Helpful Websites

Please note: As I add websites to this page, I realize that it's becoming a review of websites... go figure...

The Bechdel Test Movie List
I have a corresponding post about what the Bechdel test actually is and what my favorite movies are that pass it, but sometimes you just want all the information on this particular tool in one place. This is the best website I have found that meets that need. I also like it because sometimes a movie's merits in terms of the test are not cut and dried, and this website has a place to post and debate any particular merits of any particular film.

The Mary Sue
I can't take the credit for finding this one. A friend of mine shared it with me because I had shared a third friend's blog (almost a treatise) on the topic of feminism and LGBT portrayals in comic books. The Mary Sue kinda does the same thing, but on steroids. The entire website is dedicated to images of women and issues related to equal treatment in movies, comic books, video games, the internet, it even goes into representation in regards to science, technology, and space exploration. So it's pretty cool, in my opinion.

Classical Comics
This is a website that makes me drool. As a teacher who is cool with using graphic novels as learning tools, I can't get enough of the ingenuity of this company. They adapt classic stories of Literature (e.g. Shakespeare plays, Frankenstein, Great Expectations) into not just one graphic volume but three of varying intensities. In other words, each graphic novel you would purchase from this company would have a complete story in it, but you can choose whether you want the text in it to be a plain English style, an abbreviated version (in comparison to the original), or whether you want any text in the graphic novel to be taken straight from the source book. Like I said, incredible for teachers like me.

TED
If you've not encountered this website before, it is the online presence of the TED conferences, which all prescribe a certain way for experts in the fields of technology, entertainment, and/or design to come together and present what they know. There's more info on the conferences themselves on the website (I'm not the expert there) but in my classroom, I am able to direct students to this website when their curiosity is rampant and their desire for answers exceeds what I can provide. The presentations are engaging and though provoking; exactly the kind of stuff that I want for my classroom!

Taylor Mali
This guy is just awesome. I have books of his. I'm subscribed to his YouTube channel. Whenever I start feeling hopeless about being a teacher, I go to his work to make me see the bright side again. Taylor Mali taught in the classroom for just less than a decade, before he came out so that he could go around and talk to teachers like me. He also started his Quest for a Thousand Teachers. In short, he wanted to present poetry, presentations and gather together enough inspirational material in order to convince 1,000 people to become teachers. And it's worked. I can't say that I'm one of the one thousand, but he definitely kept me from bailing out. Taylor is one of the coolest, more inspirational people that I know and I think you should take a look at his web presence and see for yourself what you think!