Resources are safe and relevant pieces of information carefully selected and cataloged by educators then organized by type, subject and learning level for you to access easily. There are thousands of pointers online resources available to you through our extensive search tools and hundreds of pages of information created and maintained by Apple Computer, Inc. in our Featured Resources section. Search With over 20,000 resources in our ever growing system, we have provided our members with some powerful searching tools. Search for resources by clicking on the link to Resources at the bottom of every ALI page or click on the Search link from another Resource page. ALI members can locate or browse through Resources by using any single or combination of these search axis: Keyword Subject Topic Level Content Type Language Resource ID  Here is a basic example of how to conduct a resource search: Subject and Topic. The resource subject and topic menus work with each other to give you the most specific searching capabilities. When you choose an option from the subject menu the topic menu will change to reflect the topics listed under your chosen subject. Here's an example: Chose subject "Art and Music" Topic menu will reflect: Any Topic, Art, Music and Performing Arts If you change your subject to something else, like "English- Literature" The topic menu will change to reflect: Any Topic, Ancient World Literature, American Literature, British Literature, World Literature, Fiction, Children's Literature and Young Adult Literature There are five pop-down menus there that allow you to search by Subject, Topic, Level, Content Type and Language. The keyword field allows you to search for a particular word or phrase. The Resource ID field allows you to search for a specific single resource by entering in its ALI Resource ID number. You can choose to search by one field or any combination of fields. For this example we will search by subject and topic: Choose a Subject to search. Choose a topic to search. If you are satisfied with your options click on the button labeled "Search Resources." If you would like to cancel your selections then press reset-- this will cause both subject and topic pull down menus to return to their default position. Content Types Content types are not mutually exclusive. For example many resources have data sets, images, and text and all resources have an URL. We have provided this guide to help you understand our organization and define what you want to search. Text: Text files, such as essays, books, articles, papers and news articles Image: Pictures and graphics (these are often in combination with other text) Audio: Music, speeches and other audio files (these sometimes require that you download appropriate plug-ins for your browser) Video: Mini movies in various formats including Quicktime (these sometimes require that you download appropriate plug-ins for your browser) Applet: Mini online applications. These include special kinds of calculators, games, demonstrations and other valuable interactive resources (these require Java capability and often take a long time to load) URL: Web pages that lead to other resources (every resource has a URL) Data Set: Raw data in different formats for you to download and analyze in other applications Application File: Files that require specific applications for you to use them such as Hypercard Stacks and Clarisworks templates Virtual Environment: Virtual reality resources and other types of immersive environments such as VR Movies Learning Activity: Formatted activities for teaching such as lesson plans, activity sheets, mini-themes, etc. Resource Guide*: A page of links organized around a specific topic *ALI Resource Guides always appear at the top a search results page with a special icon next to them. Learning levels Across the country and world there are different names for different learning levels. These chart was created to help you understand what stage of learning development we are referring to with our learning levels. Any Level: Information that is general enough to be used for any learning level Preschool: Suitable for very young children Primary: Suitable for children at the K-2 level Intermediate: Suitable for children at the 3-5 level Middle: Suitable for people at the 6-8 level High: Suitable for people at the 9-12 level College - Undergraduate: Suitable for people learning above the high school level College - Graduate: Suitable for topic experts and graduate students of the topic Adult: Information that is general enough for adults an adult at most learning levels Resource Guides Each day there are two Resource Guides listed on the front pages of ALI, and ALI for Higher Education. These ALI Resource Guides are unique to ALI. Our content managers find the 10 best resources for a particular subject and group them together on one document with some background text to help you use the information in your classroom. Some of these Resource Guides even feature related Units and images. When you search Resources, any related ALI Resource Guides will appear at the top of your search results page marked with a small icon. You can also look through our Resource Guides by clicking on the Resource Guide button at the top of any page in the Resources section. If you would like to contribute a Resource Guide to ALI, send an email to ali@apple.com. Features In addition to the thousands of searchable webpages that we have the regular section of ALI, we have hundreds more pages created by Apple for free use in education. This is wonderful area to visit often because we often post fresh content there. To get to the Features section, just click the button to Browse Features on any Resource section page. Contribute Resources If you are interested in sharing with us your webpage or your favorite web page resources please click the link to the contribute in the Resources section. Who knows you may even get your Resource on the front page of ALI! TIP: It is helpful to have the resource that you want to submit in a background window so that you can refer to it or cut and paste information from it when you are filling out the "Contribute" information. TIP: You may want to print this page for reference when you get ready to contribute a resource. Fill in your ALI username and password. Fill in the title of the Resource. Choose a broad subject category that describes your resource. Choose a specific topic for your resource level. Click on all of the learning levels that you feel apply to your resource. TIP: For learning level, it is better to err on the side of too broad a learning level than too narrow. If in doubt, check All. Write a 1-2 sentence description of the resource that says what it is and how it is valuable for teachers. This abstract will be used to describe the resource in all search results. List as many keywords as you like that involve your resource. Go wild with keywords. Use as many as you like that you can imagine a teacher would use to look up this resource. TIP: Any words used in the abstract of the resource do not need to be repeated as keywords. Put a space between each word, but no need to put commas or quotes on anything. Choose the language that the resource is in by clicking on the menu and dragging the cursor down until the language of your choice is highlighted. (English is the language by default.) Choose the content type of the resource. Enter the URL for the resource you have described. TIP: Always copy and paste the URL (too many errors if you try to type it). When you have finished filling out the contribute resource form and feel that all the information you have entered is correct click on the "Contribute URL" button at the bottom of the page. If you have made an error in the information you have entered you can go back and edit it at any time before you click on the "Contribute URL" button. If you would like to erase the entire form and start over you can click on the "Reset" button.

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