License to surf
The Internet can be unkind to those who are not well-versed in the ways
of cyberspace. Some schools take a page out of the Department of Motor Vehicles'
book and issue surfer's licenses to students who pass a web safety course.
If you're looking for a good model for this concept, take a look at the
PBS Kids TechKnow site.
Students who successfully complete an interactive test on this site covering
online safety, privacy, and copyright questions are rewarded with a downloadable
web license.
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Uncle Sam's best sites
A large proportion of the web's really useful educational resources are
located on servers run by agencies of the federal government. Now there's
a site that gathers and organizes these resources for your use in the classroom.
The Federal Resources for Educational
Excellence (FREE) site offers searchable and browsable access to online
educational materials from 49 federal agencies and organizations, in subject
areas ranging from the arts to vocational education. This site is not to
be missed.
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One-stop resource shop
There are plenty of great educational resources, lesson plans, and curriculum
units on the web, but the hard part has always been finding them. Wouldn't
it be nice if one site provided easy access to the dispersed collections
of educational materials found on federal, state, university, nonprofit,
and commercial sites? That's the idea behind the Gateway
to Educational Materials (GEM) project. Visitors can search by subject,
keyword, title, description, full text, and grade level. Browsing by subject
or keyword is also an option. At press time, the Gateway site included over
1,000 education resources -- and the list is growing. |
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Java algebra
Learning how to graph
linear equations can be more fun than it sounds, provided you've got
an interactive guide. Bremen High School in Midlothian, Ill., offers a site
that guides students through this topic with the aid of Java applets and
JavaScript wizardry. Created by a math and computer science teacher at the
school, the site helps students understand everything from ordered pairs
to perpendicular lines by means of interactive tutorials. Online quizzes
and tests provide students with immediate feedback on their progress, and
a glossary helps them understand unfamiliar terms. Students can use an online
calculator and a graph plotter to solve the problems. Should they get stuck,
help can be found by going to the message boards or the live discussion
room. There's even an interactive crossword puzzle of mathematical terms.
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A question of balance
How do you strike a balance between today's needs and the needs of future
generations? To help students think about this question, the World Bank
has launched a web site that explores the social, economic, and environment
aspects of sustainable development.
Here, students can learn about such issues as population growth rates and
access to safe water. The information is supplemented with maps, charts,
data, photos, case studies, and a glossary. A teacher's guide is included,
as well as tests and activities for students. Students can even contribute
their own articles on sustainable development to an online student newspaper. |
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