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Building virtual classrooms
Online classes have a distinct advantage: Dogs can't
eat virtual homework. Creating an online component
to a class -- or even setting up an entire web-based
course -- is easier than it sounds. Blackboard's
free service allows teachers to create a cyberclass
in a matter of minutes. Courses hosted on Blackboard's
servers are accessible to students in school or at
home -- wherever there's a web browser -- and can
include course documents, discussions, real-time chat
and whiteboards, a gradebook and assessment tools,
collaborative work groups, and online messaging and
file exchange.
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Great expectations
For parents, the road to greater involvement in
their children's education often begins with an understanding
of the learning objectives that are expected of their
kids. That's where Tudor Publishing's free Home2School
web site can help. Using the site, parents can build
a personalized education plan for their child in mathematics
and language arts, based on the specific requirements
in their state. The site provides a description of
each learning objective for each state and grade level,
along with a short tutorial to help parents assist
their children in achieving the objective. Although
it's not a comprehensive tool, this site provides
enough information to help parents feel more comfortable
asking that age-old question: "What did you learn
in school today?"
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Eureka! Eureka!
As Archimedes discovered, insight often comes from hands-on
experience -- and a repeatable experiment. Combining the
best of interactive experiments and online curriculum, LOGAL.net
offers real-time, Internet-based simulations in the areas
of biology, chemistry, physics, and math. Lesson plans accompany
each of the 670 activities, which run in a browser-based
helper application and are correlated to national and state
teaching standards as well as many textbooks. The activities
run the gamut from DNA and atomic structure to wave propagation
and probability, and students can save their work in online
portfolios. School subscriptions cost $2.50 per student
per year.
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