Education on the Internet
Number 71: 21st May, 2003
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 35,290 subscribers to the newsletter.
All reviews are added to our web directory. There are sections on Internet Services, 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
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 such as the use of work scrutinies to find out what type of learning students are having success with, interviews with pupils to find out what teaching and learning styles work for them, departmental discussions with colleagues as the planning process continues to share ideas. 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.
EnrichUK: This is the gateway to a lottery-funded collection of 150 sites supported by the New Opportunities Fund. The collection ranges across culture, history, social and economic development, science and art as well as offering regional and national websites from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This includes access to over fifty library, gallery and museum websites.
Learn for Life: This website by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust contains downloadable lesson plans, data sets, factfiles and images about water, wetlands and wetland life. Designed for primary school children, it is aimed at learning in both school and home and is linked closely to the English National Curriculum but adaptable for children living in other countries. There is also a Kid's Zone with a large collection of online games.
Juniorszone: This website provides online primary school education. This includes literacy and numeracy strategy material based on the national curriculum. Areas include e-learning, educational games, interactive learning, brain teasers, homework help, free online tutorial. Juniorszone assists parents, teachers to help kids learn at home and school.
History
Dambusters: Sixty year ago, On the night of May 16, 1943, the specially formed 617 Squadron flew 19 modified Lancaster bombers to Germany, on a mission that was to become one of the most famous episodes of WWII, the Dambusters raid. To mark the raids 60th anniversary, the National Archives retells the story using original documents and images from its collection. You can see, online for the very first time, Barnes Wallis concept drawings for the 'bouncing bomb', 617 Squadron's log books of the Dams raid, the first air reconnaissance photos of the successfully breached Dams and many more fascinating historical records.
Secrets of Homicide: For nearly 35 years, much of the physical and photographic evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been subjected to analysis - both professional and amateur. At the top of the list is Abraham's Zapruder's 8mm home movie, arguably the most scrutinized strip of celluloid on the planet. In early 1993, work began on a computer project aimed at adding a new level of clarity to the assassination of President Kennedy. The concept was intriguing; take motion geometry from the Zapruder film and apply it to a full-scale, 3D computer model of the assassination scene. Examples of the work can be found on this website.
English
Literary Theory: This website is devoted to Literary Theory and includes articles on Theodor Adorno, Aristotle, Roland Barthes, Homi K. Bhabha, Maurice Blanchot, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Terry Eagleton, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dick Hebdige, Martin Heidegger, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Gayatri Spivak, Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir.
Kid's Review: This website has been developed by parents who noticed first hand how easy it is to motivate children to use computers but how difficult it can be to motivate the same children to pick up and read a book. They also recognise how important other children's views are in book choice. Kids' Review enables children to share their own book reviews within a protected environment. A new Teacher Review section allows teachers to share their views on how these books can be used successfully with children.
Music
Classical Music Archives: This website provides 24,203 full length classical music files by 1,558 composers, in MIDI; live recordings downloadable in HiFi MP3, and streamed in Windows Media Audio. The website also has illustrated biographies of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Boccherini, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Delius Handel, Haydn, Liszt, W.A. Mozart, Mendelssohn, Satie, Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi.
About Music: This outstanding BBC website allows you to discover everything you wanted to know about your favourite artists, with music clips, interviews, images, buyer's guide and more. Features presents in-depth coverage of music, with Echoes of Africa, Paris In The 1920s, A History of Vinyl, The Reykjavik Underground and Reggae Memories. The Rock & Pop Years presents exclusive audio & video clips from the BBC archives, putting music into context. You'll also find key events of the year and legendary sessions and unofficial charts with audio clips revealing what tunes are hot from Havana to Helsinki.
Foreign Languages
AFL: Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) is web-based online service that allows anyone to independently practice speaking, listening to, and understanding Arabic by virtual interactions with native Arabs. This system uses an advanced learning method to help you pronounce and understand a full range of phrases required to conduct real conversations. It’s one of the fastest and most enjoyable ways for students to refresh their memory and increase their speaking and listening skills in Arabic.
Foreign Languages: The BBC webguide provides reviews of sites for the students of French and German. It also includes details of websites for students of Bengali, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek, Modern Hebrew, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian and Swedish.
Art & Design
Acquavella is a family-owned gallery founded by Nicholas Acquavella in 1925. The gallery first specialized in works of the Italian Renaissance, but in 1960, when William Acquavella joined his father, the focus of the gallery expanded to major works of the 19th and 20th centuries, including masters of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. The entire scope of the 20th century is now represented, including Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. The Acquavella website includes several online exhibitions.
Guggenheim Online: The Guggenheim collection online premiered in April 2001 with a selection of works of art from the New York museum's holdings. Currently representing 169 artists, the collection online encompasses both the classic and the new - from the Guggenheim's earliest work, an 1867 landscape by Camille Pissarro, through more recent acquisitions, a sculpture by Robert Gober. Each work may be viewed at small, medium, or large resolution, and is accompanied by insightful commentary. The site also includes additional scholarly and contextual information, such as artist biographies, definitions of art-historical terms, concepts on art, and suggested readings, all of which form a searchable database.
Book Section
Effect of Science on the Second World War: Although scientists were involved on a limited scale in the First World War, advances made in science and technology between the wars made them indispensable from 1939 to 1945. This was recognized by the Allies but not by the Germans or their partners. Consequently the Allies, with superior radar, radio, anti-submarine weapons, computerized cryptoanalysis, operational research to improve the quality of equipment, and ability to invent an atomic bomb, put them ahead of the Germans. (Guy Hartcup, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 1 4039 0643 2, £17.99)
