ALABAMA SUPERCOMPUTER AUTHORITY
In his 2005 State of the State Address, Governor Bob Riley announced a new distance learning initiative for Alabama public high schools - ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide) - and he proposed an education budget that includes $10 million to get the program started. On Thursday, Governor Riley held a press conference at Brewbaker Technology Magnet School in Montgomery, Alabama to demonstrate this program.
The Alabama Supercomputer Authority was honored to be a part of the Governor's Task Force on Distance Learning that developed the ACCESS program and looks forward to working with the Governor, the Alabama Legislature, the Department of Education, Higher Education, and the Department of Postsecondary Education in the implementation of this program.
READING ABOUT EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning Online learning -- also referred to as e-learning, virtual learning, and a mode of distance learning -- is unconstrained by time or place. Online learning provides opportunities for students whose choices may be limited to their rural location, who are unable to attend classes due to physical illness or expulsion, who seek credit recovery or advanced courses, or who have scheduling conflicts in their home school. Online learning also can be a good alternative for students who have work or family obligations outside of school. In addition, students who have social or behavioral issues in school find that online learning allows them to focus more on content. High school reformers in particular, bent on boosting dismal graduation rates and bringing back students who have left the education system, look at online learning as a means of providing new options to students. For all these reasons, it is clear that online learning is more than a passing fad. This policy brief highlights K–12 online learning policy and practice based on the report, "Keeping Pace with K–12 Online Learning: A Snapshot of State-Level Policy and Practice." The publication will help education stakeholders be proactive in shaping policies in order to ensure success in broad access, equitable opportunities, and high-quality online learning options. http://www.ncrel.org/policy/pubs/html/pivol17/index.html
Laptops & Learning: Wireless Classrooms for the 21st Century The number of laptop learning initiatives in classrooms around the U.S. is growing. But what does the research say about one-to-one computing? And what should a district or school do to structure a laptop program successfully? Read this new Technology & Learning eBook to get answers to both of these questions plus information on tablet PCs, implementation tips, and links to case studies and resources. You will need to register to read the book that can also be printed. http://www.techlearning.com/content/epubs/laptops/
Word Processing for Learning Disabled Students These fifth-grade students transitioned from struggling to write single paragraphs to being able to write multiple paragraph essays and stories on a weekly basis. Read about the factors that contributed to their improvements. http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60401503
EDUCATION AND THE INTERNET
Leonardo da Vinci and the Spirit of Invention Born into very modest circumstances on April 15, 1452, Leonardo da Vinci became the quintessential Renaissance man – a consummate inventor whose boundless curiosity and imaginative creativity led him to spectacular achievements in the arts and sciences. Share with your students the spirit of invention that Leonardo so fully embodied with this month's MarcoGram. Use the activities to get started and then scroll down for more links and resources on this topic. http://www.marcopolo-education.org/MarcoGrams/Apr2005.html.
Animal Diversity Web is a searchable encyclopedia of thousands of photos, descriptions, sound recordings, and other information about individual animal species. Find out about amphibians, arthropods, birds, fishes, insects, mammals, mollusks, reptiles, and sharks. Explore special features on mammals, skulls, and frog calls. Students are invited to contribute. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
Biology Student Workbench introduces the basic concepts of bioinformatics and promotes the use of molecular data in identifying and exploring biological problems. It aims to bring to students' desktops the interactive tools that scientists use to search biology databases and compare molecular sequences, visualize and manipulate molecular structures, and generate phylogenetic hypotheses. http://bsw.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
Botany offers resources related to the study of earth's more than 400,000 documented species of plant life. Topics include the history of botany, paleobotany, plant pathology, genetics, anatomy, ecology, algae, mosses, ferns, agronomy, forestry, horticulture, annuals and perennials, vegetables, wildflowers, invasive plant species and weeds, disease and pest management, taxonomies, plant identification tools, plant databases, and science projects. http://www.nbii.gov/disciplines/botany/index.html
Children's Butterfly Site looks at the life cycle of butterflies and moths, answers frequently asked questions about butterflies and moths, lists references to butterfly and moth books and videos, and provides photos of butterflies in Asia, Western Europe, North America, and Central America. http://mpin.nbii.org/insects/kidsbutterfly/
Fisheries and Aquatic Resources provides information about managed fish populations throughout the U.S., as well as watershed-based data and state-by-state fishing resources. Learn about freshwater and marine fishes, aquatic invertebrates, water quality and habitats, and dams and fish passage. Fishbase, a global database, provides names, pictures, and key facts about more than 25,000 fish species. http://far.nbii.gov/
