| |
Item (linked) |
Rationale |
Listservs or
Forums
|
Coalition
of Delaware
Science Teachers |
The flow of communication in this group is minimal,
but I have come in touch with Jim Littier, a fellow science teacher
in southern Delaware. At training seminars Jim has helped out with
the technical preparations. He seems like a knowledgeable person.
Beyond Jim, there are seven other members of group and their archive of
communications small. Perhaps it is a new group and in the summer
one would expect a group of teachers to fail to respond. |
| ask-science |
In contrast to the coalitionde group, ask-science
has a much larger membership and more frequent communications. The
members post scientific questions and receive answers from other members.
I followed a string concerning entropy and the 'heat death' of the universe.
The communications were brief but very useful. Instead of providing
information, members of the group simply sent links to pages which were
designed to answer the question posed. The efficiency of the web
of communication possible using the internet is shown in this group and
could prove useful in class as a reference for the students. The
stream of communication has dropped to zero within the last six months.
The volume of communications is heavy in certain months and then almost
nothing. The reason for such a usage pattern is a mystery. |
| I.S.S.E.S |
The description of this group called it a tool for
special education teachers and general classroom teachers to promote and
discuss inclusion strategies. Most of the messages posted had very
specific information on local meetings for an Iowa City school district.
In the description of the group they should have said the group was devoted
to local initiatives. The internet can give, and the internet take
away. Many promising leads on the web turn out to be dead ends.
Developing resources on the web, as in real life is a process of trial
and error. |
Telecollaborative
Projects
|
globe |
G.L.O.B.E. stands for global learning and observation to
benefit the environment. Most of the projects are global but some
are regional (German lily). Many projects are biologically oriented
where data about animals or plants or land use data are shared internationally.
In addition, earth science projects concerned with soil or atmospheric
conditions were offered. The partnership aspect of the site is emphasized
because if you sign up to use the data it is implied you will join the
project and contribute. Not only information is shared but discussion
and publication can also be a shared effort. The emphasis of the
site is out of the subject area but my colleagues in Milford might like
to take a look at the page. Many teacher resources are available
for each type of communication tool and for specific projects. |
Center
for Improved Engineering
and Science
Education |
The Stevens Institute of technology along with New Jersey
schools have put together a wealth of resources including six e-projects
with data sharing and communication on a local and international scale.
Some projects involve water quality and sampling while most study Earth
science to take advantage of the global nature of the internet. Unfortunately,
most of the projects were completed and therefore closed to collaboration.
Many partnership ventures were continuing with e-discussions though.
One partnership involved a teacher going to Costa Rica and keeping a web
journal in addition to communicating with students along the way. |
| Global
Schoolhouse |
Lightspan has the most extensive collection of projects
and prepackaged systems in the Global school house. A search of ongoing
physics projects included three interesting results on roller coaster and
playground physics. In another service, students can experience a
virtual field trip through the eyes and words of their far away classmates.
Once you have chosen the field trip, you can view its progress or its archive
of entries. Or interact with the on-site team to ask questions.
This kind of collaboration is more casual than data sharing because their
is no time dependency on the activities, anyone can observe and member
schools or classes can contribute. Newsgroups (with e-discusssions)
were a third category of collaboration. The topics of discussion
could be scientific and yet the cultural exchange by students with different
perspectives would be valuable as well. |
|
Search Tools
|
Searchalot |
Because of the increased competition between search tools
they are all offering very similar services. Searchalot has a tremendous
index of topics in addition to allowing searches with eight of the most
popular search engines. It's not good enough just to be a search
engine these days and this site demonstrates how much service you can stuff
into one page: travel, shipping, web space, e-mail, and news. Because
the industry giants like netscape or MSN offer every electronic service
imaginable sites like this must keep up. Because of the cornucopia
of services offered students must be more self disciplined when using the
page. Given the draw backs of an all in one package, the site still
provides a wealth of interesting sites through the index and gave rich
varied results for the searches I performed. |
| SciNet |
SciNet is an index of a tremendous number of articles
and web sites concerned with science. One can follow the index topics
or search the entire data base. Just as useful are the other indices
provided such as top ten scientific books or the top 50 most helpful scientific
sites. In addition, the site has its own news group which you may
join. It is a one stop shopping visit for every scientific.
Because of the highly organized presentation of the page I would recommend
its use to any student from middle school up.
This site is a classic demonstration of the trade-off between focus
and breadth of information. While a search on Google may provide
a greater variety of sources, many of them may be off topic. Using
SciNet provides more structure and increases the likelihood of sources
that are focused on the scientific curriculum I target. Usually class
time would be better spent using a search tool like this compared to the
other search engines which cast a much wider net, but often catch much
more trash. |
| Westlazer |
Choosing a search engine that was not covered in
class was a challenging assignment, all of the big ones were mentioned.
I found a meta-search tool similar to metacrawler, a compendium of search
engines at westlazer.com
No index of topics was provided only a list of about forty search engines.
You could choose which one to use, or use a combination of engines.
Because the use of the page was totally open-ended with no structure or
guidance I would not feel comfortable using this site with young kids,
but with adolescents the site is appropriate. It provides a thorough
selection of all the industry search giants and with same word searches
you could easily show similarities and differences between the engines
used in the page. |
Lesson Plan
Sources
|
nea |
The NEA has put together a good bank electronic
activities at bits and bytes off its home page. Here entire units
are available for reference. The astronomy unit, for example, gave
vary thorough coverage of our solar system with historical background and
a brilliant collection of pictures. Also a virtual tour of the FBI
for a middle school group was interesting. Finally, a link to http://www.teachmefinance.com/
had many fundamental but sophisticated tutorials and calculation devices.
It was a good example of a consumer site providing educational resources
The depth of these activities is impressive and although there is no interaction
or feed back the net takes the students on a trip that could enrich a traditional
routine |
| TeAch-nology.com |
This site boasts over 17,000 lessons and activities and
I believe it. The topic of mechanics in physics returned 85 lessons
and some of these were collection of lessons themselves. Some lessons
were traditional with simple materials and printable worksheets and some
were electronic lessons. Overall the site is a massive resource.
A index structure is given and search tools are given to navigate. |
Data Sets or
Online Tools
|
Physics2000 |
The University of Colorado has set up an great array
of visually stunning applet to help students understand modern physics.
In one, students drag a fluoroscope over the hand of a person to see the
bony structures underneath. In another applet students perform a
virtual CAT scan on a person's rib cage to see the structure inside.
Thirty three of these applets are available to cover a variety of topics
which are generally considered advanced topics but here my students could
have some fun because the of the interactive way the demonstrations are
produced. |
| Winsor
School Ready Reference |
The site has complied an enormous quantity of statistical
information. Surprisingly no search tools are provided, you must
find your way through their alphabetical index. You can find Amtrak
train schedules or UNICEF statistics
on mortality and immunization around the world. The ever popular,
and expansive in itself, site provided by the census
bureau gives a rich variety of data. Finally, view a map of major polluters
courtesy of the Environmental Defense
Fund. |
| Math-on-Web |
This site provides complicated numerical analysis of functions
usually left to calculus. The options include curve fitting, minimum
and maximum as well as numerical integration. Not all students can
afford $100 calculators and this site could put the fancy analysis tools
in their hands for free. The root finder is the most useful in physics
class. Students often have an allergic reaction to the quadratic
equation but a Newton-Raphson numerical solution will do the job for them
once they get used to the method of entry into the applets fields. |
