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On this Site
- Freebies from VCCTI
- Links to more Freebies
- Lessons from VCCTI
- Links to more lesson resources
- Essays on Teaching and Learning
- Our unique Presentations, Templates, and more
- Info for homeschoolers
- Info for webmasters
- Educational Toys
- Educational Software
Teacher Resources
Valerie suggests that educational toys, games, and hands-on activities will enrich the educational experience. So, consider these sponsors.
New--for plants!
High
Quality Organic Nutrients
Check out the various presentations of products chosen by Valerie by visiting All Stores.
Teachers, why bring household and kitchen items from home. Order them online and have them shipped to the school!
Order kitchen science supplies online from Amazon.com
Order groceries online from Amazon.com
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
More special sales.
Chosen with Teaching
in Mind
New Units: Metaphors & Resources Robotics, Bonsai,
Children and Photography, Human
Carrying Capacity, lab safety,
sci fi, & webmaster
info
Old Units: Lessons, Music, Critical
Thinking, Classroom Management, Science
Math and Technology, Writing, Travel,
& More
My experiences in teaching led me to the essays, lessons and products that are offered in this website. I have searched for items of interest to K-12 teachers, homeschoolers, parents, and students; some I have written or designed myself. Download free samples of our unique Template Design Sets and Lessons Items.
Lessons I have learned in writing this website are the basis of the Webmaster Page set .
Read below and follow the links for more information about the site. Look for featured products and sponsors on this page and
throughout the site. I have used our unique artwork designs wherever I could work them into the page, i.e., The Rabbit , the Cat below, and the Embossed Trees in the page background can be located here. Buy them now here.
The
Computer Tips grew out of comments
on my experiences while I attempted this project. I had to learn about
web pages from scratch--I knew they existed, but that was all. What
I quickly discovered was that
doing web pages with Dreamweaver, now from Adobe, (get it here:
) is easy to learn, especially
with a book like The Dreamweaver MX 2004 Bible by
J.W. Lowery. Read
more about my experiences with the computer. I collected ideas
for websites and ended with a Webmaster
Page.
I kept writing and collecting essays and ended with a set of articles. In my searches I came across charities and products that I knew would be useful to teachers, families, homeschool parents, and students. I offer a forum and a newsletter: just request it here. I offer links to sites and rss feeds that are helpful to educators. Here are the links and icons for just a few of these.
Sign-up for Picket Fence Friends Newsletter
sent through CafePress.com.
Get info about all VCCTI projects here and at Valerie's Memos.
Looking for a widget to tell about online viruses and such? We have one from TrendMicro posted on our Widgets Science page and our Technology page.
Recognizing a good book leads
one to make booklists. I
have listed some of my favorites and some that I recommend
for use with students. Moreover, I offer books for purchase on the
booklists pages. Consequently, I looked for more
sources of good books and movies and
documentaries from both
and ShopPBS.Org
that could be used in the classroom. I present
my choices, but you can also search these merchant sites yourself.
Read about using robots in your lessons..
Science Fiction
for Students includes some books for sale that are the list
of books that either I or another teacher have read and recommend
for 
secondary readers (screened for violence, profanity and explicit
sex) as well as adults (because they are fun reads for all). I am such a fan that I also write about using science fiction with students.
My Favorites Books lists nonfiction books--especially those on science topics, books with more violence or profanity than I would recommend for students (Although personally I would let my son and daughter read them, other parents might not approve.), or books with a
reading level more complex than a secondary student would appreciate. Science books for student reports or that I would want in a school library for students to use for research is a page for future development. Visit these merchants to get a head start.
Considering books for youth reminded me of movies that would broaden students' outlook and software that would help with their learning. So I started more pages that sell home and educational software and videos. Then I considered school supplies and created music, magazine and educational toy stores; and partnered (as an affiliate) with stores that will provide these items. I have included art and photography items, special student items, and such until I felt the need to organize pages by subject matter, parent and teacher. There will even soon be a set of pages for college prep. This item index/site map will help you find pages of particular interest.
