Educational Resources

• Learning about Internet
• General Internet Resources
• Curriculum Resources on the Internet
• Lesson Plans available on the Internet

Be aware that just as the Web is a nonlinear flow of information, these sections overlap -- some of the General Internet Resources have references to lesson plans, some of the Curriculum Resources contain useful links to general purpose resources, and exploring any of these links will help you gain experience in using the Internet.

• Jim's Introductory Lesson was presented by a parent to our teachers.

• Internet Exploration Guide for Teachers answers "Why explore the Internet" and describes its useful tools and some interesting sites to look at. Its explanations are quick to read, then other lessons listed below can elaborate when you're ready.

• Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) course, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Language, Literature, and Communication, discusses the nature of the medium, contexts of CMC, and CMC promises and perils

• Accessing The Internet By E-Mail (ftp) or (gopher) Doctor Bob's Guide to Offline Internet Access -- If your only access to the Internet is via e-mail, you don't have to miss out on all the fun! Maybe you've heard of FTP, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, Finger, Whois, WAIS, World-Wide Web, and Usenet but thought they were out of your reach because your online service does not provide those tools. Find out how to access various internet services. More documentation for these and other services is available by e-mail.

• Let's Go Gopherin' shows how to use Internet by searching through menus to find the information you're looking for.

• Introduction and tutorial to World Wide Web answers "Where am I and what am I doing here?" by connecting to Univ. of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the world.

• Entering the World Wide Web: A Guide to Cyberspace brings you pretty much up to date on questions like "What is the World Wide Web? What is hypertext and hypermedia? What is the Internet?"

• Sharon Ann Scott describes how to use mailing list servers ("ListServ"s) as well as details about a number of ListServs for educators, and other references to Professional Information and Support.

• DO-IT introduction to the Internet provides guides, highlights, and lessons, including Resources in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, Resources For Teachers and Students, Disability-Related Resources, and College Outreach Programs

• Learning the Internet with Commander G is a step-by-step tutorial used by the Cheraw Schools (in Colorado) to introduce students to the Internet. It's followed by their listing of Internet sites for students to go exploring.

• ISS101: Internet Survival Skills, from Honolulu Community College, explores many aspects of Internet.

• "Middle of Nowhere" is an experiment that delivers information to students and others around the globe, and includes links to lessons on learning about Internet.

• AskERIC Internet Lesson Plan is a Newton's Apple segment on the Internet: Why is it sometimes called the information superhighway? Investigate the computer network.

• Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet and Academy One introduces classrooms to the Internet. Ever wonder how kids can get started on the Internet or how teachers or parents can bring the Internet into the classroom? Academy One is an online resource for educators, students, parents, and administrators of kindergarten through high school age range.

• Oregon State University's Computer Science Outreach Services provides information about K-12 mailing lists as well as an extensive list of Internet resources.

• U.S. Department of Energy describes a number of successful projects that they have sponsored.

• The Online Educator is a supplement to its published version, and includes a "one-a-day teachers hot list."

• The Electronic School is a supplement to The Executive Educator and The American School Board Journal magazines, and includes selected articles and a tour of the World Wide Web.

• Digital's Education/Research Home Page highlights current articles about educational networking, maintains mailing lists, and points to useful sites on the Web.

• American Cybercasting Corp. (ACC) develops, distributes and markets current information and on-line integration tools designed to excite and motivate students by bringing the curriculum to life.

• Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections identifies mailing lists to help teachers and classes link with partners in other countries and cultures for pen-pal and project exchanges.

• AskERIC maintains an archive of discussions that have occurred through various education mailing lists ("Listserv"s)

  Other reports, articles, and essays are also available:

• Introduction to Internet, from Arkansas Online, can get you started.

• ERIC Review of K12 Networking explores computer networking in K-12 schools and some of the computer-related information and services accessible through various types of computer networks. Other ERIC Review reports cover more areas of educational technology.

• Using Internet in the Classroom presents a variety of ideas.

• K-6 Students' Use of the Web explores how we can utilize the Web and its users for K-6 student access, as on-line guides and experts for learning and enhancing their daily classroom experience.

• Telecommunications and K-12 Educators: Findings from a National Survey presents the text portions of the national study. The final report can be purchased.

• Information Technology in the Classroom presents the experiences of the Shell Centre at Nottingham University in researching the use of information technology in the classroom, including discussion of software they have used and developed.

• Boulder Valley School District's Internet project demonstrates curriculum applications of Internet technology in BVSD. BVSD also provides useful references for learning about and getting started with Internet. BVSD's Internet Project Director offers a List of Subject Servers, and offers a quote: "We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet."

