Education on the Internet
Number 102: 7th January, 2004
Introduction
Introduction
Education on the Internet is published by Spartacus Educational every week. The newsletter includes news, reviews of websites and articles on using ICT in the classroom. Members of the mailing list are invited to submit information for inclusion in future newsletters. In this way we hope to create a community of people involved in using the Internet in education. Currently there are 43,200 subscribers to the newsletter.
All reviews are added to our web directory. There are sections on Internet Services, Online Seminars, Primary Education, English, Mathematics, Science, Modern Languages, History, Geography, Design & Technology, Business Studies, Special Needs, Media Studies, ICT, Sociology, Music, Politics, Economics, Photography, Art & Design, Theatre Studies, Physical Education and Religious Studies.
John Simkin
Online Seminars
International Education Forum: January 2004 saw the launch of an international forum which enables people from all over the world who are interested in education to post information, ask questions, and to take part in debates about education. The forum also helps teachers to find partners for subject specific and cross-curricular curriculum projects. It is hoped that the forum will provide a world community of teachers. Most of the website is in English but there is also sections in German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedish and Greek. In the near future there will be sections added in other languages. There is currently an interesting debate taking place on the development of E-Learning. Please register and if possible, add a brief biography on the forum.
News and Articles
EUROCALL: The European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) was established in 1993. It is an association of language teaching professionals from Europe and worldwide, which aims to promote the use of foreign languages within Europe. It also helps to provide a European focus for the promulgation of innovative research, development and practice relating to the use of technologies for language learning and to enhance the quality, dissemination and efficiency of CALL materials.
E-Omogeneia: The Greek Ministry of education, with the cooperation of the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, has launched the e-omogeneia initiative (omogeneia means “Greeks in a foreign country”). This includes a web portal that connects all participant Greek schools abroad. Registered users can communicate each other through forums and there are many useful data that could be retrieved, like laws, information about the Greek studies abroad etc. A powerful tool (Centra) gives the opportunity for synchronous training for those school’s teachers. For the moment, there are several schools that get every week, two hours online synchronous training for their teachers through Centra.
CIS London Recruitment Fair: The Council of International Schools (CIS) is a not-for-profit association of schools and post-secondary institutions working collaboratively for the continuous improvement of international education. The Resource and Information Service supports schools in gaining access to a current, worldwide knowledge base through promoting research and disseminating information. The London Recruitment Fair takes place at the Thistle Hotel, Marble Arch (5th to 8th February, 2004).
History
Robert E. Lee Historical Preservation Site: Robert E. Lee is one of the most interesting characters of American history. He opposed the Civil War, yet was offered command of the Union and the Confederate armies. He opposed slavery, but ended up commanding the Confederate army. History will remember him as one of the world’s most significant military figures, yet he spent the last years of his life as an educator, turning down lucrative business opportunities resulting from his notoriety. Robert E. Lee personified the ideals of Duty, Honor, and Country, yet was a pivotal figure in a war that almost destroyed the Nation.
Shropshire Routes to Roots: Need some images to use in the classroom? Or want some background information and ideas? Shropshire Routes to Roots can help! Shropshire Routes to Roots is a digitization project that is producing on-line content and resources for teachers. With a special focus on the National Curriculum, this website will reveal some of the hidden aspects of Shropshire's past. Themes to be explored include World Wars One and Two, Victorian crime and detection, transport and communication, the impact of industrial development and changes in the landscape. Local history and archival collections from Shropshire Archives and Oswestry Library, as well as individual research, are being digitised to create a store of on-line resources. The website can be used on both PC's and white boards, but is also designed to be printer friendly, with worksheets and glossaries available for use or adaptation by teachers. Working in partnership with education advisers, and using a combination of digitised archival sources, background information, facts and questions, Shropshire Routes to Roots is bringing history to life.
Geography
Geography Department: The site is published by the author, R. Prutton who is Head of Geography at The Wrotham School in Kent. The site is primarily run as a resource bank for the pupils (Key Stage 3 - 5), but now contains many resources that teachers can use, the powerpoint presentations are constantly being added. The photo gallery makes fieldwork images easy for pupil access. The site is being updated every month and is starting to have worksheets and paper based resources added to it. So visit it regularly for updates. Teachers are encouraged to send the website resources for publication.
Interactive Atlas: Multi Media Mapping have created an interactive atlas of Great Britain. Students find the town or village they are interested in by clicking on a map or by typing in the name or postcode. Each map has a scale indicator and you can zoom in and out as you please. Once you have arrived at your destination you can get details of the local weather and find out what the forecast is for the following day. Other features include a list of local information sites and interesting places to visit in the area.