With all the great areas to shop online, along with all the products that are useful for teaching and enriching the home environment, I began to design pages to assist you in locating where to shop. This creates pages that serve as online mini-malls--doorways to merchants. These merchants often offer free shipping specials, special discounts and closeout sales, but only to online shoppers. To assist you in locating these sales, I started a special sales page. I still offer books and products associated with a topic under discussion. I love to windowshop and I have taught long enough to know what supplies I like to have around for hands-on teaching. Watch for lesson supplies and resources throughout. I hope you enjoy your shopping.
Locate lessons and articles and shops by subject matter in our site map charts.
Then I decided to concentrate a bit more on the quality
products offered by the merchants with whom I am affiliated. So I opened
a new website called Dirt Poor
Book Shop. Here I concentrate on products that appeal to a broader
audience than those that benefit from the stores in this website that
are "chosen with teaching in mind." 
Some of the images used in our Template Design Sets are used with other products at CafePress.com. Visit Picket Fence Friends or Valerie's Stuff to purchase them. Get Three FREE downloads of sample Template Design Sets. Read about the Template Design Sets and all VCCTI original products here and here. At the bottom of this page is a sample set of slides from one of our sets.
Some
of the presentations available on this site were 
originally
developed for my classes at Global, when I offered classes there. Read
about my classes and freelance sites. I invite you to visit at
Global E-School and at Tapped
In. Read about
Tapped In on the Teacher Freebies and Links Page. Currently, I offer freelance services at BizReef.
As a teacher, I wrote an Access database to write, store, and print my lesson plans that I used for high school sciences in a Mississippi public school. I know its value as a timesaver--and as my own personal graphic organizer to keep me on track in terms of standards and other aspects of the professional's lesson plan process. Download a sample page of the lesson plan database., or buy it now. To organize information for lessons, I created a database for Examples, buy it now. Sorry, I cannot sell the actual lessons, since MS shares the copyright. The database can be easily altered to fit and print according to your district's lesson plan. I'll be happy to make the adjustments for you.
Find the largest selection of science toys and educational kits at ScientificsOnline.com
The story behind Widgets Science is told here. This series contains a lab activity worksheet form that can be modified for any science lab activity. The activity worksheet form is a free download. As time goes on, activities that I wrote--both mine and some based on labs common to high school science classes--will be written as essays or in an activity form. Currently, the Chi-Square Activity is a free download.
I discovered NetSupport Schools as I was exploring the web looking for information on on-line teaching. I quickly perceived its value for classroom management. I wanted to share it with teachers, so I present l it and other programs like it, as well as those that offer other types of internet protection.
While mining the internet, I discovered lots of exciting and informative sites. I remembered the trouble my students had finding information (1) at their level and (2) useful for writing a report from their perspective. There is so very much to choose from. So I started collecting links to sites that a student could use in researching a topic. I added a few organizing/thought provoking comments and called the sets of links Student Thematic Links and added some extra content directories such as how to write articles found on the web, a list of science directories of broad content, and sites and web quests that contain interactive pages that teach science or math content. I also have a list of essays.
My next project is to add a database to this site so that I can use forms and a better shopping cart. I must learn to use MySQL first. A comments form is in the works, too. Watch for more comments on Computer Tips about this. When? Send me an email and I will add you to our newsletter list. --Or bookmark the site and check back later.
Template Design Set presentation slides from
Birds and Magnolias by multiple artists..
Each of our Template Design Sets has 5 or more slide and title master designs presented in a presentation file explaining how to use the masters and granting you, the purchaser, lisense to use the designs in memos and stationery. Below is a sample of the slides of one Template Design Set.
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Visit our stores for products from multiple sponsor sites, all chosen with teaching and learning in mind.
Read about shopping on-line with our sponsors.
Sponsors by Category
- Books for Children
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- Get books and technology products at The Webmaster Store.
Templates - Free Science Powerpoint Templates
Website Templates, Flash Templates, Web Stationary and Layouts