Education
Developed through a project at Rice University, Connexions is a place for sharing free scholarly materials to promote educational collaboration and allow authors to expand the reach of their course materials. The website is powered by open source software, which allows registered users to post materials and create custom modules. Individuals are encouraged to contribute if they have course materials "and want to maximize its impact" or are hoping to translate their course or module into another language. Visitors can search or browse the materials already posted in the Content Commons without registering. There are already thousands of postings ranging from animal rights to an overview of signals and systems. A Roadmap plug-in assists in navigation and shows how content in one module relates to other topics. A software technology page provides additional information on the open source toolkit under development as part of this project. [VF]
http://www.handsonuniverse.org/
Hands-On Universe (HOU)is "an educational program that enables students to investigate the Universe while applying tools and concepts from science, math, and technology." HOU participants use the Internet to request observations from an automated telescope and then download those images from a large image archive so they can analyze them using image processing software. Membership and complete teaching packages must be purchased, but several images and activities are posted online for anyone to access. For example, the Teacher section includes a section on HOU Activities & Lesson Plans Online, which offers several activities and online resources that connect astronomy and mathematics. [VF]
http://www.rbs.org/research/outreach.shtml
Research for Better Schools (RBS), a non-profit educational research and development firm serving the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., offers a collection of "online resources from a variety of organizations that support both parent involvement in schools and outreach activities to the larger community." The website resources range from organizations that provide information on how schools and other educational programs work, to organizations that focus more specifically on mathematics. [VF]
http://www.teachersdomain.org/
Teachers' Domain, produced by WGBH and funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is "a multimedia digital library for the classroom that provides learning experiences in ways no textbook can." The website offers "classroom-ready resources, as well as media-rich lesson plans and professional development resources" on Life Science, Physical Science, Engineering, and The Civil Rights Movement. The resources are organized by grade level and correlated to national and state standards. To access the Domain, users must complete the free registration form. However, visitors can go through an introductory tour without registering in order to get an idea of what the site offers. [VF]
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) a mathematics education organization that aims to be "a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students." Each year NCTM focuses on a different professional development topic. The focus for 2004-2005 is Developing Algebraic Thinking. This section of the NCTM website explains why the organization chose this focus and offers resources for elementary, middle, and high school teachers. The resources are organized by type and include NCTM Journal Articles, Lessons and Activities, Publications, and Conference Sessions. [VF]
http://www.ctredpol.org/fededprograms/
The Center on Education and Policy is "a national, independent advocate for public education and for more effective public schools." The Center publishes its research online as a way to inform Americans about "the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools." This section of the website highlights research on federal education programs, currently a hot topic in the U.S. The data-rich reports can serve as a resource for classroom discussions about the ins and outs of statistical analysis on a topic relevant to students' lives. [VF]
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT, has launched this "large-scale, Web-based electronic publishing initiative." The website posts lecture notes, problem sets, and other materials from courses across the MIT campus. This section highlights MIT's undergraduate and graduate program in Mathematics. Courses are listed by title and include topics such as Differential Analysis, Linear Algebra, and Statistical Inference. The materials serve as valuable resources for educators, students, or anyone interested in learning more about these topics. [VF]
Geometry Step by Step from the Land of the Incas is an interactive website, created by Antonio Gutierrez, that offers a variety of resources for teaching and learning about geometry, including music that plays in the background. The website mixes sound, science, and Incan history in order to raise students' interest in Euclidean geometry. On this website, visitors will find geometry problems, proofs, quizzes, puzzles, quotations, visual displays, photographs of Incan ruins, and "scientific speculation." The interactive aspects take some getting used to but also allow from some involved problem-solving activities. [VF]
