Education
on the Internet
Number
127: 30th June, 2004
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 51,820
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
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=829
Online
Seminars
Learning
Styles: All teachers are aware of the fact that students learn
in a variety of different ways, and that even the same information
given to a class by the teacher is received by the students in a number
of different ways. Therefore all teachers need to ensure that they
develop their lessons to tap into the varied learning styles of their
students. This seminar sets out a number of approaches for doing this
and explains how to ensure that the lessons you prepare are fit for
the students in your school. Many different methods of ensuring success
in planning are suggested. The seminar is aimed at those at the start
of their teaching careers looking for a way to tackle this crucial
and complex challenge, as well as at more experienced teachers looking
for ideas or inspiration on how to plan to meet the needs of the full
range of their students by using a diversity of teaching and learning
styles. If
you have views on this subject, register
with the History Forum and join the debate.
News
and Articles
UK
Web Archiving Consortium: There is currently no legislation obliging
people to submit copies of websites to legal deposit libraries. Six
organizations (British Library, National Libraries of Wales and Scotland,
the National Archive, the Wellcome Trust and the Joint Information
Systems Committee) have established the UK Web Archiving Consortium.
The objective is to store about 6,000 websites for posterity. Mark
Middleton, who is managing the project, claims: "We will be identifying
sites that have political, scientific, social or artistic interest
for the nation and for future generations."
MindWeavers:
The idea for MindWeavers started in the middle of 1996 following the
discovery that many children with a specific language impairment (SLI)
had problems in perceiving simple sounds, particularly sounds that
changed rapidly in time. Subsequent research has shown that children
with a variety of learning problems, including SLI, autism, dyslexia,
and attention deficit disorder, have identifiable physiological signs
of hearing problems in the central auditory pathway of the brain.
However, other research showed that intense auditory training could
help, or even cure these problems. MindWeavers received investment
from the University of Oxford and from Oxford Innovation Ltd and is
based at the Oxford Centre for Innovation in Mill Street, Oxford.
Right
to Choose: The education "Right to Choose" package is
the latest Conservative policy to be launched as the party tries to
take on Labour over public services in the run-up to the next election.
The plan would give every school grant-maintained status, making them
able to control their own budgets and choose to select pupils by ability.
Unveiling his party's plans, Michael Howard called for good schools
to be freed from the "strait-jacket" of central control.
He said Conservative policy would be based on: parents' right to choose
a school; giving teachers real freedom; and opening up education to
new providers. There are already more school places than there are
pupils but the Tories want to raise the surplus further by creating
550,000-600,000 extra places.
English
RymeZone:
Students can use Ryme Zone to help write poetry and song lyrics. To
use RhymeZone, type a word into the search box, select a function
in the dropdown list next to the box, and then hit "Go get it!"
to view the results. Here are the different functions that you can
select from that dropdown list: Rhymes: (words that rhyme with the
word you typed in); Synonyms (words that are the same or similar in
meaning to the word you typed in). Also included are Antonyms, Definitions
and Homophones.
Rhymer:
Find rhymes without stressing, sweating, or fretting. Rhymer does
the work for you. Find the rhymes you need to complete your masterpiece.
With over 93,000 words, Rhymer takes the storm out of brainstorming
so you can spend your time creating. Great
for songwriters, poets, advertisers, teachers and kids! Windows or
Macintosh compatible. Rhymer appears on Word's Tools menu and lets
you insert rhyming words directly into your document. If you have
a different word processor, you can still run the program by itself
and use the Windows clipboard to copy and paste words into your document.
Politics
War
on Terrorism: "In March 2003, Americans thrilled to televised
scenes of U.S. forces moving into Iraq. Well-spoken soldiers, modern
equipment, and embedded reporters suggested a sense of purpose, competence,
and courage that resonated across the country. But today, 14 months
later, the mission is in shambles, scarred by rising Iraqi popular
discontent, continued attacks against US forces, infiltration of foreign
fighters, mounting civil strife, and no credible sense of direction."
These are the views of General Wesley Clark, one of the America’s
most distinguished retired military officers. During his thirty-three
years of service in the United States Army, he held numerous staff
and command positions, served in Vietnam, and rose to the rank of
4-star general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
Michael
Moore: One of the most controversial and provocative films of
the year, Fahrenheit 9/11 is Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael
Moore's searing examination of the Bush administration's actions in
the wake of the tragic events of 9/11. He looks at how - and why -
Bush and his inner circle avoided pursuing the Saudi connection to
9/11, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and
Saudi money had funded Al Qaeda. It is in this atmosphere of confusion,
suspicion and dread that the Bush Administration makes its headlong
rush towards war in Iraq. Fahrenheit 9/11 takes us inside that war
to tell the stories we haven't heard, illustrating the awful human
cost to US soldiers and their families. To find out more visit Michael
Moore's website. It includes a discussion of the facts included in
Fahrenheit 9/11.
Business
Studies
Tutor2u
is a portal site for students of Economics, Business Studies and Politics.
The objective of Geoff Riley is to build a comprehensive, user friendly
study portal, and to contribute to the study and examination success
of all our users. At the heart of Tutor2u lies the Discussion Forums.