• The Hawaii Department of Education describes how, since Internet access became available, some teachers have adopted the Internet resources for research to update existing lessons, while students and teachers joined collaborative projects throughout the world.

• Internet working groups have prepared documents containing recommendations, strategies, and answers to questions about how to connect schools to the Internet.

• Interlinks provides a variety of links to Internet resources, including a series of references about education.

• The K12 Network offers worldwide two-way telecommunications between teachers, students, and others interested in promoting global awareness and overcoming the limitations of distance serving students between the ages of five and eighteen in public and private schools. For a description, click here, and for detailed information, click here, here, or here. If you have telnet access, you can read recent K12Net messages at the University of Massachusetts (telnet://k12.ucs.umass.edu) using user name "guest" (no password required). The Univ. of Massachusetts also provides a K-12 Education Gopher and World Wide Web server.

• CERN's Virtual Library is a distributed subject catalog of information from around the world.

• CARL (Colorado Assoc. of Regional Libraries) provides on-line library catalogs, a Virtual Reference Desk, Library of Congress records, children's literature lessons, electronic book services, and Internet assistance

• Iowa State University Library provides a variety of reference materials and links to other libraries that provide information on the Internet.

• Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction contains links to innovative ways educators are using the Internet, connections to World Wide Web starting points, and sites with indexes to the Web.

• Cleveland State University College of Education provides useful starting points for CSU students as they learn how to use the World Wide Web. This particular WWW page is intended for use by working teachers, parents, and educational administrators. If you would prefer to visit an alternative intended for use by Kindergarten through twelfth grade students, try its K-12 Educational Telecommunication Center, which includes a subject list of sources selected for use by K-12 students.

• The Children Page has a variety of links intended to interest children in exploring the Internet.

• Feeling a little like Lewis and Clark in Cyberspace? Don't know which stream the bytes you are interested in are swimming? Well for starters try the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Server (just kidding ...) The K-12 Navigation Page of the University of Oregon's Electronic Universe Project contains a bunch of navigational aids that are organized by subject. (Don't miss the "Nuts Hot List".)

• Columbia University's Institute for Learning Technologies is a good place for teachers to get acclimated to the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web.

• U.C. Santa Cruz has compiled indexes of Internet references for a wide variety of topics: Arts and Humanities, Astronomy and Space Science, Biology and Life Sciences, Business and Economics, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Computer Science and Engineering, Earth and Marine Sciences, Environmental Studies, History, Literature and Poetry, Mathematics, Music, Philosophy and Religion, Physics, Politics Government and Law, Sports and Recreation, etc. etc.

• Electronic Zoo has information about animals and other things.

• Web 66's What's New lists announcements of servers, home pages, and other World Wide Web projects by and for kids.

• California State Legislature, the White House, and the U.S. House and Senate help you keep up with current events.

• SF Gate News is the on-line service of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner.

• Nanzan University (in Japan) provides references to news and answers about Internet.

• Museums: A number of museums and libraries offer information using the Internet. Some highlights are:
  • The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., directs you to some interesting exhibits and provides a reference to other museums around the world.
  • UNC SunSite's Expo has interesting exhibits, a shuttle running between them, and even a restaurant.
  • The Exploratorium, California Academy of Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley's Museums (dinosaurs!), and WAIS and Lycos searches let you research your choice of topics.

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  Curriculum Resources on the Internet

  • U.S. Dept. of Education provides a wealth of contacts, including a list of Internet resources

  • Calif. Dept of Education provides a variety of information and services to California schools.

  • AskERIC's Collection of Lesson Plans (also a gopher) includes course guides for NASA's SIR-CED education program with satellite images and teacher's guides, lesson plans and other materials for use with the popular PBS Science Series Newton's Apple, a concise set of Internet resources used by AskERIC Network Information Specialists in answering user's e-mail queries, etc. Want to know more about AskERIC? If you have a graphical web browser and a pretty good connection, a slide show has graphics, a script, and audio to help you learn more.

    Also, the AskERIC Virtual Library is an ongoing project to build a digital library for educational information that educators can navigate as they would in a real library. The Urban Education Web offers urban educators, students, and families full-text manuals, articles, conference announcements, bibliograhies, and abstracts of educational and parenting publications for the ERIC databases.

    ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation (ERIC/AE) provides information about educational testing, and resources to encourage responsible test use. This site features searches of the ERIC abstracts and full text databases, the Test Locator (descriptions of educational and psychological assessment instruments), publications about educational testing, and general information about the ERIC System.

