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Internet in the K-12 Classroom |
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Week 5
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Weekly
Reader:
This week provides an opportunity to visit some of the best and the coolest teacher resources on the Internet under one tent. Your goal is to visit and bookmark a dozen or more sites from the list below. Look ahead to the requirements of Week 6. You may be able to combine your assignment efforts.
Internet Beginner Basic Training: Miss some training? Is there an aspect of the Internet that specifically intrigues or puzzles you? Is there a feature or protocol you want to learn more about?
Make instant rubrics on any subject, any length, personalized for your exact needs
RUBISTAR!! Rubric Maker
Find lesson plans and Web-site collections on specific topics
Intel's ACE Lesson Plans It's easy to
find hundreds of Web sites that have detailed text-based lesson plans. If you
want more than that, if you want the actual content files -- the pictures, the
movies, the sound files, the PowerPoint presentation and Word documents that
make up a complete lesson plan, then visit edUniverse's ACE Project, supported
by Intel. the files are large and Zipped, ready for downloading. ACE
stopped updating this site in 2000, but it contains thousands of good lesson
plans .
TrackStar
Visit and Find a Track on a topic you teach in
your classroom. You will find collections of Web-based lesson plans submitted by
other educators
Webquest Matrix of
Lessons
Filamentality
Services (Yahoo! offers a wealth of extra services. They are worth checking out. You must join Yahoo! to access these advanced features, but joining is free and easy. You only join once for all services. If you currently have Yahoo! email, you're already a member.)
Yahoo! Briefcase Store 30 megs of your own personal files safely on the Internet for ubiquitous access. Briefcase offers public and private folders. Public folders allow you to share files with other Yahoo! members.
Yahoo! Messenger offers peer-to-peer private and public Instant Messaging with audio and video options and file sharing.
Yahoo! Groups allows teachers to set up a public meeting place. Group members can leave messages, share files, photos, bookmarks, create a group poll, establish a database, and add to a calendar. It works somewhat like WebCT. NOTE: A site exists now for this group to access for experimentation and collaboration. You are invited to stop by and test the features. The group is called teachersatadistance. You may search for it at the home site linked above, or go directly to it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teachersatadistance/ You will need to be a Yahoo member. You can set up your own group free anytime.
People Search Find anyone
Mobile Send selected email to your cell phone
Translate your own words into nine different languages
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses
| Dictionary.com | Encyclopedia.com |
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary | Britannica |
| Rhyming Dictionary | Encarta |
Try easy online tutorials for the skills and programs we use everyday
Microsoft Tutorials Microsoft's interactive Shockwave-supported tutorials for Microsoft applications
Software Tutorials ACTDEN Act Lab's Digital Education Network. The tutorials look elementary at first. However, they offer tremendous depth. Trial a few.
Number 2 SAT, ACT, GRE free training
Computer Skills Free Tests
More Computer Skills Free Tests
Find every registered public school Web site in the world
Make your own Web page in three minutes with no special training
Blogger Make your own Web site in three minutes and host it free at their Blogspot site
Make a formal Teacher’s Web Site that you can update any time in less than a minute
TeacherWeb an excellent free Web hosting service for teachers who wish to create their own class site
Make online surveys that tabulate results
Make online quizzes that instantly grade
| DiscoverySchool Quiz Maker | Funbrain |
| Interactive Tests | Quia |
Make puzzles, cryptograms, word searches, math squares, number blocks
Find any quote
Online thinking games by the dozens
Cool Resources for your Web pages
Find out who owns any Web site, including personal contact information (this service may not work within a school network. If you get no Whois Info in the popup window, try it again at home.)
Access newspapers around the country and world from one page
| Alta Vista News | Daypop | Moreover News | Net2One | Rocket News | Google News | AP NewsWire |
| News Index | Daily Earth | Kiosken World Newspapers | Aileena World News | News Directory |
Find free clipart, sound effects, movie clips, and other multimedia resources
| Graphics Search Engines/ Resources | Ditto for Pictures | Dogpile for Pictures | Alta Vista Images | FAST multimedia | Lycos Multimedia | Animation City | Clipart.com |
| Audio Search Engines/ Resources | Sound America | MIDI Search | EventSounds WAV | A1 Free Sound Effects WAV | Earth Station1 |
Gnutella | Clay's Sound Emporium |
| Find Sounds | FM Stations | AudioFind Radio | Oth.net | ||||
| Video Search Engines/ Resources | Feedroom | Spotlife | MovieFlix | VastVideo | Fazed.net |
Get Technical Support
| Drivers HQ download site | Techopedia | Webopadia | Thresh's FiringSquad.com | PC Magazine | Tom's Hardware | Learn the Internet |
| Benedict Copyright Site | CNET | A+ Certification | How Stuff Works | Wired News | CNET Radio | Shopper |
The Master Teacher Resource Portal contains all links provided in this course. the Master Portal contains only links, no descriptions.
The Internet has little of the edited, analyzed, organized security of the nearest book library. Books cost money to produce, thus they have many filters on their way to publication. Books and magazine articles must make it past critical editors, proofreaders, reviewers, and field-specific professionals before they find themselves on a library shelf. It's not to say that there are not misguided books available in the public library, but at least an effort is made to provide objectivity or at least all sides of controversial issues. Web researchers get no such assurance. The WWW could easily stand for the Wild Wild West. Anyone can post a Web site and register it with search engines. Pranksters, con men, charlatans, fanatics, and everyday liars can develop professional-looking Web sites that have an authoritative look. Unsuspecting visitors can be at least deceived, if not robbed or harmed by unscrupulous sites. New pages crop up and old ones die daily.
Children can be especially vulnerable to deceptive Web sites. Teachers cannot always provide a finite list of URLs for a project. Even if they could, it is also their responsibility to train their students to safely surf. Read the true story of Zack and his visit to a holocaust denier's Web site.
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Basic Site Evaluation Questions
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Form more
detailed advice, read the
Schulz Library's guidelines
on evaluating a Web resource. Chose a URL you intend to use in your project
and put it to the test. Line it up with the guidelines and see if it fits the
criteria. Post a summary of your findings
Other Resource:
Kathy Schrock's
evaluation advice at DiscoverySchool.com
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Week 5 Assignments (4): |
Top |
1. Spend the week visiting the sites listed above and others located on the Master Teacher Resource Portal. Bookmark the ones useful to you. Give a summary of your top five favorites. What is the content? Why do you like them? How will you use them in your classroom? Will you use them in your Curriculum Project? Did you download any files -- images, sounds, movies? Did you join any sites? Did you upload anything? Pictures, text? Join a Web host? Find a dead link? |
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4. (OPTIONAL) Click here: Learn to make your own portal. Learn how to FTP (upload) your portal to the Internet. The assignment is to learn how only. It is not required that you actually make a portal. However, is is strongly suggested that try one. Remember, you can copy and paste the Master Teacher Resource Portal to your computer and modify it for personal use. Respond with your efforts, discoveries, and questions regarding the making and posting of Portals. |
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The Wonderful World of Save As... (saving files in various formats)
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