ALEX

ALEX is an acronym for Alabama Learning Exchange. It is a website that provides a resource for teachers to share ideas. In the first tab, Courses of Study, you will find tabs that take you to different subjects. Clicking on these will then allow you to choose a grade level or specific topics within the subject and then provide some lesson plan ideas. The next tab is Web Links. Clicking on this will allow you to choose who you are, teacher/admin/student, and provides web links accordingly. The Lesson Plan tab will allow you, with an account, to create lesson plans or search for other lesson plans. A professional Development tab gives a list of websites to help you find classes and workshops to further your professional development. The Distance Learning tab will give access to ACCESS(Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide), which is a state initiative to allow access to AP, electives, and other classes that some students might not have available at their own schools. Available with an account is the Personal Workspace. This allows you to create and save lesson plans. There are also Help and Search tabs available if you have problems.

This seems to be an excellent resource. I know I will use this, especially in the first years of teaching. It is always a good thing to have available a resource that can help the students in your room. If this means using another teacher's lesson plans because the subject matter is covered better or in a way that the current students will learn the subject matter better, I will do it. To have available a resource in such an immediate way is an advantage that we have that older teachers did not have access to when they began teaching. I hope to benefit from the experienced teachers and the lesson plans they have created and shared on this site.

As a parent I will use this as well. One of my girls has a harder time with math skills. By having access to lesson plans written by teachers, I will be able to help her more. In addition to this, I can use other lesson plans to give more on a lesson one of the girls really enjoyed. Not only will this benefit my girls, but it will give me extra practice teaching different the subjects.