Education on the Internet
Number 39: 9th October 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 27,150 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
Grid Club: Initiated and funded by the Department for Education and Skills, the Grid Club is designed to help 7 to 11 year old have fun pursuing their interests online. Schools that register can recruit pupils as Grid Club members. This enables the pupils to gain access to a range of clubs covering interests such as sports, music, puzzles or art. On school days GridClubbers are invited to take part in 'Talk-Live' events: Monday to Friday 12 - 2 p.m, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 3 - 4 p.m. The Grid Club also run sessions on Sundays at 12 - 1 p.m. Here children can publish their work safely and take part in online conversations and debates.
Bugbear Virus: This new virus was first identified in Malaysia on 29th September. This mass-mailing virus propagates by using the MIME MS01-020 vulnerability. Bugbear also has the ability to disable or disarm Anti-Virus software. The virus appears to contain a key-logging Trojan. This potentially could be used to steal passwords and credit-card details. The virus also opens a port which can allow hackers to manipulate the infected PC. Sophos researchers have developed a standalone tool which detects and disinfects this virus. This utility provides a simple way for businesses and home users to confirm their networks are clean and disinfect any infected files that are found. You can read more about Bugbear and download the disinfection tool from Sophos's website.
Teacher Online Events: The British Educational Technology Agency (Becta) website provides links to a range of teacher online events. Future events include: North West Education Event (17th/18th October), Promoting Effective Practice with ICT (18th October), Teaching Music Using ICT (4th November), Opening Pandora's Toolbox (6th/7th November), RNIB Techshare Conference (21st/22nd November) and Promoting Effective Practice with ICT (22nd November).
History
100 Most Important Women of All Time: Shelby Ellery, created this site as a gold award project, the highest award that can be awarded in Girl Scouting. Women featured include Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Marie Antoinette, Joan of Arc, Aspasia of Miletus, Nancy Astor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Jane Austen, Ella Baker, Clara Barton, Florence Bascom, Simone de Beauvoir, Aphra Behn, Ruth Fulton Benedict, Shirley Temple, Elizabeth Blackwell, Rosa Bonheur, Louise Arner Boyd, Pearl S. Buck, Rachel Carson and Catherine the Great.
Military Blunders: Everyone makes mistakes, but having ranks of soldiers and heavy weaponry at one's disposal can certainly make an error more dramatic. This website, produced by the History Channel, presents five famous military blunders to investigate. It poses questions such as: What went wrong? Who was to blame? What should have been done differently?
English Literature
First World War Writers: A collection of biographies of men and women who wrote about the First World War. There are sections on War Poets (16), War Journalists (34) and Writers and the War (26). The website also features entries on Accredited War Journalists, Defence of the Realm Act, British War Journalism, War Office Press Bureau and journals published during the war such as Workers' Dreadnought, Simplicissimus, Kladderadatsch and The Masses.
Book Box: This Channel 4 website is aimed at encouraging 9 to 13 year-olds to read. It provides information on 40 popular writers of children's classics along with interviews, games and activities. There is also a writing toolkit to aid creative writing. Authors featured include Roald Dahl, Jamila Gavin, Anthony Horowitz, Terry Jones, Beverley Naidoo, Terry Prachett, Philip Pullman and J. K. Rowling.
Booktrust: National Children's Book Week (7th to 13th October 2002) celebrates the world of children's books. It is an annual focus on the enjoyment of reading, with the aim of encouraging as many children as possible to get into books. Each year Booktrust provides colourful and useful resources to promote National Children's Book Week. This year they have produced resource materials for both Key Stage 1-2 and 3-4 with two core posters featuring the illustrators Axel Scheffler and Bee Willey, together with bookmarks, stickers and postcards.
Mathematics
KidsMAPE: MAPE (Micros and Primary Education) is an organization that has played a pioneering role in using ICT in Britain. The KidsMAPE section of the website includes a Random Number Generator (can be used in any activity requiring random numbers), Greenfield Road (a 19th century database with differentiated activities), a Maths Treasure Trail (pupils use the Internet to hunt for mathematical answers), Bounce (a mathematical investigation) and Number Grids (interactive teaching of numeracy).
Smile Mathematics: The interactive section of the Smile Mathematics website is an on-going development area. You will require the Flash 5 browser plug-in to access some of these activities and a java enabled browser. Activities include: Mental Mathematics, Playing Cards, Investigations, Fraction Flags, Symmetry Match, Pythagoras, Magic Squares, Wiggly Tessellations, Rotational Symmetry and Similar Triangles.
Science
Planet Science: This website is a packed calendar of events, projects & resources designed to stimulate the imagination about science & technology. It’s for everyone, but it’s focused particularly on people between the ages of 10 and 19 and the adults around them - especially their teachers. Planet Science isn’t about test-tubes, voltmeters and bunsen burners though. It’s about raising awareness of the wide and wonderful world of subjects and careers that are underpinned by science and technology.
Charles Darwin: The heart of the C. Warren Irvin Jr. Collection, donated to Thomas Cooper Library, in 1996, is Darwin's own writings. The Irvin Collection was first exhibited at Thomas Cooper Library in 1992. This much-expanded web exhibit sets out both to chart Darwin's career and to illustrate his achievements and influence, setting Darwin's own books in the context of works by his scientific contemporaries.
Internet Services
Google News Portal: A recent addition to the Google website is a news portal that will serious challenge market leaders News Now and Moreover. Everyday it groups together the interesting stories that are developing and then links you to the best news sites for those particular stories. At the moment the site searches 4,000 news sources but this will increase rapidly over the next few months.
Message-Labs: It is estimated that each day 11 million spam emails are sent worldwide. That is a five-fold increase since 2000. Recent research by the email security company Message-Labs, suggests that the average employee spends up to 10% of the working day reading and deleting spam. According to the European Commission the problem costs £6.4bn a year in connection charges and lost productivity. The situation is unlikely to change as direct-mail costs 200 times more per person than an email campaign. The cost of email addresses is so low that these campaigns only need a 0.01 success rate to become profitable.
Book Section
C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Using previously unpublished material, Justin Phillips tells for the first time how C S Lewis became a leading figure on the BBC's Home Service during its greatest era. During the Second World War, the BBC rose to the task of informing, entertaining and inspiring the nation. Risks were taken with new formats of spiritual and religious broadcasting. One of these risks was to enlist Lewis. Initially the critics claimed that his status as a layman did not qualify him to speak on Christian matters. However the response to the first programme was so overwhelming that a second programme had to be arranged to answer listeners' questions. Lewis's hugely popular BBC talks were published as Mere Christianity and have been a classic ever since, selling over 11 million copies worldwide. (Justin Phillips, HarperCollins, £18.99)
