Some Web Resources for Teachers and Students



A Guide for Teachers on Searching the Web
Kids on the World Wide Web
K-12
From the White House
Miscellaneous
Trying to Locate a Home Page?



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A Guide for Teachers on Searching the Web

Searching the Internet

Suppose you have a research project in mind and you need some information. If you plan to use the books in a traditional library, you know what to do: you begin with the card catalogue. The card catalogue is organized in such a way that either you can search for a specific book or you can search for (unknown) books by topic or author. The card catalogue,in its card-and-drawer or more modern electronic format,is the key to unlocking the resources of a library.

Now, what do you do if you want to search for sources of information on the Internet? Unfortunately, it is not yet quite as easy as using a library because there is no universal equivalent of the card catalogue. However, equivalents are emerging and you can start your search by consulting three services that have the reputation of being the most comprehensive:

These provide references to information across the Internet.

For K-12 teachers and students who want to know what topics are currently hot, the following compilation is an excellent resource:

This page is organized according to the elementary and secondary school curriculum headings. So, you can explore what seems to be of current interest in the area, say, of Art or Math.

A word of caution about using search tools. These compilations of information represent choices made by the author. Use them with a critical eye. If you have a suggestion for improvement, send the author a note. Moreover, if you find a reference that is special to you but has been overlooked by the big services, put it on your own page and share the information with others. You can also build a page with many references, an electronic bibliography, that you compile on a given research topic.

The Internet and Students

The last point is an important one, because it suggests how you can use the Internet with students.

Let's continue with a research project example. If you want your students to focus on writing a report based on what they find in the reference materials, then you could provide them with the bibliography you compiled. If, in addition, you want to teach them to search the Internet themselves, then you could take them through the process of seeking their own sources and building their own individual bibliographies. You should base what you require the students to do solely on what you want them to learn. And of course, the younger the students, the more circumscribed the task; the more experienced the students, the more open-ended the task.

You also may want to introduce students to the Internet without a specific research project as the means. This would be analogous to telling them to go to the library and find an interesting book to read and write a report on. In this context we recommend introducing them to the following two resources:

The first is a guide to good books for children and young adults, and the second probably has something of interest to every one of your students. But don't take our word for it. As with all links that you personally point your students to on the Internet, you should review them yourself first to be sure that they really are appropriate.



Kids on the World Wide Web





K-12

The page of the Marion Cross School in Norwich, Vermont (right across the Connecticut River from Dartmouth) contains an extensive list of pointers to K-12 Internet resources. It also contains information about WWW activities of its students.

John and Janice's Research Page offers pointers to their work in counting context the number of K12 schools and K12 users on the Internet. Data from previous counts is also included. Additional data can be sent to clement@k12.cnidr.org. http://k12.cnid r.org/janice_k12/states/states.html

Ruggiano's School Home Page - created by a Beaverton Schools (Beaverton, OR) teacher to introduce students and teachers to the internet. Nicely organized collection of K12 Internet resources, including Education, Humanities, Science, Math, and Social Studies. Includes links to schools on the 'net, and a pointer to the K12 Internet School Site Page. http://www.teleport.c om/~vincer/starter.html

The ARTSEDGE worldwide web pages and the Arts Information Gallery gopher are provided by the John F. Kennedy Center, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education. The web pages are filled with information, including a newsletter about the Arts in K-12 education, Goals 2000 information, links to art and education related resources, stories about teachers who are using the web in the classroom -- and a link to the Information Gallery. The Information Gallery is a collection of information resources about Goals 2000, meetings and conferences, professional development opportunities, media resources, research and more. http://k12. cnidr.org/janice_k12/artsedge/artsedge.html gopher to: purple.tmn.com choose: artsedge information gallery (#6)

The Shell Centre for Mathematical Education, a centre for research and development within the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, offers WWW pages which includes a collection of information technologies used in the classroom, details of publications and research, as well as a Distractions Page "intended to contain entertaining items of varying degrees of educational value." http://acorn.educ.no ttingham.ac.uk/ShellCent/

