Cool Web sites for Kids to Explore
"Lest We Forget" commemorates the abolition of slavery
From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the New York Public Library comes "Lest We Forget," a new interactive web site designed to shed light on the era of abuse and oppression marking the dark days of the Transatlantic slave trade. Compiled by museum curator Howard Dodson, this unique online collection highlights the people and faces of the slave culture--from the enslaved Africans who were taken in chains from their homeland to the brutal slave drivers who grew rich off their willingness to trade human life for money. A virtual collage of photographs, artwork, and historical accounts aims to provide each visitor with a sense of what it was like to live during the era of slavery. The site covers a wide array of topics, from information about the struggle against slavery and its abolition to religion, slave culture, education, and family life. Available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, the web site was created to mark the United Nations General Assembly resolution proclaiming 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition.
http://digital.nypl.org/lwf/flash.html
Virtual manipulatives aim to engage students in math education
Created by a team of researchers and educators at Utah State University with support from the National Science Foundation, this new online library of interactive manipulatives is intended to help educators accomplish the often challenging task of engaging students in daily math lessons. Whether you're teaching basic mathematical concepts, from simple algebra or geometry to units of measurement, or more advanced lessons on topics such as data and probability, chances are you've found yourself in a situation where, no matter what you do, your students seem either unable, or unwilling, to grasp the concept. Because learning and understanding mathematics at every level requires student engagement, the researchers behind this three-year project have set out to create a vast library of manipulatives, or learning tutorials, intended to help students visualize and apply these often difficult mathematical concepts. Through the use of Java-based mathematical tools and editors, the site challenges teachers to create and integrate a variety of new approaches to interactive mathematics instruction.
http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/vlibrary.html
New online reading club brings children's books to life
Educational publisher Scholastic Inc. has created a new web site intended to foster a lifelong love of reading among students. Billed as the "ultimate ... multimedia experience for kids who love books," Flashlight Readers invites young learners to join a virtual reading club, which allows them to participate in moderated author chats, trade instant messages with other readers, explore authors' original manuscripts, and play interactive games designed to bring their favorite books to life. Targeted at students in grades 3-5, the site features popular titles such as Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillio, now the subject of a major motion picture; Louis Sachar's Holes; and Pam Munoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising. Each exploration includes a Teacher's Guide that offers lessons and activities to help teachers meet national standards, as well as a Parent's Guide with advice on how to use the reading club at home. Others features include an interactive comprehension maze, a book bulletin board, and book-related prizes, such as signed author photographs.
http://www.scholastic.com/flashlight
Primary-source materials on Lincoln's early years are here for the linking
Long before Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and was immortalized in the annals of history for his famous Gettysburg Address, the sixteenth president of the United States made a name for himself as a lawyer in small-town Illinois. "Lincoln/Net," from the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project at Northern Illinois University, is an online collection of early speeches and biographical materials chronicling Lincoln's boyhood during the early years of Illinois' statehood, his thoughts and experiences during the Indian and Mexican Wars, his law practice, and his campaign for president. Rather than simply document Lincoln's career on a timeline, the site provides several historical documents and interactive features designed to help students explore and analyze the Civil War president's social and political influence on American society. It focuses on eight major themes: frontier settlement; Native American relations; economic development; women's experience and gender roles; African-Americans' experience and American racial attitudes; law and society; religion and culture; and political development. A special section for teachers provides lessons plans pertaining to the Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1858, the anti-slavery movement, the Dred Scott decision, slavery, the Black Hawk War, Indian conflicts, and more.
Digital library catalogs the mysteries of science
From the National Science Foundation comes the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), a vast collection of online resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. While browsing through its virtual halls, students and teachers will have access to thousands of internet resources and research documents individually reviewed and approved for use on the site by NSDL staff. The library supports teaching and training at all levels with materials ranging from journal articles, to lessons plans, to interactive animations and question-and-answer services for students. The idea, according to NSDL organizers, is to build a virtual hub where educators can easily access the best, most relevant, and most reliable teaching materials from a variety of public and private institutions, including universities, museums, publishers, government agencies, and professional societies. Educators are encouraged to use the site for sharing documents, exchanging ideas, and making recommendations to their peers. From simple mathematics equations to the science behind the Human Genome Project and the location of the best online virtual field trips, this digital library is a vehicle for stimulating excitement about the educational value of scientific information.
Design a house with Frank Lloyd Wright at "Architectural Studio 3D"
Students can learn the secrets of architectural design and study the subtle nuances of place under the virtual tutelage of one of the world's most influential architects at "Architectural Studio 3D," a new interactive design program from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. Billed as an online extension of the trust's famous Youth Architecture Workshop, held in the drafting room of Wright's first design studio in Oak Park, Ill., the site lets students work as real architects do. Users are matched up with mock clients who have specific needs and lifestyle preferences, as well as building sites that have special environmental considerations. The student designers then must use their imaginations to create a home that meets their "clients'" needs. Once finished, students can store their designs on the web site for their peers to see and even tour their homes using a virtual 3D walkthrough feature. Other features include classroom resources for educators and biographical information exploring Wright's life and work.
