91´«Ã½

CHICAGO – The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced its 2016 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning at the 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½) Annual Conference in Orlando. The annual list honors 25 websites that provide enhanced learning and curriculum development for school librarians and their teacher collaborators. Now in its eighth year, with 200 recognized sites, the list is considered the "best of the best" by AASL.

Sites named as Best Websites for Teaching & Learning foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. They offer tools and resources in the categories of media sharing, digital storytelling, managing and organizing, social networking and communications, curriculum collaboration and content resources.

The websites honored in 2016 include:

• Media sharing:
  
  Movenote, Vibby, Bunkr, PicMonkey, Piktochart, Photos for Class
  
  
• Digital storytelling:
  
  Adobe Spark, Biteable, Office Sway
  
  
• Manage and organize:
  
  Seesaw, Jeopardy Rocks, Trello
  
  
• Social networking and communications:
  
  Creatubbles, Edueto, Quizizz, Bloomz
  
  
• Curriculum collaboration:
  
  Google Cultural Institute, Google Maps Street View Treks, Digital Compass, DK Find Out
  
  
• Content resources:
  
  Go Noodle, Actively Learn, Zoom In, Epic!, Smithsonian Tween Tribune

Links, descriptions and tips for the 2016 Best Websites as well as previously recognized sites can be found at .

"The Best Websites committee reviews hundreds of incredible site submissions every year,” said Lucy Green, committee chair. “The committee works hard to find engaging, educational and unique websites that support technology-enabled learning in libraries and in classrooms. This year we are excited to present our 200th site! We hope everyone enjoys this year's list, and that members of AASL and 91´«Ã½, fellow educators and administrators will continue to submit nominations via our webpage for future consideration.”

“Educators struggle finding the time and having the expertise to effectively evaluate websites appropriate for enhancing the learning environment,” said Leslie Preddy, AASL President. “Through their dedicated efforts, the AASL 2016 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning committee has developed an invaluable list of websites for transforming learning.”

The Best Websites for Teaching & Learning provide a foundation to support AASL's learning standards and each website is linked to one or more of the four strands of the “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner” – skills, dispositions in action, responsibilities and self-assessment strategies. Best Websites are free, Web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover.

The Best Websites for Teaching & Learning list is based on feedback and nominations from AASL members. School librarians can nominate their most used websites at . Nominations to be considered for recognition at the 2017 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference must be submitted by March 1, 2017.

The American Association of School Librarians, , a division of the 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½), empowers leaders to transform teaching and learning.