The National Service Learning Clearinghouse for K-12 gopher server is part of a 3-year federal grant from the Corporation for National Service, which houses the old ACTION and VISTA programs, the new AmeriCorps program, and Learn and Serve America, the K-12 education portion of national service. The National Information Center gopher provides access to online searching of resources, programs, and organizations. gopher to: gopher.nicsl.coled.umn.edu

http://www.covis.nwu.edu/
http://tecfa.unige.ch/inf o-edu-comp.html
http://k12mac.larc.na sa.gov/hpcck12home.html
http://kanpai.sta nford.edu/epgy/pamph/pamph.html

From the White House:

Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook" was announced Thursday, October 20 by President Al Gore on C-SPAN and the Internet's Multi-cast Backbone (M-bone). The White House Web server is a great starting point for finding government information, including executive branch offices and agencies, and the ongoing Government Information Locator Service (GILS) initiative working to provide easier access to government information. It's well organized, has a nice look and feel, and good response time.

From the White House Press Release:

In an effort to make government information more readily accessible to citizens across the country, Vice President Gore, joined by Associate Director for Technology in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Lionel S. (Skip) Johns and world-renowned artist Peter Max, today (10/20) unveiled the first interactive, multimedia, electronic citizens' handbook on the White House, including detailed information about Cabinet-level and independent agencies, and information about the First Family and the White House. "Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook" provides a single point of access to all electronic government information on the Internet, a vast electronic computer network used by people in more than 150 countries. Examples of accessible material demonstrated at today's event include information about the President and Vice President and their families, a virtual tour of the White House, detailed information about Cabinet-level and independent agencies, a subject-searchable index of federal information, and a map of Washington, D.C." http://www.whitehouse.gov



Miscellaneous

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is proud to announce the creation of the CPB EdWeb. Edweb is an on-line tutorial on education, technology, school reform and the Information Highway. Designed for both teachers and telecommunication enthusiasts, EdWeb offers a vast collection of on-line educational resources, success stories of how technology is used in the classroom, a history of the development of the Infobahn, and much more. http://198.187.60.80

When California's Fall election results are posted on the Web it will be the first time live, on-line election results and pre - and post-election information is available on the Web. On November 8 anyone with Internet access can see California's general election returns in graphical, tabular formats, with up-to-the-minute accuracy, making this the largest live, on-line Internet project undertaken. Following election night, they will be able to access detailed summary data on the voting results. http://www.election.ca.gov/ gopher to: gopher.elections.ca.gov

The Geometry Sender at Keio University is now opening W3 server. Many 3D object data, including WebOOGL, off, rwx format, tutorial on data formats, and information about external viewers for 3D object on Web are available. http:/ /synap.neuro.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~aly/polygon/polygon.html

The Capitol Steps, the Washington-based troupe of Congressional staffers turned songwriters, have a WWW home page featuring music and political satire. Hear selections from recent albums (Lord of the Fries, The Joy of Sax, etc.) plus pre-releases of the latest songs. http://pfm. het.brown.edu/people/mende/steps/index.html

Over 400 megabytes of patent information are now available at the Internet Patent News Service's (IPNS) WWW Patent Searching home page, including being able to retrieve titles to all US patents since 1970 using the US patents Manual of Classification. Files with administrative information about PTO offices, as well as an archive of IPNS news releases are also available. http://sunsite.unc.ed u/patents/intropat.html

Moscow Libertarium is a project aimed at the information support of social activity and scientific research on the problems of liberalism, and liberal conscience in Russia. Important: most materials are in RUSSIAN! A link to the guidelines on installing Cyrillic fonts in your WWW-browsing program is included. http://feast.fe.msk.ru/liberta rium/

In light of the recent sightings of Basking Sharks Cetorhinus maximus in the New England coastal waters and the resultant influx of requests for information regarding this second largest of sharks, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts has assembled a short fact sheet regarding this species. http://www.mbl.edu/
http://www.mbl.edu/html/ MISC/basking.html

LabSOURCE is a periodic newsletter produced by the University of California. It provides news and information on UC's management of three DOE laboratories -- Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory -- and news highlights from the laboratories themselves. http://www.llnl.gov/labsrc/

New documents on the Department of Commerce National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) gopher:

gopher to: ntiaunix1.ntia.doc.gov (choose: Hot Off the Press)



Looking for a Home Page?

Most university home pages are all in the same format: This is not foolproof, but works pretty well and is worth a try.
For Web page standards, look at http://www.charm.net/~web/

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