http://www.architectstudio3d.org/AS3d/index.html
Updated Library of Congress web site includes new resources for teachers, students
With an eye toward education, officials at the Library of Congress (LOC) have significantly upgraded the online component of the world's largest library, making a wide range of resources and thousands of titles more accessible than ever before. The newly reorganized home page includes several audience-specific resource pages and three completely overhauled subsites highlighting LOC's poetry program, including access to more than 600 audiovisual webcasts. Six new or retooled pages contain links to resources specifically geared toward kids and families, librarians, publishers, researchers, teachers, and visitors to the Library in Washington, D.C. A new feature called "Poetry" includes webcasts of poetry readings from National Book Festivals; links to LOC collections, such as the papers of Walt Whitman; and information on past and current Poets Laureate, including Ted Kooser, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. A searchable database of online webcasts provides access to hundreds of speeches, lectures, readings, concerts, conferences, and other audiovisual presentations given at the Library. A collection of broadcasts featuring singer-songwriter John Prine, statesmen George Shultz and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and esteemed scholars, authors, and storytellers grows each week. In addition, several other pages and subsections have been updated, including a section of information about the Library itself, a calendar of events, LOC contact information, and a site map.
Life after Auschwitz: Experience tragedy through the eyes of survivors
From the nonprofit Shoah Foundation comes "Surviving Auschwitz: Five Personal Journeys," a new online exhibit that takes a look at the extraordinary lives of five men and women who lived through the tragedies of the Holocaust. Organized around an interactive map of the world that traces the survivors' paths across five continents, the web site seeks to demonstrate how the shared experience of the Holocaust affected individuals from a diverse mix of cultures and backgrounds. Geared toward students in grades 8-12, the site uses four hours of video testimony from the Shoah Foundation's archive. In October, lesson plans and other teaching resources also will be available for downloading from the web site. "Surviving Auschwitz" is the third in series of online exhibits commemorating the Holocaust and the lives of Holocaust survivors. Other Holocaust exhibits accessible from the Shoah Foundation web site include "Voices of the Holocaust: Children Speak" and "Survivors: Testimonies of the Holocaust."
http://www.vhf.org/survivingauschwitz
Explore kids' books from around the world at the "International Children's Digital Library"
In January 2003, eSchool News first reported on an initiative from the University of Maryland to create a massive collection of children's books from around the world that is freely available to children, teachers, librarians, parents, and scholars worldwide via the internet. Now, halfway into the five-year project, some 600-plus volumes comprise the International Children's Digital Library. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the site has five goals: to create a collection of more than 10,000 books in at least 100 languages; to develop a user-friendly interface that lets children search, browse, read, and share books in electronic form; to provide a deeper understanding of copyright and "fair use" in the digital era; to evaluate the impact that access to digital materials has on school and public libraries; and to explore the relationship between children's access to digital collections of multicultural materials and their attitudes toward books, reading, technology, and other countries and cultures. The materials included in the collection reflect similarities and differences in cultures, societies, interests, and lifestyles of peoples around the world. The project's creators hope that tolerance and acceptance can be achieved through a greater understanding of one another.
Visit 'Packetville' to foster an appreciation for science and technology
Cisco Systems has unveiled an online village for students ages 8 to 14, called Packetville, that uses interactive video games and other activities to encourage students' interest in math, science, and information technology (IT). The site's interactive games demonstrate some of the many ways that technology serves useful functions worldwide, while preparing students for higher education and careers in IT. Helping to navigate users through Packetville are Peter and Penny Packet, animated characters who take on the role of heroes to help clean the environment, spread education, and promote good health, among other activities. Packetville also includes resources for parents and educators, including teaching aids and lesson plans that are mapped to International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards. "This is a great opportunity for younger students to get involved in technology early," said Gene Longo, senior manager of the U.S. Cisco Networking Academy Program. "[Through] fun activities, friendly characters, and games, students are given the opportunity to develop a positive perspective toward math, science, and IT. In addition, students gain a broader outlook on technology-related careers, while developing important life skills that will support them regardless of which education or career path they eventually choose to pursue."
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/edu/packetville/index.html
Project SMARTArt promotes media literacy with these free web tools
Billed as a virtual "how-to" program for teaching media literacy to K-5 students, the Project SMARTArt web site showcases the results of a U.S. Department of Education-funded media literacy program at the Los Angeles Unified School District's Leo Politi Elementary School. The web site offers a wealth of educational resources at no charge, including professional development guides, sample lesson plans, and integrated classroom activities devoted to integrating media literacy into elementary curricula. The centerpiece of the program is the creation of a new guiding principle for media literacy education programs: that media literacy and the arts inform one another as disciplines for teaching and learning, and that these disciplines can be integrated with all other academic content areas while meeting state education standards. To help drive home this point, the web site features a replicable model that meets most states' education standards for visual and performing arts and English language development, while providing downloadable tools designed to support sustainability. Project SMARTArt also provides training on how to create 30-second animation shorts for both teachers and students. The pilot project was funded by ED and the National Endowment for the Arts and was carried out by a partnership that included the Center for Media Literacy, LAUSD, the Music Center's Education Division, and AnimAction.
