FREE Is a Good Buy
In April 1997, President Clinton asked US agencies to provide educational
resources on the World Wide Web. More than 30 agencies responded by forming
a working group to identify and prepare these resources. Now educators and students
can access a specific site—Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
(FREE) at www.ed.gov/free—to find documents from such agencies as the Department
of Defense, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Peace Corps.
In this editorial, David Moursund describes some of the materials
he found and then comments briefly on their educational implications and on
other sites that offer free, high-quality content.
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Curriculum-Based Telecollaboration
Using Activity Structures to Design Student Projects
How teachers use the Internet to create learning projects for their students
depends a lot on the tools they have at their disposal. In this feature article,
the first of the new volume, Judi Harris describes 18 major “activity structures”
that can be used by teachers when they design their classroom projects. She
also points out some of the best uses of these activity structures in projects
that already reside on the World Wide Web.
Read...
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to Table of Contents.
Is It Linear?
Straight, wavy, curving, coiled. No, we’re not talking about
hair. Bisecting, intersecting, tangential, sloping. You’re right, we’re
talking about lines. As Linda Plymate discusses in this month’s mathematics
article, getting students to appreciate what lines mean in different settings,
especially those related to graphing, is getting easier all the time, especially
with some neat equipment now available to the average classroom teacher.
Subject: Math
Grade Level: 7–12 (Ages 12–18)
Software/Hardware: TI Calculator-Based Laboratory, Calculator-Based Ranger,
and graphing calculators
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to Table of Contents.
Flights of Fancy
Capturing Viewpoint with Technology
Turning young students into active story listeners and storytellers is
one of the most exciting experiences an early childhood and preschool teacher
can have. The biggest challenge, however, may be finding ways for educators
to use technology to get K–12 readers to present stories in their own words.
Fortunately, as Rose Reissman describes in this article, children’s desktop-publishing
programs such as Kid Pix can support these young readers and authors as they
develop literacy habits and skills.
Subject: Language Arts
Grade Level: K–5 (Ages 5–10)
Software/Hardware: Creative Artist and Plus for KIDS (Microsoft), Kid
Pix (Broderbund, a division of The Learning Company), Storybook Weaver (The
Learning Company)
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to Table of Contents.
Capturing Science in a
Net
How Lesson Plans from the World Wide Web Facilitate Science
Education
The Internet contains rich, real-time scientific data and activities, but
teachers rarely have the time to find and evaluate them for their classes. In
this article, the authors describe how the Department of Geological Sciences
at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, has collected K–12 activities
and data that correlate with both U.S. and Ohio science education standards
and created a gateway to them: http://geology.wright.edu/geology/k-12/k-12.html.
Subject: Earth Science
Grade Level: 2–12 (Ages 7–18)
Software/Hardware: World Wide Web, graphing software (e.g., Microsoft
Excel)
Back
to Table of Contents.
Something Superhot in Thermopolis
Rural Wyoming Schools Enter 21st Century with Microsoft Training
Program
Education now requires far more than what a school district itself can
provide: It now needs the support of larger communities, state education systems,
and interested members of the private sector. In this article, the author describes
one Wyoming district’s experiences with both Microsoft and its training
programs and state institutions of higher education and government.
Subject: Technology
Grade Level: 9–12 (Ages 14–18)
Software/Hardware: Windows, Windows NT, and Visual Basic (Microsoft);
PCs; token ring, Ethernet, and fast Ethernet networks
Back
to Table of Contents.
Grabbing Data
What You Need to Log and Use Real-World Data
Just what equipment do you need to get the most out of the data you gather
with your class? In this month’s Power Tools, Bob Albrecht and George Firedrake
describe both common and uncommon data-recording equipment for use in math and
science classes at all levels. Most of the equipment is quick and easy to set
up. If your students are just beginning to collect real-world data (or if they
are already adept), then look at the equipment that Bob and George describe.
Students can perform experiments anywhere and bring the data back to class to
analyze. Plenty more classroom ideas are on the Web.
Subject: Math, Science
Grade Level: all
Software/Hardware: TI Calculator-Based Laboratory, Calculator-Based Ranger,
and graphing calculators; AccuLab, TeamLabs, and Vernier microcomputer-based
labs, Onset data loggers
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to Table of Contents.
Surviving a Multimedia
Workshop Without a Single Computer
Have you ever conducted a multimedia workshop in a classroom full of teachers
(or students) without a computer? It’s the perfect time to panic, right?
But wait. If you dive beneath the computer activities to spotlight the key processes
you really wanted to demonstrate and practice, then you can still get out of
the workshop alive.
Fred and Catie recently conducted a hands-on workshop in Denver
titled “The Multimedia Classroom: Effective Classroom Applications.”
This two-day, 10-hour workshop for teachers who flew in from all over the United
States was conducted entirely without computers.
Back
to Table of Contents.
Opening the Electronic
Doorway into Classrooms
How One School District Joined the Technology Revolution
Most of us understand that getting technology in the classroom is a daunting
task. But not everyone has found out that strategic planning is critical to
the process—and may well determine success or failure. In this article,
three New York state educators describe how such planning has made a difference
in directing time, money, and attention to the right parties and programs.
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to Table of Contents.
Software Reviews
Using Multicultural Software in the Classroom
Choosing software to teach about cultural issues is a tricky task. Some
software is educationally appropriate, and some is not. Fortunately, curriculum
guidelines put forth by the National Council for the Social Studies can help
you evaluate software. In this month’s column, Judi Mathis Johnson follows
those guidelines to evaluate multicultural software. She describes titles that
are educational and presents two different programs (Cultural Debates from Tom
Snyder Productions and World Walker Australia from Soleil Software) that meet
the definition of multicultural education.
Back
to Table of Contents.
New Software Releases
September’s New Software Releases include:
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WebPainter 2.0 from Totally Hip Software |
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Field Trip to the Rainforest Deluxe from Sunburst/Tenth
Planet |
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Evolution of Man and Animals on the Move developed
by Maris Multimedia |
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Kid Pix Studio Deluxe from Broderbund, a division of
The Learning Company |
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SETQuest: Career Discovery in Science, Engineering, and
Technology from Learning in Motion |
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Ocean Expeditions: El Niño from Tom Snyder Productions
|
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Maple V Release 5 from Waterloo Maple |
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The Graph Club from Tom Snyder Productions |
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Interactive Earth from WorldLink |
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Tomorrow’s Promise Spelling from Jostens Learning
|
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Let’s Go for the K–4 grade range from DynEd
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People of the Plains from Rainbow Educational Media
|
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Print Shop Publishing Suite for Macintosh |
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Educast Mail |
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The ClueFinders’ 3rd Grade Adventures |
Copyright © 1998, ISTE (International Society for
Technology in Education).
All rights reserved.
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