Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Students Confused About the Math Behind Voting?
Visit the website Cast Your Vote! to get a simple breakdown of why and how American presidential elections work. In Cast Your Vote!, students follow a year in a fictitious election campaign for an inside look at the mathematics behind the polls and the news they hear everyday. The website is free and is http://www.learner.org/interactives/statistics/
Visit the Museum Online!
San Francisco’s Exploratorium was one of the first science museums to build a site on the World Wide Web. The site features dozens of online learning activities and exhibits. Students can make a mold terrarium, pinhole projector, telescope or hair hygrometer. They can explore the brain, biodiversity, Antarctica, DNA, frogs, structures or illusions. They can learn about magnetism, electricity, motors, eyeballs, perception, Mars, chocolate, seasonings or the science of cooking, sports and music. And they can search more than 3,000 photos and movies and watch Webcasts of science demonstrations by teachers. The website is http://www.exploratorium.edu/
Virtual Manipulatives in the Classroom
More than 60 virtual manipulatives and activities are availabe at no cost from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) . The website functions as a concept tutorial. The virtual manipulatives are designed to facilitate mathematics learning at PreK–2, 3–5, 6–8 and 9–12. By encouraging active exploration with computers, the virtual manipulatives help students visualize mathematical relationships. The manipulatives are organized into five categories based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards: Number & Operations; Algebra; Geometry; Measurement; and Data Analysis & Probability. The site is also accessible in Spanish. The website is: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html
New Study Finds That Kids Are Computer Savvy But Not Good Researchers
Just because today’s kids grew up using the Internet doesn’t mean they’re adept at using the Web, says a new British study.
"Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future” says that although there’s only patchy knowledge about how children and young adults become competent using the Internet, some clear news has emerged. Most notably, the information literacy of young people hasn’t improved with the growing access to technology.
For instance, the speed with which students search the Web means that “little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority,” says the report, commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [http://www.jisc.ac.uk]. JISC is an oganization that supports education and research by promoting innovative technologies.
The report goes on to say that young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and, therefore, find it difficult to develop effective search strategies. As a result, when students conduct Web searches, they tend to type in phrases using “natural language rather than analyzing which key words might be more effective.”
Since kids are typically unfamiliar with library databases, they prefer to stick to more familiar search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, for their research needs “[So] there is little direct evidence that young people’s information literacy is any better or worse than before,” the report says.
The main message of the report is for research libraries to realize “that the future is now, not 10 years away, and that they have no option but to understand and design systems around the actual behavior of today’s virtual scholar.”
"Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future” says that although there’s only patchy knowledge about how children and young adults become competent using the Internet, some clear news has emerged. Most notably, the information literacy of young people hasn’t improved with the growing access to technology.
For instance, the speed with which students search the Web means that “little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority,” says the report, commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [http://www.jisc.ac.uk]. JISC is an oganization that supports education and research by promoting innovative technologies.
The report goes on to say that young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and, therefore, find it difficult to develop effective search strategies. As a result, when students conduct Web searches, they tend to type in phrases using “natural language rather than analyzing which key words might be more effective.”
Since kids are typically unfamiliar with library databases, they prefer to stick to more familiar search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, for their research needs “[So] there is little direct evidence that young people’s information literacy is any better or worse than before,” the report says.
The main message of the report is for research libraries to realize “that the future is now, not 10 years away, and that they have no option but to understand and design systems around the actual behavior of today’s virtual scholar.”
Monday, January 07, 2008
Examining Education Around the World
The ED in ’08 people have forged a partnership with Broken Pencil Productions to promote the documentary Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination, which tracks two high school students each from India, China and the United States. The film attempts to underscore the different direction the U.S. education system is going in relation to those in India and China (combined the two countries have more than 400 million students in K–12 education). The film’s trailer provides a vivid, compelling and almost frightening account.
View Trailer
More Information
(WEMTA Big Deal Book eNewsletter Jan 4, 2008)
View Trailer
More Information
(WEMTA Big Deal Book eNewsletter Jan 4, 2008)
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