Systematics focuses on the classification of organisms and their evolutionary relationships. It includes information about Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of modern plant and animal classification, and links to resources for learning about taxonomies, biological nomenclature, careers in systematic biology, and more. Resources are organized by the five kingdoms: viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, and animals. http://www.nbii.gov/disciplines/systematics.html
Tree of Life offers photos, descriptions, and other information documenting the diversity of the world's organisms. Learn about animals, arthropoda, eukaryotes, flowering plants, fungi, and terrestrial vertebrates. Explore genetic relationships among organisms. http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html
Emma Goldman is the companion website for a film about this Russian immigrant who championed women's equality, workers' rights, and free universal education. Goldman (1869-1940) defined the limits of dissent and free speech in Progressive Era America. Although her anarchist activism let to her imprisonment and deportation from the U.S., she later denounced Soviet totalitarianism and praised American for its high level of freedom. The website offers the film transcript, speeches, and historians' views of Goldman. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/
Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms features lesson plans built around historically important maps on 18 topics: Columbus's world (1482), an Indian map of the Southeast (1721), Captain Cook and
Hawaii (1778), Nouvelle Orleans and nearby French settlements (1723), the road from Missouri to Oregon (1843), turnpikes, canals, and railroads (1835), the transcontinental rail network (1878), a British plan of Boston (1775), World War II (1944), a farm in Illinois (1874), and Los Angeles (1979), and more. http://www3.newberry.org/k12maps/
Lakota Winter Counts offers the world's largest database of Lakota winter counts -- pictures drawn on cloth or buffalo hide to remember each year's key events (1701 to 1905). Ten Lakota bands' winter counts are shown side by side on a timeline. Compare how the bands depicted a particular year. Search for an image. Watch interviews with Lakota. Learn about the culture of this Sioux tribe of the northern plains that followed buffalo herds for food. A teachers guide is included. http://wintercounts.si.edu/
Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property is the companion website of a film that examines the story of Turner and his revolt and how that story has been re-told repeatedly since 1831. Turner, a slave and preacher in Virginia, led a slave rebellion that resulted in the murder of more than 50 slave owners and their family members. Learn about the impact of the rebellion and about the film and individuals who made it. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/natturner/
Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures presents images published from 1914-19 by two New York newspapers. The images, produced by a new rotogravure printing process, show events of the war alongside news and advertisements of the day. Essays discuss the origin of the war, costs of the war, President Wilson's 14 points, the armistice, military technology, the sinking of the Lusitania, pictures as propaganda, and the rotogravure process. A World War I timeline is included. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/rotogravures/
September 11, 2001, Documentary Project captures eyewitness accounts, reactions, and opinions of people in the months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. This online presentation includes nearly 200 audio and video interviews, 45 photos and drawings, and 21 written narratives. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/911_archive/
Plants in Motion With few exceptions, plants grow and change on a time scale that is too slow for us to observe in real time. Time-lapse photography is a simple technique that allows us to see the movements of plants.Movies are in QuickTime format. http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/plantmotion/starthere.html
NEWS YOU CAN USE
Schoolmatters.com On March 29, a new Web site was launched that includes classroom, performance and financial information for every school, district, and state in the United States. Schoolmatters.com. It is a project of the Education Data Partnership, a collaboration among the Council of Chief State School Officers, Standard and Poor's School Evaluation Services, Achieve Inc., and the CELT Corporation. It is funded by a $45 million investment by The Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Data used in the site comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Education Statistics, and public information made available by each state. http://www.schoolmatters.com/
Could this happen to your school? Five or six years ago, the Boston Public Schools spent millions purchasing and installing computer technology throughout the district. Today, with roughly half of the schools' 15,000 computers at the end of their useful life, the district estimates that it would take $9 million to update and repair its computer inventory. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=74359
The International Children's Digital Library is an online collection of some of world's best children's literature. The project now offers more than 600 titles in 30 languages, books that reflect similarities and differences in cultures, societies, interests, lifestyles, and priorities of peoples around the world. http://www.icdlbooks.org/
TopTeaching Resources.com aims to create a place online where busy teachers can turn for access to a wealth of technology-based learning materials, including a database of available grants, funding, discounted teaching supplies, free lesson plans, reference manuals, and dictionaries--plus, links to the latest educational news, web sites, and information pertaining to educational software. http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/links/showLink.cfm?linkID=232