Sidebar: On-line Help for Teachers

By Gail Marshall

Gail Marshall is a technology consultant in St. Louis, Mo.

Your teachers can find ideas and advice on school-based or district-based computer hotlines or on the web. A novice teacher posts a query--for example, "What's the best way to begin writing across the curriculum with computers?"--and veterans respond. Administrators sign on from time to time to contribute ideas, praise suggestions, and suggest solutions to recurring problems.

One useful resource is the Exploratorium, a San Francisco science museum. For answers to many science questions--plus instructions for more than 100 science experiments--visit the museum's web site. Another is Megamath, from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which offers appealing elementary school math lessons. Commercial services such as America Online also support educators. At AOL's main menu, click on Learning and Culture for a wide range of options, including a Teachers' Lounge and an Idea Exchange, both found in the Educators' Network.

Electronic mail can also connect teachers to a wealth of ideas from schools around the nation and overseas. One source is projects sponsored by the Global SchoolNet Foundation, a computer network that connects schools and classrooms worldwide. Once a year for the past few years, the foundation has sponsored News Day, a project in which classes around the world create newspapers and send them to one another. Several classes can work on this project together, then celebrate by distributing the printed newspaper in the community.

Once novice teachers get accustomed to browsing the Internet for worthwhile projects and ideas, they'll soon become old pros at teaching with technology.