  • K-12 Program Inventory Executive Summary, from the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), College of Education, University of Minnesota, biennially inventories programs that connect faculty, staff, and students with administrators, teachers, schools, and agencies serving children, youth and families. The criterion for inclusion is that the activity consists of ongoing collaboration, service, and/or research (including training or consultation activities) related to pre-K-12 (infancy through 12th grade) students, teachers, or other professionals or school practitioners

  • A Gopher archive list of educational Internet sites is maintained by the University of North Carolina's SunSite

  • KQED Learning Link is an electronic information and communication service from EINet Galaxy that facilitates communication among and between education professionals; its resources include several methods of searching for Internet resources, and links to a number of educational resources. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting also has its own Internet site.

  • Several K-12 school libraries provide Learning Centers that are accessible on Internet.

  • Yahoo maintains an index of educational resources.

  • UCSD InternNet lesson plans cover Biology, Earth Science, English, Spanish, Mathematics, Physical Science, and Chemistry.

  • The School House is an electronic magazine for the educational community, including feature articles and discussion groups. "The School Grounds" has lots of things to explore in its playground and gymnasium, its library, and its classrooms.

  • Human Languages Page is an impressive archive of language resources on the Net: dictionaries, lessons, news services, etc.

  • K12 is a Florida State University class project from its fall '94 Surfing the Internet class.

  • SchoolYear 2000 from the Center for Educational Technology's (Tallahassee, FL) Florida SchoolYear 2000 Initiative is a redesign of K-12 education, including all instructional, social, and business aspects of the schooling process.

  • U.C. Irvine's Library refers you to Internet resources for several topics, and its Virtual Reference Desk is a great resource too.

  • NASA's K-12 Education and Lifelong Learning Internet project is part of a Federal interagency effort that supports the information and communication needs of both the nation's schools -- helping educators across the country make effective classroom use of the many NASA projects and data sets available over the Internet. It offers links to NASA resources including its research centers and the StarChild Project. WebStars at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center offers thought-provoking items like articles on how astrophysics information systems can be built, and links to cyberspace and virtual reality. A list of online educational resources and a gopher server provide additional resources.

  • U.S. Geological Survey provides information about public issues in education, environment research, and geographic information, including the San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake Teachers Guide.

  • Amazing Science at the Roxy from Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN) offers fun physical science activities for K-12 students, and contains movies, sounds, and text of chemistry, physics, and astronomy experiments. It is also a resource for teacher information concerning constructivism and discovery learning.

  • Armadillo's Directory of K-12 Internet resources has been developed for teachers and students. It is to intended to be a list where teacher's can quickly access resource materials for direct use in their lesson plans or as additional resources for student's to explore. Technology help and multimedia software and lessons are also available, along with a list of K12 Related Gophers.

  • NCSA Education Program, from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois, works to bridge the gap between scientific research and education, and make the tools for computational science available in the classroom. NCSA also lists a wealth of projects using the Internet and describes how to find and establish projects.

  • The University of Illinois College of Education Learning Resource Server includes K-12 learning resources, teacher education resources, general Internet resources, and discussions of National and State information infrastructures.

  • BBN's National School Network Testbed is Bolt Beranek and Newman's NSF-funded program to provide lesson plans and access to various Internet resources.

  • Princeton Regional Schools' gopher server includes curriculum resource guides.

  • Educational resources is just one of the listings in Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet.

  • Several individuals who are teachers and students offer their findings: A teacher (Alan Cairns) in Seattle, Washington, lists a number of resources for other teachers, including the World Lecture Hall, the Route Web66 project, and more. A student (Sean Keithley) in Seattle also lists a variety of educational resources, (including referrals to ListServs, and Telnet, FTP, Gopher, and Web sites), as does teacher Dale Beasley. Douglas Brick at University of Washington links to lists of K-12 resources and schools that are active on Internet, libraries, and other educational sites. Daniel Arkin, a consultant to educational institutions throughout Virginia, shares his Internet treasures, as does Matt Wright, a student in Colorado. The Drew Science Magnet School in New York lists a number of interesting sites. Also, check out teachers' and students' home pages at various schools listed in that part of our Web server.

  • Common Knowledge: Pittsburg is a NSF-funded network testbed serving the teachers and students of Pittsburg PA public schools, with links to general resources, world cultures, research on the Internet, math and science, the arts, etc. An example of its resources provides information on civics, geography, history, international issues, etc.

