Education on the Internet
Number 30: 7th August 2002
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 25,857 subscribers to the newsletter.
All reviews are added to our web directory. There are sections on Primary Education, English, Mathematics, Science, Modern Languages, History, Geography, Design & Technology, Business Studies, Media Studies, ICT, Sociology, Music, Politics, Economics, Photography, Art & Design, Theatre Studies, Physical Education and Religious Studies.
John Simkin
News and Articles
myEUROPE: The myEUROPE project is a European Schoolnet initiative at the disposal of all the teachers who wish to involve their pupils, colleagues and schools in European issues and values around three main thematic areas: European Citizenship, Cultural Diversity and Young Mobility. It provides news, services, tools, activities, projects and resources. Teachers can either use the resources we provide or contribute, participate in pedagogical activities or set up cross-European collaborative projects.
NetSense: A new report on Internet usage in India indicates that cyber cafes are the dominant access point for school users. According to the NetSense study, over 48 percent of school going Indians access the Internet at Cyber Cafes. However, the research also indicates that home access is a driver of early net access, with a dominant proportion of net users under the age of 10 having Internet access at home. The study indicates that entertainment and sport sites are the most popular sites for young Indian Internet users.
Online College Survey: The 360 Youth/Harris Interactive College ExplorerTM Outlook Study is an online college survey. The study covers a variety of topics about the 18-30 year old college market, from market power and influence, technology adoption and attitudes, to category penetration and spending. The study is conducted online twice yearly (fall and spring semesters) completing a minimum of 6,000 interviews annually with both college students and 18-24 year-olds not enrolled in college. The latest survey shows that technology plays a central role in the lives of college students. With 93% accessing the Internet, college students are the most connected segment of the population. Ninety-two percent (92%) own a computer, and 13% say they plan to buy one in the next year. Cell phone ownership is at 69%, with 18% of students planning to buy one in the next year.
History
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as America's 16th President just before the Civil War began. His life was ended by an assassin's bullet five days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered. This website, produced by Carole Bos, provides a clear account of the story. Chapter titles include: Assassination Plots, Warnings and Omens, Dreams of Death, To Kidnap a President, The Worst, Where were the Bodyguards?, No Hope, A Foiled Plot, Multiple Funerals, Booth's Capture and Death, Conspiracy Trial, Execution, Rest of the Story and the Last Word.
The Medieval World: An organic encyclopedia on Britain in the Middle Ages. 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. So far there are sections on Anglo Saxons, Normans, Medieval Warfare, Medieval Farming, Monarchs and Medieval Literature.
English
ClassicReader: At ClassicReader you can read, search, and annotate great works of literature by authors such as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Hardy, and many others. The collection currently contains 651 books and 906 short stories by 196 authors. This includes 96 books for children. New works are added to the collection on a regular basis, many at the suggestion of readers. The works are split into seven categories which may be accessed via the links at the left of every page.
Elizabeth Gaskell: This website, created by Mitsuharu Matsuoka of Japan, is devoted to the work of Elizabeth Gaskell. 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' was published in 1848. With its cast of working-class characters and its attempt to address key social issues such as urban poverty, Chartism and the emerging trade union movement, Gaskell's novel deeply shocked Victorian society. In her books Gaskell expressed a deep sympathy for the poor and suggested the need for large-scale social reform. As well as Mary Barton the website includes E-texts of Cranford (1851), Ruth (1853), North and South (1855), Sylvia's Lovers (1863) and Wives and Lovers (1866).
Design & Technology
Stormsky: Stormsky is a site designed by Adam Montandon, a Lingo and Multimedia developer for Imagenius 3D Studios in Canada. On the site you can take a look at many forms of experimentation in these areas as well as great tutorials covering subjects such as Gravity Lingo and 3-D Cameras. The website also a Forum and you can take a look at demonstrations of some of Montandon's experiments.
Composite Materials: When two or more materials with very different properties are combined together they form a composite material. The different materials work together to produce a new material, which combines all of the properties of the previously separate materials. Within the composite it is still possible to easily tell the different materials apart. They do not tend to blend or dissolve into each other. Composite Materials can be either man-made but they may also exist in nature. Find out more about such composite materials as mud bricks, car tyres, concrete and fibreglass at the Design and Technology Department website.
Book Section
ISBN 1 86207 482 8 | 1688 sets out a picture of the world over just one extraordinary year. This was a time when only a few travellers and merchants were aware of societies and countries beyond their own. In snapshots of places as diverse as the Chinese court, Britain during the Glorious Revolution, Ottoman Turkey, the kingdom of Siam and aboriginal Australia, 1688 reflects the variety, splendour and strangeness of the human condition. The author, John E. Wills, is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. Author: John E. Wills Publisher: Granta Price: £8.99 |
ISBN 0 7195 5799 2 | This is the first biography of Gertler to be published for thirty years. It reappraises an extraordinary artist, a figure who fascinated his contemporaries and the introspective Bloomsbury group. Gertler achieved recognition early and his magnificent, haunting pictures were keenly collected. Yet despite his apparent ease in London society, he himself felt his Jewishness and working-class background to be insuperable barriers, and his artistic ambition gradually alienated him even from the people among whom he'd grown up. He found no happiness and at the age of 47 he committed suicide. Author: Sarah MacDougall Publisher: John Murray Price: £25.00 |
ISBN 0 7195 5799 2 | Michael Faraday is one of the giants of the history of science. No less remarkable than his discoveries in electricity, magnetism and other fields is his own story. This book is an authoritative and lively biography which captures the excitement of the explosive mixture of scientific and other cultural activity in London during the first half of the nineteenth century. In the process James Hamilton radically reshapes our perceptions not only of Michael Faraday, but of the interaction of arts, sciences and education at the dawn of the modern scientific age. Author: James Hamilton Publisher: HarperCollins Price: £25.00 |
Do you want to have your website listed in our web directory? If so, send a brief description (about 150 words) and the URL to spartacus@pavilion.co.uk.
