Education on the Internet
Number 81: xxx July, 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 37,310 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
Online Seminars
The Student as Teacher: This seminar looks at research carried out by the US National Learning Lab that suggests that the most effective learning strategy is when students teach other students. The author supports this view and provides evidence from his own teaching. Most contributors to the seminar have so far agreed with this proposition and have provided further examples of how this can be achieved. If you have views on this subject, register with the History Forum and join the debate.
Multiple Intelligences: It has been claimed by some researchers that our intelligence or ability to understand the world around us is complex. Some people are better at understanding some things than others. For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult for us to understand and use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing football is difficult. Instead of having one intelligence it is claimed that we have several different intelligences. Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Logical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Musical, Visual/Spatial and Naturalistic. This website enables you to find out what special intelligences you have.
Learning Centre: The Philip Morant School and College in Colchester has created a new Learning Centre with 120 computers connected to the web. When teachers call in sick or are away from the school their pupils are sent to the centre where they can log on to pre-arranged classes. Using this strategy the school hope to save up to £150,000 in teaching bills. The headteacher, Russell Moon, explains: "Instead of paying out up to £180 an hour to an agency for a supply teacher we have a full-time member of staff managing the centre backed-up by three teaching assistants."
English
Walter Scott Digital Archive: The Walter Scott Digital Archive is an Edinburgh University Library online resource created in the Special Collections Division. It is designed around the extensive Corson Collection of Walter Scott material held in Special Collections. It is hoped that in time this website will become the main source of information on the life and work of Sir Walter Scott on the web. The website includes a detailed biography, letters, image database and recent articles on Scott.
Andrew Moore's Resource website is a site is a collection of guides and tutorials for students, teachers and trainee teachers of English language and literature. The materials are aimed at the upper end of secondary education in the UK, but many are suitable for college and university students. The number of resources on the site is not vast - just over a hundred - but this can be misleading, as each guide is very substantial. The guides currently cover the whole curriculum for GCSE English.
Science
Science Learning Zone: A collection of activities produced by the Birmingham Grid for Learning. Topics include: Acids & Alkalis, Birmingham Weather Station, Body Parts, Changing Matter, Elephant Feet, Hams Hall Pond, Life Processes and Living Things - Cells, Making Bread - Microbes, Measures, Multiple Intelligences, Plants - Life Processes, Seasons and the Moon, The Earth - Day and Night, The Electricity Boook and The Solar System and the Universe.
Science Active: This award winning site for Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 students is easy to navigate and has appropriate, accurate content. The emphasis is chemistry within the curriculum. Key stage 3 builds on the investigation work students see at KS 2 and explores solids, liquids and gases and changing states. Key Stage 4 has as its focus atomic structure and bonding. On line style lesson and downloadable multimedia features make this a complete package. Support materials for AS and A2 Chemistry are identified. Most usefully these are related to specific topic areas. In addition to this resources and download pages provide access to games, quizzes and other interactive learning experiences.
Design & Technology
Design Technology Department: An experienced British teacher has created the Design Technology Department in order to provide free educational materials for schools and colleges. The site is continually growing and will eventually offer teachers and pupils, materials for all of the Key Stages. The website contains quizzes, GCSE and A level revision materials, handouts, GCSE Resistant Materials, AS and A level materials, schemes of work, packaging, famous kite designers, structures, examples of pupils work, furniture design, inventions, department policies and links to educational and commercial websites.
Technology at GCSE: The author of this website points out that the main reason for students choosing Technology at GCSE is that they think it is easy. "Think again!" he tells his visitors, "it is time consuming and demanding". However, the author attempts to help by providing resources on Drawing Techniques, Anthropometry, Materials, Mechanisms, Fixtures and Fittings. There is also a picture gallery and advice on written work.
Geography
GeoResources: This website is authored by David Rayner, Head of Geography at Rainham Mark Grammar School in Kent. The website started as a school resource and has now grown to include over 1000 carefully categorised links for Keystage 3, G.C.S.E. and 'AS/A2' Level. There is also a special page for teachers with links to exam boards, publishers, etc. Other sections in GeoResources provide weather data and outline maps to include in homeworks or projects, detailed case studies e.g. Kobe earthquake, UK National Parks and oil spills, Virtual Fieldwork (so that can you can visit sites and stay dry!), a photo gallery and a weekly GeoQuiz.
Pupilvision is a 600 page website full of resources for pupils and teachers of geography. Built by Keith Phipps who is Head of geography and Head of Year at King Edward VI Camp Hill school for Boys in Birmingham, the site was originally built to support his pupils. Over the two years of development the site has become a major resource. It was given a Royal Geographical Association Award in December 2000. Keith Phipps uses the site in all his lessons and the integration of Internet into his teaching has led to him winning the national award of 'Teacher of the Year' for the most creative use of ICT. The website is easy to navigate and is well designed. It enables pupils to view lesson plans, homework and syllabuses; support revision; provide guidance from pupils on how to improve grades; access geography careers advice; submit homework and e-mail questions relating to homework; access a plethora of geography websites by links.
Modern Languages
iLoveLanguages is a comprehensive catalog of language-related Internet resources. The more than 2000 links on the website have been hand-reviewed to bring you the best language links the Web has to offer. Whether you're looking for online language lessons, translating dictionaries, native literature, translation services, software, language schools, or just a little information on a language you've heard about, iLoveLanguages probably has something to suit your needs.
Language Exchange: This website allows you to pick a language partner according to the language you want to speak, their age and the country where they live. The website even provides free "lesson plans" so that you can learn each other's languages together online. Language Exchange hosts your online practice with lesson plans and text chat rooms.
Internet Services
Webber: Anti-virus vendors are warning of the mass mailing of a new Trojan program Webber which is capable of turning infected PCs into spam propagating zombies. Webber is the latest in a series of malicious programs that turn innocent computers into spam machines. It installs a proxy server at the command of the attacker. Once run, Webber clandestinely downloads its additional components from a remote Web-server and installs them on the now infected computer. Collateral damage attributed to this Trojan includes the sending of a list of passwords dug out of a victim machines in the form of URL requests to the Web site of the Trojan's presumed creator.
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
Violence, Terrorism, Genocide, War: A fascinating and timely study of war and violence and the psychology behind them, by renowned German sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky. What makes people act violently, either alone or as part of a mob? Why do the commit atrocities in times of war? Why do gangs, tribes, and even football supporters resort so readily to violence? Wolfgang Sofsky pursues answers these questions in a book highly praised by the German critics for its 'great intellectual power'. He argues that our propensity for violence is a reaction we have evolved as a response to our own mortality, and one which has taken many different forms in the course of human history. His wide-ranging account takes in witch-hunts, gladiatorial combats, and inter-tribal conflict, but his greatest concern is to explore the violence of the modem age. He writes with especial power about the Nazi atrocities of the Third Reich and his book's conclusion amounts to a powerful condemnation of that era's untrammeled brutality.(Wolfgang Sofsky, Granta, ISBN 1 86207 614 6, £17.99)
