As an educator or an administrator you are always looking for information to supplement your professional development, to improve your performance in the classroom or school setting, and to network with knowledgeable leaders in your field. There are many professional organizations and government agencies that you trust. They may help you locate the following:

• hot topics and trends in education
  
  
• legislative activities that will affect you professionally
  
  
• convention schedules that will advance your professional development
  
  
• current projects, lesson plans and best practices to use with students
  
  
• ways to network with knowledgeable leaders in your field

     Explore the following URLs and find an organization or government agency that gives you an explanation of a current technology trend in education.

• U. S. Department of Education
  www.ed.gov
  
  
• State Department of Education
  www.aasa.org/States/statedepts.htm
  
  
• University of Oregon's Professional Center: Education Associations
  otn.uoregon.edu/eisenhower/professional/education.html
  
  
• Education Week/Organization
  www.edweek.org/context/orgs/orgs.htm
  
  
• WOW Education Resources
  www.uswestwow.org/nwow/neducation/nresources/
  
  
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
  www.iste.org

     Professional organizations have done much of the searching to locate the best educational Web resources for you and they have actively filtered them to offer you the most valuable and reliable ones.

     Locate any additional professional organizations that you are a member of or perhaps you know about. To do this, choose a search tool such as Alta Vista - www.altavista.com and type the name of the organization into the search box. Click on the Search button and the organization's URL will most likely show up in the first few hits.