Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera:
News, Interesting Links and So Forth
* The BBC Education Web Guide is a searchable directory of over 3000 of the
best web sites for learning. All sites are selected and reviewed by subject
specialists. The "Over 16" category includes sites "of interest to returning
adult learners, university and college students, as well as those of you
with a thirst for knowledge."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/plsql/education/webguide/pkg_main.p_home
* Just for the wonder of it, visit the Victorian Web. This Brown
University site was begun in Spring 1985 as part of the University's
Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship intermedia project.
The site is funded by IBM, Apple Computers, the Annenberg/CPB Project, and
other sources.
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov.html
* Visit the Best Practices site, developed by the University of Texas
System, for examples (including abstracts) of innovative uses of multimedia
in teaching and learning.
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~best/html/exemplars/criteria.htm
* What's a web quest? Simply a web site that gives your students an
interesting task (or project) to complete and provides web resources to
accomplish the task. If you are interested, visit WebQuest and
browse a few examples of webquests designed for adult/college students.
You can even join the Webquest listserv and share ideas with other
instructors.
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html
* Columbia University's Institute for Learning Technology site features a
number of large-scale research projects related to the use of information
technology in education. The site includes links to some fabulous projects
including the Digital Dante Project.
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Projects/index.htm
* Here's a bit of trivia. Urban dwellers are highly over-represented
among those online. Two-thirds of all U.S. Net users live in the top 50
metropolitan areas while only about 45% of the total U.S. population
actually resides there. The following are the top ten online cities,
ranked by percentage of users:
City % of Users
Austin 59
Denver 52
Washington DC - 50
Baltimore
Nashville 49
San Francisco 48
Seattle 46
Salt Lake City 45
Dallas 44
Raleigh-Durham 44
Norfolk 44
States ranking lowest for internet access (Arkansas, West Virginia,
Louisiana, Kentucky and South Dakota) also score well below the national
household income median. The one exception -- Washington D.C., which ranks
low in the U.S. Census median household income ranking, but high in Internet
usage. Here are the worst local Internet markets, ranked by percentage of
users.
City % of Users
Cleveland 0.27
Pittsburgh 0.27
Chicago 0.27
San Antonio 0.25
Las Vegas 0.25
Charlotte 0.25
West Palm Beach 0.24
New Orleans 0.23
Grand Rapids 0.21
Louisville 0.21
http://headcount.com
* Life, liberty, and internet access for all. In order to bridge the
widening gap between the "have and have nots" and ensure equal internet
access to all, the government and some industry giants are offering funding
and implementing creative solutions. President Clinton proposed a
multi-billion-dollar solution that includes over 2 billion in tax breaks to
tech companies, $150 million in tech training for teachers, $100 million for
the creation of new tech centers in low-income areas, $50 million to help
low-income families purchase computers, and $25 million to help industry
provide broadband service to rural and other underserved areas. Meanwhile,
Ford Motors has developed a plan that enables all Ford employees to purchase
a Hewlett-Packard computer, a color printer, and unlimited internet access
for - are you ready - $5 a month for 3 years. Total cost to the Ford
employee is $180.
* What's going on internationally? ISU receives numerous requests for
international distance education programs from individual students and
for-profit industries. Perhaps the following, quoted from "The Industry
Standard" explains why the international market for education is coming of
age. "The Internet wave is spreading rapidly beyond its U.S. origins. This
year North America will represent only 43 percent of the online population
and that will fall to 30 percent by 2005, according to projections by the
Computer Industry Almanac. Western and Eastern Europe meanwhile, will
account for about a third of all Internet users in 2005, up from about 28
percent this year. And almost a quarter of the worldwide online population
in 2005 will reside in the Asia-Pacific region."
* According to Dr. Sylvia Charp, Editor-in-Chief, THE Journal, "...teachers
need at three years to acquire the technical expertise in using technology.
Year 1: Mastering technical resources; Year 2: Exploring the curriculum;
Year 3: Refining classroom applications.
http://www.thejournal.com
Thought for March:
A teacher affects eternity.
He can never tell where his influence stops.
- Henry Adams
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