Media Education
First Day on the Somme: This CD-ROM, produced by Film Education, contains downloadable pdf's which take students through the process of constructing their own documentary on these historical events. Rushes from the period as well as contemporary footage allow students to discover ways in which propaganda can be created as well as the ways in which images can be manipulated. It also asks them to question the veracity of the moving image as used within documentary programmes on television. Full details can be found at the Film Education website.
Lobster Magazine: Robin Ramsay publishes the Lobster magazine twice a year. A collection of these articles can be found on the website. This includes: The Influence of Intelligence services on the British Left, Compromised Reporting, Conspiracy Theories and Clandestine Politics, Enemies Within? Recent JFK Literature, Who were they Travelling With? UFOs and the Governments of the USA and UK and Getting it Right: the Security Agencies in Modern Society.
Politics
Beat Poverty: "When I'm hungry I can't follow what the teacher is saying. When I return home from school I go to sleep straight away because I'm too hungry to move around." Mohammed is just one of an estimated 600 million children whose families have to live on less than a dollar a day (approximately 66p). This tiny amount is all the family has to spend on food, water, shelter and everything else that they need. Living on less than a dollar a day is the international definition of absolute poverty. Every three seconds, poverty takes a child's life. It does not have to be this way. This Save the Children website provides information on how this situation could be improved.
Political Sciences Resources: Richard Kimber of Keele University has produced a magnificent website for all teachers and students of Politics. He has successfully achieved his ambition of offering a gateway to the most significant resources relevant to political science on the Internet. Kimber has organized his material in several different ways. Area Studies gives access to information on individual countries. You can also find information by looking at the topics section such as constitutions, elections or political parties.
Science
Chemguide is a no-frills site aimed at Chemistry students at a level equivalent to UK advanced level (roughly ages 16 to 18). Although it is written to cover the demands of UK A level syllabuses, it is being used successfully worldwide by students in all sorts of other educational systems. To help students to understand the Chemistry, topics are covered with much greater care and space than is normally possible in textbooks, and the language level and layout is deliberately kept as simple as possible. The writer is an experienced teacher, ex-Head of Chemistry at Truro School, Cornwall, UK, and the author of two Chemistry textbooks.
Doc Brown's Chemistry Clinic is a free to use, non-commercial, 'nuts and bolts' revision web site for chemistry. It is constantly evolving and expanding with a wide range of revision notes, quizzes and word-fills that were initially designed to support (1) UK KS3 chemistry (equivalent to USA grades 6-8), (2) any UK based KS4/GCSE/IGCSE syllabus containing any chemistry (equivalent to USA grades 8-10) and (3) UK based GCE Advanced Level AS/A2 chemistry (equivalent to USA grades 11-12). The site is written by Dr Phil Brown, ex Head of Chemistry, Whitby Community College, England who hopes it will help any student around the world and is affiliated to the UNESCO project "Ray of Hope".
Modern Languages
ICT4LT - ICT for Language Teachers: The ICT4LT website is the outcome of a Socrates-funded project coordinated by Thames Valley University. It is currently the web's largest single group of freely available training resources in ICT for language teachers. It consists of a total of 15 modules at three different levels in four different languages (English, Italian, Finnish and Swedish), plus an additional category for new modules. The website has proved extremely popular both with practising language teachers and with teachers undergoing initial teacher training in university departments of education. The site receives an average of 500-plus hits per day and has been used widely as a support for the delivery of face-to-face and online training courses in ICT for language teachers. The site has been accessed not only from EU countries but also from over 70 other countries throughout the world. The ICT4LT website is updated by Graham Davies (Visiting Professor, Thames Valley University) on a weekly basis and continues to expand.
IST French: The International School Of Toulouse French Website contains links to tutorials in different languages to use Hot Potatoes software’s last version and many good links to on-line dictionaries, interactive stories and games, tongue twisters, slang French and to on-line exercises to practise verbs / tenses, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and assess your knowledge of French. You can find information about French culture - television, radio, cinema, press - and about living in Toulouse. To learn vocabulary through French pop music, listen to the audio files and fill in the blanks of a few songs. There are also vocabulary exercises about some good French movies and Christmas French activities. A whole section is dedicated to examinations: there are the syllabi of the IGCSE French as a First Language and of the IGCSE French as a Foreign Language, with some lists of vocabulary required by the Cambridge International Examinations Board and some past papers for the Speaking Test. And there are also the syllabi of the International Baccalaureate French Language A1, A2 or B (and links to useful websites for IB French B).
Book Section
JFK: The Second Plot: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 remains one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century. After 30 years of research, Matthew Smith has uncovered the second plot - the plot in which Oswald's true role in the assassination is exposed - and the unmasking of a second plot leads naturally to the first. In this extraordinary and important book we learn for the first time who Oswald really was, who he was working for and what his true role was in the macabre enterprise. (Matthew Smith, Mainstream, ISBN 1 84018 501 5, £9.99)
