Futurekids Teacher WorkSpace contains a collection of digital resources to support lesson building and to assist teachers’ construction of technology-rich, task-based lesson plans. The Lesson Plan Builder utilizes an interactive template to simplify the development process. It serves as a disciplined guide for structuring classroom activities. The standard Lesson Builder template can be readily modified by Futurekids to meet the specific needs of your learning community. In addition, the Lesson Builder is completely integrated with the Standards Manager, Unit Builder, and the District's Curriculum.

Teacher's WorkSpace includes the following areas:

The Standards Manager
The Standards Manager contains a comprehensive database of state and national standards that enable subscribers to import standards into lessons, units, and electronic portfolios. Educators also create target sets of standards tailored to include only the standards and benchmarks that address their specific needs. Specific local standards can be uploaded to the database by request. In addition, Gap and Frequency Analysis reports can be created to summarize and compare which standards have been addressed.

The Unit Builder
The Unit Builder simplifies the unit development process. This interactive template allows educators to outline a unit of practice while linking to lessons or other learning activities created online. The standard Unit Builder template can be modified to meet the specific needs of your learning community. In addition, the Unit Builder is completely integrated with the Standards Manager as well as with the Lesson Builder and Rubric Wizard.

The Lesson Builder
The Lesson Builder utilizes an interactive template to simplify the development process. It serves as a disciplined guide for structuring classroom activities. The standard Lesson Builder template can be readily modified to meet the specific needs of your learning community. In addition, the Lesson Builder is completely integrated with the Standards Manager and Unit Builder as well as with the Rubric Wizard. The Lesson Builder consists of two components, Cybrary and Mybrary:

Cybrary
The Cybrary is a searchable database of thousands of lesson plans submitted by other Lesson Builder subscribers. Lessons can be searched by grade, subject, or keyword. The Cybrary also contains a collection of digital resources to support lesson building and to assist teachers in constructing technology-rich, task-based lesson plans. It includes: Tutorials on education technology integration in the classroom, free and useful software that can be downloaded from the web, and supplemental resources that consist of educational methodologies, educational websites, and training materials and manuals.

Mybrary
The Mybrary is the educator's personal collection of work - it is like a file cabinet for accessing lesson and unit plans, rubrics, web folios, web pages, and files. It also provides direct access to shared resources.

The Rubric Wizard
The Rubric Wizard facilitates the easy creation of customized performance-based assessment rubrics to evaluate student performance. Educators choose criteria from a menu of exemplary rubrics, or create their own, and then add and edit the text to reflect the achievements of their specific learning communities.

Collaboration Feature
This unique feature enables designated “authors” to share the work they create in Unit Builder, Lesson Builder, Web Folio Builder, and/or Web Page Builder, with designated “reviewers” from their assigned group. Resources and Lesson plans can be shared within any given “community” of users or within the global community of users. Futurekids’ online services provide a web-based interface to help curriculum developers extend their collaborative efforts beyond face-to face meetings and to collaborate on lessons and units to create shared curriculum libraries. It also allows coordinators to build programs to support their teachers and post collections of resources, such as articles or sample lessons, to the program area to further enhance the participants' learning experiences. Designated "Authors" and "Reviewers" share lessons, units, and electronic portfolios with colleagues for comments and feedback.

Online Mentoring
Futurekids Online Mentoring facilitates on-going mentoring by providing an environment through which a mentor can directly support program participants anytime and anyplace. Participants create lessons, units, and electronic portfolios and submit them to their mentor for feedback. This process assists mentors in organizing tasks and enhances the review process.

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