The Digital Library for Earth System Education

The Digital Library for Earth System Education Provides Individualized Reports for Teachers on the Effectiveness of Educational Resources in Their Own Classrooms
Abstract

We have developed and tested a system in which teachers and their students who have used an educational resource in the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) both submit on-line reviews of that resource using DLESE's Community Review System. We aggregate the students' reviews and generate an individualized report for the instructor on how his or her own students view the resource. The report for science teachers is formatted to show how well, on several dimensions, the resource worked. The report for science education professors is formatted to highlight how well students reflect on their own learning processes and identify what makes an educational resource effective.

Read the whole article

Schools need to catch up

“…The old paradigms of trying to manage or control the information flow pretty much goes out the window when everyone has a platform. What can schools in general do? Well, here are some pretty straightforward ideas, I think…” Read the whole blog post

Building vocabulary for reading success - PD

Grades K–3Research suggests that vocabulary is an especially important element for reading success because it serves as a bridge between word-level processes such as phonemic awareness and phonics, and the cognitive processes of comprehension. In this new Scholastic RED online course, teachers learn how differentiate vocabulary instruction for first and second language learners, use assessments to guide effective instruction, and employ a variety of research-based strategies to extend students' vocabularies. Visit the site

The no time slam dunk digital lesson

By Jamie McKenzie

Teachers are so busy that they just don't have much time for lesson design and development. They need to throw together a lesson in a few minutes on a Tuesday night that they can use with their students the next day. They need an approach that takes very little time but delivers good results.

To meet this need, I have been working on a kind of Slam Dunk Digital Lesson (SDL) that is quick and easy to build. I call this lesson type, the NoTime SDL

Read the whole article

Does it matter if we redefine literacy?

“…I have a deep feeling that ability to read and write text is so important that anything that diminishes its importance ("waters is down") is so dangerous that we shouldn't do it. I also have another deep feeling that everything changes and that the changes are speeding up - so what does it really matter if we modify the meaning of the word, "literacy"?...” Read the whole blog post form Bill Kerr

April 12 D.E.A.R. Day (Drop Everything and Read)

April 12 has been named national Drop Everything and Read Day, in honor of author Beverly Cleary's 90th birthday. Cleary's spunky character Ramona Quimby is the day's spokesperson because it was in Cleary's 1981 book, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, that Ramona's school started having D.E.A.R. time. Several organizations have joined with HarperCollins to establish this nationwide initiative, meant to encourage families to take at least 30 minutes a day to put aside all distractions and enjoy books together. Resources and ideas for celebrating the day are available here. Printed materials, including a poster and reproducible handout, can be obtained by contacting HarperCollins.

Womens History Month - origins

Extra!: Women's History Month

(CNN Student News) -- March is Women's History Month, a federally recognized, nationwide celebration that encourages all Americans to reflect on the ways in which women have shaped U.S. history. But how did this celebration come to be, and why is it held in March?

Read the whole article

Brain POP at school

BrainPOP is an educational program, providing content spanning 6 main subjects including: Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health and Technology. Within each subject, you will find hundreds of short, animated movies that speak to kids in a language and voice that they understand. Developed according to national standards (NCTM, NSES, & NCTE), BrainPOP's topics present students with an engaging, enlightening, and entertaining view of a given subject.

Visit Brain Pop

Resources for Women's History Month

In recognition of Women's History Month, Thomson Gale launched a free Web site of biographies, quizzes, activities, timelines and more to complement classroom topics.

More...

Parents back union rejection of new reporting system

The ACT Parents and Citizens Council has supported the education union's decision to reject the controversial A-to-E reporting system. Article continues

Teaching students to teach

… that with blogs and podcasts and screencasts and others we really have an opportunity to ask our students to become more than just receivers of knowledge. They can become transmitters of that knowledge, teachers of it in easy, meaningful ways. …
If you've ever taught, you know that the best way to learn something is to not only do it but to teach it to others.

Read the whole blog post

April Fools Day

Check out snopes.com for April Fools Day prank news articles and press releases, famous April Fools Day pranks and the origins of April Fools Day.

Google digitises historical video clips

Web users now have free access to 1940s newsreels and more

Through an agreement with the National Archives, Google Inc. has added historic video footage of such events as the Apollo moon landing and Japan's surrender in World War II to its internet search engine. Students, teachers, researchers, and others now can access these digital video clips free of charge through the Google Video search portal.

Read the whole article

Micromodules - short Internet lessons

IMSA's Free Online MicroModules teaching and learning packages are short, self-directed lessons covering a wide range of Internet topics.

MicroModules address knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to locate, evaluate and use Internet resources in a learning environment. Taking only 10-60 minutes to complete, the individual modules can be used by anyone from sixth grade through adult learners. Many modules have audio/video components, making them more interesting.

Minister supports tutoring for the disabled

Parents whose children struggle in literacy and numeracy could soon be eligible for a taxpayer-funded voucher system for private tuition.
Education Minister Julie Bishop said she would also support an expansion of the voucher programs to include children with disabilities.
Ms Bishop told The Australian she was supportive of the notion of vouchers across the board, including a system to cater for children with special needs.

Read more

Tag:

education

WannaLearn - free instruction on the web

Over 350 categories of free, first-rate, family-safe online tutorials, guides and instructionally oriented Websites!

Visit the site

Tagging - the latest way to search the web

Jeff Jarvis The latest trend sweeping the web - as trends are wont to do - is tagging. Last month, Yahoo! bought the leading tag service, Del.icio.us, which enables you to save a web link and associate it with labels so you can find it later.

Read the whole article

Deep web research

By Marcus P. Zillman

Bots, Blogs and News Aggregators is a keynote presentation that I have been delivering over the last several years, and much of my information comes from the extensive research that I have completed over the years into the “invisible” or what I like to call the "deep" web.

