Education on the Internet
Number 130: 21st July, 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.
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
Digital Video in the Classroom: How well do use - really use as opposed to watch - archive moving image as a source? This workshop led by Ben Walsh looks at how ICT can provide access to thousands of digital video clips, how it can help students analyse and interpret digital video, and how editing tools can be used to allow students to easily and cheaply create their own documentaries. If you have views on this subject, register with the Education Forum and join the debate.
News and Articles
Education on the Internet: Over the last few months I have had several complaints from people pointing out that they have not been receiving weekly editions of Education on the Internet. It seems, KeepAhead, who publish the newsletter, have taken your email addresses from their data-base because they believe you have unused accounts. This is clearly not the case and they obviously have problems with their software. There are two possible solutions to this problem. One is to re-subscribe. The other one is to view the newsletter via my website.
Educational Website Directory: This annotated directory of websites are organized under the headings: News and Articles, Web Directories, Lesson Plans, Teacher Centre, Internet Services, Primary Education, English, Design & Technology, Mathematics, Geography, Modern Languages, Politics, History, Sociology, ICT, Economics, Science, Citizenship, Art & Design, Music, Religious Studies, Business Studies, Media Studies, Theatre Studies, Photography and Physical Education.
Audit Commission: Some headteachers were forced to lay off staff during last spring's school funding problems while others were sitting on £1bn in unspent resources, the Audit Commission reports today. The survey into why some schools were left short last year fails to pin the blame on the schools, local authorities or the government, who were all caught up in the row over school funding. Local authorities were not guilty of failing to give all of their schools' budgets to headteachers, the report said. However, when local authorities were unable to tell which schools needed the extra money, the government's response - to guarantee a per pupil increase in funding and additional money for the most struggling local authorities - was a "blunt instrument".
History
SHP Conference: The SHP Conference was held at Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds (2nd-4th July). You can now partake online in some of the seminars that took place that weekend. So far the following are available: Learning Curve (Tom O'Leary), Digital Video in the History Classroom (Ben Walsh), Using Film to Explore Historical Interpretations (Dale Banham), Creativity and Rigour (Dan Varney), Lively Lifelines (Tony Fox), Time Maps (Peter Britton) and The Cold War and the Assassination of JFK (John Simkin). If you want to get involved register with the Education Forum and join the debate.
Virtual School: The European Virtual School has an editorial staff of more than 110 teachers from 13 countries. The History Department includes Dalibor Svoboda (Sweden), Juan Carlos Ocaña (Spain), Richard Jones-Nerzic (France), Nico Zijlstra (Netherlands), Marco Koene (Netherlands), Anders Macgregor-Thunell (Sweden), Kjell Dennersten (Sweden) and John Simkin (England). Current projects include Medieval Pilgrimage, Second World War Oral History, Aviation and the Spanish Civil War.
The Emancipation of Women: 1750-1920: A comprehensive encyclopaedia of how British women got the vote. Each entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the material. So far there are sections on: omen in the 19th Century (Schooling, Marriage, Industrial Work, Careers & Professions, University Education, Birth Control), Pressure Groups, Strategy and Tactics and Parliamentary Reform Acts.
English
William Shakespeare: Created and maintained by Jeremy Hylton at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, this website contains the electronic version of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. A powerful search-engine enables the user to search all the material for selected words or phrases. There is also a chronological and alphabetical listing of the plays, a collection of the most popular Shakespearean quotations, and a detailed glossary. Another section deals with the most frequently asked questions by users. The discussion area is very popular and often involves pleas for help with essay titles such as "Comic Female Monologues" and "Triumph and Tragedy in Shakespeare's Life". There is also a comprehensive list of other Shakespeare resources on the Internet.
D. H. Lawrence: The Rananim Society is a D.H. Lawrence e-mail discussion group. Two of the members of this group from Ontario, Canada, have produced a site dedicated to the work of D. H. Lawrence. As well as producing original material, the Rananim Society have collected together all the sites on the Internet that relate to Lawrence and his work. One list includes 'Pilgrimages and Homages' and provides links with places where Lawrence lived. 'Eastwood and DH Lawrence' supplies information (text and photographs) on the four houses that Lawrence occupied in Eastwood. Special emphasis is placed on his birthplace, 8a Victoria Street, which is now maintained as a museum. From here there are also links with other related websites: 'Eastwood', 'Picture Gallery of Old Eastwood' and 'About Nottingham'.
