Hitting the Links

I hope everyone is having a nice sunny day! Today, I am going to include several links here for people to check out. I am working on the "Instruction" section of the new Island Sail web site. You will soon find these links embedded into the "Curriculum" page. Also, Instructors should check out the "Instructors" page... already linked in the "Instruction" pop-up menu. Be thinking about your one paragraph Bio... I will get pictures soon!

Click here to go to the active-draft of the new Island Sail web site.

Island Sail - Online Learning Resources:

US Sailing - Online Education: We will use information from this site in a variety of ways. Instructors should become familiar with this web resource and use it to help plan how they will approach instructional topics and skills. This web site has several instructional videos, but be sure to check out the link to the Online Small Boat Sailing Course.

BoatSafe.com: This is a great site, one of the best boating sites for kids and young adults that I have found online. It has a wide range of resources and links to information that are in line with skills and knowledge that we hope to cover with Island Sail participants. It is also a great place for Instructors to find interesting ideas for rainy-day activities or to enrich their daily instructional plans.

Boating Safety Sidekicks: This is a wonderful, interactive web site that helps teach boating safety to kids. It is something I highly recommend that use as a rain-day activity resource.

Animated Knots: This site has a great set of animations that show a variety of different knots, categorized by common use (ex. boating, climbing, scouting...).

Online Sailing Manual: This web site has a wide-range of useful resources that can be used to enhance sailing instruction for Island Sail participants. Instructors should draw from these resources for their own instructional plans.

Basic Sailing: This is a very nice site, filled with information that would be "just right" for Island Sail participants. It is well crafted... probably because it was done by a library-media specialist.

Sailing at Wellesley College: Another academic site that has some outstanding instructional information for sailing.

Beginning Sailing - University of Hawaii: This is yet another valuable basic sailing instruction page.

ASA Basic Sailing Instruction: The American Sailing Association (ASA) also provides instructional guidelines for a variety of sailing certifications. This page provides a very nice outline of skills and understanding that relate to Basic Small Boat Sailing. The US Sailing curriculum we will be using has many of these same standards.

Marine Waypoints: This link provides a table showing the different nautical flags and meanings. You can use the nautical flag translator to spell your name or take a quiz to test your knowledge of the flags.

You Tube - Sailing Instruction Videos: Parents should check out these resource and understand that You Tube contains content which would not be appropriate for most of our students. It would be a good chance to have a conversation with your child about appropriate use and online safety. The link I have provided here was organized by searching for "Sailing Instruction". You Tube allows members to post edit and post videos (free & easy)... something we can try to do ourselves this summer! Maybe we have an aspiring director(s) and actors in the program?

Expert Village - Sailing Instruction Videos: Like YouTube, this site has videos or video clips that can be posted by anyone with an Internet connection... but they generally are filtered to only include "expert" advice on how-to do something useful. I haven't used this resource much, but it has a variety of useful clips that provide basic sailing instruction.

Commander Bob's Boating Safety Notebook: This is a great site... especially if you are in a position to be teacher others about nautical safety.

That seems like more than enough for now. I will think about and work with Instructors this summer to align these better with the Island Sail curriculum as we refine it over the summer.