The Deep Web covers somewhere in the vicinity of 900 billion pages of information located through the world wide web in various files and formats that the current search engines on the Internet either cannot find or have difficulty accessing. The current search engines find about 8 billion pages at the time of this writing.

Read the whole article

New image search

Ask.com introduces its image search

Students testing worse on federal exams

WASHINGTON --The nation's students do glaringly worse on a tough federal test than they do on state exams in reading and math, raising doubts about how much kids are learning.

Article continues

Bill targets bullying over the internet

A new bill seeks to help public school administrators curb the newest form of bullying -- menacing Internet postings.Article continues

Mac patches serious OS flaws

Apple Computer on Wednesday released a security update for Mac OS X that fixes 20 vulnerabilities, including a high-profile Web browser and Mail flaw disclosed last week.

Article continues

Parents complain about book's undertones

A children's book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin has been moved to the nonfiction section of two public library branches after parents complained it had homosexual undertones. The illustrated book, "And Tango Makes Three," is based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City's Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s.

Read the whole article

Interactive abbreviations and acronyms

AbbreviationZ.com

http://abbreviationz.com/

“Launched on 2001, AbbreviationZ.com is the largest human-edited acronyms and abbreviations directory on the internet with more than 350,000 entries classified by over 120 different categories and sub-categories.

The new innovative meta-search feature allows users, who are searching for acronyms and abbreviations definitions on the local AbbreviationZ.com directory, to locate additional meanings on the internet by using a meta-search engine, which is based on proprietary natural-language-processing algorithms, that lookup and parse multiple search-engines simultaneously.”

Unique and compelling educational resources

“What does the Internet bring to your classroom?
The Internet can be an overwhelming educational resource. Learn how the idea of Unique and Compelling can help educators take advantage of some of the Internet's most powerful learning opportunities. “

Explore Unique and compelling …

New Interactive healthy eating calculator

Finding customized information about what and how much to feed your child is just a click away, thanks to the CNRC's new Interactive Healthy Eating Plan Calculator.

The calculator is available on the web at http://www.kidsnutrition.org/HealthyEating_calculator.htm

"By entering a child's sex, age, weight, height, and physical activity level, parents can obtain a general eating plan that provides all the nutrition and energy their child needs to grow and be active without excessive weight gains," said Joan Carter, an instructor in the department of pediatrics and CNRC dietitian who developed the calculator.

Test scores not lowered by television - study

Does television rot children's brains? A new study by two economists from the University of Chicago taps into a trove of data from the 1960's to argue that when it comes to academic test scores, parents can let children watch TV without fear of future harm.

Article continues

Talk it up Website - about health strength, happiness and growing into adulthood

Talk It Up is a website about health, strength, happiness and growing into adulthood. It is designed to connect young people across urban and regional Australia, at school or after hours, in a safe online environment.

Make eating 5 a day fun

Dole – 5 a day –makes eating 5 a day fun – includes teaching resources

At school not all computers are equal

n“ … Though Florida promises an equal education for its students, children get anything but equal treatment when it comes to computer equipment. And the disparity is growing even as the ability to navigate an up-to-date computer is seen as being just as key to learning as the ability to read an up-to-date textbook. ..“
Read the whole article

An interactive tour of the brain + Alzheimers

What happens in the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease? This tour explains how the brain works and how Alzheimer's affects it.Taking the tour: There are 16 interactive slides.

Image searching supplemented

Ask.com introduces its image search

Chess as a school subject

Back in January, I noted the news story about Chess as a subject at school.

It was American.

Now, the indefatigable Bill Kerr has reported that

“My school has agreed to let me teach chess as a subject. It will be a SACE Stage 1 Integrated Studies Unit delivered off line to students from Years 8-10.”

Read the whole blog post where he shares his curriculum outline.

A unique example of how a community can work together on the web

From Alan Levine’s CogdogblogWhatever your way of describing what “social software” is how, submitted below is a nice example of the informal way the web, blogs, maybe even RSS play a role in collectively building something in a way not previously possible.  Read the whole post.

Has eLearning revolutionisied education?

“Does eLearning have the ability to ease many of the pressures that educators are currently facing? As we entered into the 21st century, leaders in this field argued that eLearning could respond to accelerating global competition, increase the quality of learning experiences, remove situational barriers, and be more cost effective.   …   While the unbridled enthusiasm we saw for eLearning 10 years ago is now being replaced by growing disenchantment, these problems are now being overshadowed by the possibilities offered by eLearning. One example of the possibilities that eLearning can provide is the Professeurs pour la liberté. This Canadian-led collaborative initiative aims to provide free online education to Africans by having one course donated from academic institutions from the G8, European and Scandinavian countries, along with re-useable computers, books and volunteers. This innovative and self-funded initiative is possible only through eLearning. So, while eLearning has not delivered on the promises made by technologists at the turn of the century, it does have great potential to widen access, cost effectively, under certain circumstances.”Read the whole article

Reading is fundamental - website

Reading Is Fundamental, UK is an initiative of the National Literacy Trust that helps children and young people (aged 0 to 19) to realise their potential by motivating them to read.We promote the fun of reading, the importance of book choice and the benefits to families of having books at home. Our projects provide motivational activities, opportunities for family and community involvement, and free books for children to choose and keep.

Mind rewind - brain runs in reverse

When faced with a new learning task, our brains replay events in reverse, much like a video on rewind, a new study suggests.This type of reverse-replay is also used in artificial intelligence research to help computers make decisions. The finding could explain why we learn tasks more easily if we take frequent study breaks: the pauses between sessions give our brains time to review information.  Read the whole article