  • Geometry Forum's listing of educational resources includes searches of K-12 software and many other resources besides geometry. Follow the links to the Geometry Forum's home page and to Steve's Dump for extensive links to other Internet resources.

  • Explorer provides curriculum browsers, resource database search, and Explorer Newsletters. The Explorer is part of a research and development effort at University of Kansas UNITE group, as a cooperative initiative of the Great Lakes Telecommunications Collaborative with funding from the U.S. Department of Education OERI (Star Schools), to establish an on time and user friendly means of delivering a full range of information resources to educators and students.

  • MDEnet Classroom Resources' Daily Updated Information folder contains links to information that is updated daily -- such as CNN Newsroom, Daily Report Card News Service, and the Weather. The Electronic Reference folder contains a bunch of reference information from around the world. The Distance Education folder contains information on the National Distance Learning Center and Satellite programming scheduals. A list of Educational USENET newsgroups is available so that you can read educational news on the Internet. Lesson plans are available on-line. The Software Archives contain useful software for Macintosh and IBM computers for use at home and in the classroom.

  • Shasta County Office of Education says: "You are at the front door to a revolutionary means of communication." This site not only provides the starting point for access to the information superhighway (a.k.a. the Internet), it also serves as a regional source for information and services, including Shasta Bulletin Board (an open exchange for educators), e-mail address directory, S.C.O.E. Technology Resources Center, media services, Schreder Planetarium, Internet training, virtual field trips, and more.

  • Hacienda La Puente Unified School District's Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) (also has gopher server) lets you search current articles, legislative information, master calendar, reference materials, Who's Who, curricula resources, adult literacy resources, CDE info, course outlines, and current articles.

  • Coalition for School Networking (CoSN) offers Network Resources for Education, providing access to AskERIC, BBN's National School Network Testbed, Blue Skies Gopher, CARL System, Center for Children and Technology, Center for Talented Youth, Disability and Rehabilitation Resources, Discovery Education Online, discussion group mailing lists, EE-Link Environmental Education gopher, etc.

  • Big Sky Telegraph and Environmental Education gopher connects a number of schools.

  • Vose School Educational Resources lists schools on the Internet; resources for Education, Humanities, Science, Math, Social Studies, etc.; and Internet starting points

  • Athena is a K-12 education project sponsored by NASA under a cooperative agreement with SAIC Space Physics Group. It includes curriculum development resources, classroom lessons, and Internet support material. Check out "What's new?"

  • Scholastic Network offers global connections for the classroom (Earth Day outreach projects, live discussions with astronauts, etc.), a wealth of classroom resources (its Scholastic Internet Library and Scholastic Internet Center include lesson plans, curriculum discussions, teaching tips, and curriculum projects), and professional development materials.

  • EE-Link from National Consortium for Environmental Education and Training (NCEET) has environmental education oriented sources of curriculum material, film and video catalogs, and book reviews.

  • MathWare offers information and resources (and a catalog of products) including software and books for the educational community.

  • The WELL's K12 Gopher is a local resource.

  • CNIDR's (Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval) includes servers for education and government.

  • Colorado State University's K-12 WWW server links you to K-12 resources, an "Adventures in Supercomputing" feature, and other world-wide resources.

  • Arizona State University maintains a gopher server with a variety of education links, and MSU maintains references to Gopher servers for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

  • SmokyNet W3 from Smoky Hill High School (Aurora, CO) includes information on staff development resources and projects its students are doing as they construct their WWW server.

  • The Advanced Computing for Science Education (ACSE) project has designed, built, and assessed a multi-media science learning environment.

  • DePaul University links to educational gopher servers at Apple Computer, ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, Educom, Federal Information Exchange (FEDIX), Food & Agricultural Education Information System (FAEIS), and U.S. Department of Education.

    Peterson's Education Center provides guides to programs for kids and teens as well as to preparing for future studies.

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  Lesson Plans available on the Internet

  AskERIC's gopher provides hundreds of lesson plans, and other lesson plan resources are reachable through its listings above. A separate section of our server will have lesson plans prepared by people at our school. And there are even more -- our searching around the Internet have revealed the following:
  • Jazz Improvisation Primer is one of the resources offered by WNUR-FM's Jazz Information Server. A local site is Rock Web.

  • Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory carries out research in oceanography, meteorology, and related subjects. One of its current multimedia presentations concerns "What is an El Nino?"

  • New South Polar Times project offers lessons and ideas for using the New South Polar Times in the classroom, and instructs teachers in the use of Internet.

  We also have a listing of Internet resources of interest to school staff other than classroom teachers.

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