A widening range of bulletin-board style discussion groups that provide
users with a unique opportunity to interact with each other. In just
16 months, the Discussion Forums have attracted over 2,000 registered
users and some 19,000 posts. Tutor2u also includes a range of study
materials. The comprehensive collection of revision notes covers the
key areas of economics and politics. Tutor2u maintains one of the
Web's most comprehensive collections of reviewed study links, carefully
categorised and described to help users find the data and support
they need.
Business
Education on the Internet: Bized is based at Bristol University
and is a dedicated business economics information gateway for students,
teachers and lecturers. Sections include Company Facts where top companies
answer questions and offer case studies to help students with their
coursework. BP and Unilever have provided material and Virgin Atlantic
and the Meat and Livestock Commission have also promised to join the
scheme. Another feature of the website is Extel Data where students
can look at key features of the accounts of 500 major companies. These
companies can be compared by using the Company Report Profiler. This
excellent site also has a Tutor Support area where teachers can obtain
classroom support materials to help them use business information
on the Internet.
ICT
Visual
Thesaurus: The Visual Thesaurus takes a unique, and remarkably
beautiful, approach to presenting the results of a word lookup. Discover
and learn from nearly 140,000 words, meanings and relationships Through
its emphasis on exploration and vocabulary building, the Visual Thesaurus
can improve reading, writing and communication skills. Type in a word
in the text box to the upper left of this window, click "look
it up," and you'll be rewarded with an interactive map showing
the meaning of your word. If you'd like unlimited access to the Visual
Thesaurus, you will need to subscribe to the Online Edition, or buy
the Desktop Edition.
Dialectizer:
Samuel Stoddard's website allows you to convert English text to any
of several comic dialects. The Dialectizer takes text or other web
pages and instantly creates parodies of them! Try it out by selecting
a dialect, then entering a URL or English text below. Options include
Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin,
or Hacker. The translation is done via a huge series of search-and-replace
operations. The translation programs do not analyze sentence structure
or keep track of parts of speech. They merely look for certain sequences
of characters and replace them with other sequences. The search strings
are sometimes whole words, sometimes parts of words, or sometimes
more than one word. The most complex are Cockney and Redneck, which
have between 600 and 900 search strings.
Primary
Education
Phonmena:
A simple computer program that teaches children to distinguish between
sounds can dramatically boost their listening skills. It can allow
them to progress by the equivalent of two years in just a few weeks,
the game's creator claims. The game, called Phonomena, was devised
by David Moore of the University of Oxford, UK, as an aid for children
with language problems, but he says his latest trials also show that
it can help any child. Other experts, however, are reserving judgement
until independent tests are carried out. Phonomena is designed to
improve children's ability to distinguish between different phonemes,
the basic sounds that form the building blocks of language. Up to
a fifth of all children are thought to have problems hearing the differences
between some sounds, says Moore, who heads the UK Medical Research
Council's Institute of Hearing Research.
Mighty
Jungulator: Futurelab, the research centre based in Bristol, works
with partners on projects that put prototype ICT packages. It does
not develop commercial products. Instead, it attempts to test the
educational potential of new technologies. For example, they have
recently worked with Nathan Hughes, a professional sound and animation
expert, to help children from Bristol's Luckwell primary school produce
an animated advent calendar. The project used a prototype 3D animating
program called Virtual Puppeteers alongside the Mighty Jungulation
music manipulation tool.
Internet
Services
Alexa:
This website allows you to discover details about any website. Type
in the URL and it will tell you the site's world ranking, how many
page impressions the website gets, total number of users, and the
length of time visitors stay on the site. It also provides a traffic
history graph of the site. Another useful feature is that you can
compare the records of any two sites. You can also provide reviews
of websites (placed on the Amazon site).
Webmonkey:
This website has been teaching people how to build websites of their
own since 1996. If you intend to create a website, then this is the
right place to visit. Information is organised under Authoring (HTML
Basics, Tables, Frames, Browsers, Tools, Stylesheets, DHTML, XML);
Design (Site Building, Graphics, Fonts); Multimedia (Audio/MP3, Shockwave/Flash,
Video, Animation); Programming (JavaScript, Java, ASP, PHP, ColdFusion,
Perl/CGI); Backend (Databases, Apache/XSSI, Unix, Security, Networks,
Protocols, Jobs).
Book
Section
Encounters
With Communism: This memoir by perhaps its last surviving eyewitness
casts new light on communist penetration of the Federal Government
in 1930-50 and on the tides of pro-Soviet subversion which overwhelmed
Cuba and menaced Mexico and Brazil. Written in a clear narrative style,
Nathaniel Weyl's engrossing account describes the shock waves on the
American Intelligentsia caused by the Alger Hiss espionage case and
a decade later, by the Cuban crisis. Involved in cold war activities,
Weyl enjoyed the company of such Latin American presidents as Lazaro
Cardenas of Mexico and Fulgenio Batista of Cuba. (Xlibris,
ISBN 1 4134 0747 1, $17.84)
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
