www.clrn.org/ The California Learning and Research Network. is the result of a partnership between the California Department of Education and the Stanislaus County Office of Education, amongst other county offices. The site provides searchable reviews and also posts its review criteria. There are also several other provided Web resources, including a lesson plan creator with searchable database of lessons.
Professional Resources	Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development http://www.ascd.org/ A non-profit professional association for principals, teachers, teacher educators, school board members, superintendents, and parents, this organization sponsors one of the best conferences in the "circuit," and serves as a champion for innovative curriculum, practice, and technology use in the classroom. The website offers access to the organization's many resources, including online professional development courses.