Science
The Ocean Planet: This website is managed by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The Ocean Planet is a virtual reality tour of the successful exhibition held at the National Museum of Natural History in 1995-6. The original exhibition attracted nearly two million visitors and now it has been made available to the rest of the world. The design of the website lets you click the floor plan to navigate, or you can search the site by subject. Most of the educational materials available here were developed specifically for the Ocean Planet Exhibition. These are in electronic form and can be retrieved for use in the classroom. Other organisations such as the University of Kansas and the New England Aquarium have also developed materials that link with the exhibition and these are also available from this website. There are also nine free fact-sheets that relate to the exhibition. A splendid website that is well worth the visit.
St. Louis Science Centre: St. Louis Science Centre is a museum that is experimenting with new and more interactive ways of displaying their exhibits. Their first online gallery is 'Ecology and Environment Past'. This gallery enables the user to explore 300 pages of photographs, animation, videos, drawings and text. 'Ecology and Environment Past' includes Dinosaur animations, a robotic T-Rex, Mississippian and Pennsylvanian dioramas and a Triceratops excavation. There is also an exhibition on the St. Louis area that explains how the region has changed through geological time, which creatures have lived there in the past, and what its current earthquake and tornado risks are. 'Science Adventures' is another popular part of the site. St. Louis Science Centre describe their science adventures as "pre-visit treasure maps that lead your class to the excitement of learning". Titles include: 'Struggle in the Steamy Swamp', 'The Talking Rock', 'Marooned on the Moon', and 'Alien Report'.
Geography
Exploring the Environment: This website is being developed by Wheeling Jesuit University as part of the NASA Classroom of the Future Project. Supported by NASA's Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications Program, Exploring the Environment is a series of interdisciplinary, problem-based leading modules for students. The project enables students to address real-world problems related to weather, population growth, biodiversity, land use patterns, volcanoes, water pollution and global warming. Excellent section for teachers which provides module notes and advice on planning, facilitating and assessing.
Geography World: Geography World has been created by Brad Bowerman, an enthusiastic geography teacher from Lakeland High School in Jermyn, Pennsylvania. As well as creating his own material on Pennsylvania, Bowerman has produced a directory of useful websites for geography teachers. Categories include Ecosystems, Tectonics, Natural Resources, Earth's Surface/Erosion, Weather/Climate, Maps & Globes, Cultures, Population, Environmental Issues and Geography Games.
Special Needs
Special Educational Needs: This website was created by David Wilson, who teaches French, German and students with learning difficulties at Harton School in South Shields. With an emphasis on the integration of information and communication technology into classroom practice, it is dedicated to the teaching of school subjects in general and modern foreign languages in particular to learners with special educational needs. The site offers a wide range of resources, from conference presentations and articles, through bibliographies and web portals, to classroom-ready units of work. The cross-curricular materials address the issues of special educational needs, literacy, numeracy, thinking skills and memory activities as they impinge on school subjects. As for modern languages, there is advice about special character generation and word processing as well as ten case studies and a bibliography of MFL/SEN, raising awareness of what is happening worldwide to render this formerly élitist subject accessible to all.
Educate your Dyslexic Child at Home: This website has been set up to provide parents with a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to educating dyslexic children at home. The site includes plenty of practical advice, useful not just for the parents of dyslexic children but for any parent whose children, schooled or otherwise, need help with the basics of the three Rs. The site has extensive guidance on teaching reading, important and surprising research information, full referencing and a compendious resource section.
Sociology
Sociology Learning Support: Sociology Learning Support offers self-assessment material for AS and A Level Sociology students. The tests are self-contained and run directly from the site without plug ins. All tests can be used with either AQA or OCR specifications. Students can do multiple-choice quizzes, short answer tests, match items, gap-fill exercises and crosswords. Topics for which tests are available include the Individual and Society (Introduction to Sociology), Research Methods, Family, and Education. New tests for these and other topics are in preparation.
DTC Sociology Online: Sociology A1 is a self contained distance learning resource for 6th form students at Dartford Technology College and formed the bulk of a recent LSDA Action Research Project. Health and Social Care provides support for AVCE students studying Unit One and will soon be extended to cover other units PE A Level resources support some units of the A1 in Physical Education Knowledge Management provides and links to forums for educationalists and practitioners to share ideas, methods and approaches The ICT pages are a collaborative project between DTC and Thamesview School to encourage online interactive learning in ICT at Key Stage 3.
Book Section
Complete Book of the Olympics: Between the covers of this encyclopaedic book is everything you could possibly need or want to know about the modern Olympic Games. This is a complete statistical record of every event since the foundation of the modern games in 1896. The book offers far more than the bare facts and figures. David Wallechinsky has sieved through more than a century of Olympic history to assemble a wealth of thought-provoking analysis and a mind-boggling collection of stories that range from the inspiring through the comic to the bizarre. (David Wallechinsky, Complete Book of the Olympics, Aurum Press, ISBN 1 85410 990 1, £16.99)
