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Home Subscriptions Netsurfer Digest E-Zine Netsurfer Science E-Zine Netsurfer Books E-Zine |
| In Our Books, This Egg Comes First |
| Native Americans in World War I |
| Virtual Marching Tour of the American Revolution |
| Swedes in America |
| Semiotics for Beginners |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Bartleby Great Books Online |
| Happy Space Cadet Campers |
| Yo! Yo Yo Physics |
| Diffraction: An Excellent Site |
| The Last Word in Finite State Machines |
| Teach Your Patients about Asthma: A Clinician's Guide |
| Kids and Food Allergies |
| Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2000-01 Edition |
| Creative Teaching - Enjoy Your Profession |
| Policies for Saving Lives and More |
| Sexuality Education for Children and Youth with Disabilities |
| Internet Search FAQ |
| The Internet Archive |
| Inventors Online |
| Maryland Public Television LearningWorks |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
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| Netsurfer Digest |
TEACHER'S PET
Editor's favorite
In Our Books, This Egg Comes First
Math and science teachers will love this site. Using a simple hen's egg, the site teaches students, high school and above, a host of lessons about a variety of topics ranging from the geometry of ellipses and their axes of rotational symmetry to a wonderful discussion of the irrational number, e, and its relation to biological growth. The site uses Java applets as well as gorgeous illustrations to make its points. There are related sites that explore the embryology of the hen's egg as well as fascinating MRI images of the embryo's development. This is a site well worth visiting, if only for the ways in which an egg can become the basis for a host of interesting and riveting lessons.http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/explore/eggmath/
SOCIAL SCIENCES
History, geography, political science, sociology, law, anthropology, philosophy, and archeology
Native Americans in World War I
"What struck me the most when I heard that 17,000 Native Americans had served in the Great War was that, not even thirty years after the end of the Indian wars, American Indians were willing to fight alongside their former enemy." So writes Diane Camurat in the preface of The American Indian in the Great War: Real and Imagined. This site is Camurat's master's thesis, submitted in 1993 to the Institut Charles V of the University of Paris. Like most text documents transferred to the Web, this one offers no sizzle or flash. But what it does provide is an examination into both the process a scholar goes through in examining and interpreting historical documents, and the role of Native Americans in World War I. One of the more dramatic contributions of Native Americans during World War I was the success of the Choctaw code talkers, which Michael Wilson highlights on a subsection of his Unofficial Choctaw Nation home page. In the closing days of the war, eight Choctaws were serving in a battalion of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) that was surrounded by Germans; the Germans had broken the AEF's codes and were intercepting their messages. An officer, overhearing two Choctaws speaking in their native language, distributed the eight among the Expeditionary forces. Communicating orders over telephone lines in their native language, which the Germans were unable to decipher, the Choctaw soldiers helped the AEF regain control. Wilson tells the story through the transcript of a 1979 interview with the last living soldier of the group and through scanned images of a January 1919 report from a commanding officer describing the Choctaws' contribution to the AEF's success.Camurat: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/comment/camurat1.html
WWI code talkers: http://www.niti.net/~michael/choctaw/code.htm
Virtual Marching Tour of the American Revolution
While not as sweeping as the site's title would suggest, this is an excellent overview of the campaign of summer-winter 1777, as Washington's Continentals and Howe's British troops maneuvered and fought in and around Philadelphia, from the British landing at Elk's Head to the encampment at Valley Forge. Divided into chapters on the major events and battles (plus a background chapter), each has illustrations, maps (which, in truth, could be a lot better) and supplemental narratives that open in separate windows. Other features include biographical pages on major (and not-so-major) figures in the campaign, a Revolutionary War timeline, songs from the era, a games page, and a links page of Revolutionary War Web sites. The overall effect is outstanding; a bright and colorful site suitable for junior high school students.http://www.ushistory.org/march/index.html
Although the first Swedes settled in America in 1638 (only 18 years after the Mayflower landfall), the vast majority of them arrived in the middle years of the 19th century. A combination of population growth and agricultural disasters prompted more than 1.3 million Swedes (when Sweden's population was just 5.5 million) to immigrate to the United States; today American history and culture, thanks to people like Carl Sandburg and John Erikson, are the richer for it. This single page from American West gives the background in Sweden and tells the story of this immigrant group, which contrary to the popular picture, settled mostly in large cities, like Chicago and Minneapolis. The page concludes with a list of over 100 links dealing with Sweden, Swedish immigration, and emigration from other countries.
http://www.americanwest.com/swedemigr/pages/emigra.htm
Semiotics is one of those abstruse sounding terms that impresses more than it should perhaps. It amounts to nothing much more - or should we say much less - than the study of, or theories of, signs, but signs in the large sense as in words, pictures, sounds, gestures and more. Here are the origins of the field and the scholars who advanced its cause and helped define and enlarge it, and a whole pile more in this work by Daniel Chandler, who wrote it originally for his students at the University of Wales. It's not necessarily an easy topic to grasp and beginners might be tempted to wonder if it's all a clever academic put-on. Still at heart the topic struggles with the sense of meaning that signs impart, their form and their content, through chapters on signs, modality and representation, paradigms and syntagms, metaphor and metonymy, codes, intertextuality, strengths of semiotic analysis, criticisms of semiotic analysis, DIY semiotic analysis, a glossary, suggested reading, and semiotics links. If all this interests you, well then there's lots here to keep you thinking, reading and wondering. We do note a conundrum about the design of the site, which features a spiral notebook format. Is this a sign of rooting the content in the familiar, comfortable physical world of the printed page, or is this an indication of shying away from the new medium of the hypertext format? That's the trouble with reading semioticians!
Official UK site: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
US mirror site: http://www.argyroneta.com/s4b/
Windows CE version: http://www.adbosch.demon.nl/starbuck.htm
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the cover or title to order the item at a hefty discount from Amazon.com and send a few pennies our way as well.
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True or False? Tests Stink!LANGUAGE ARTS
English studies, grammar, poetry, prose, and second language studies
http://www.bartleby.com/index.html
MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Mathematics, chemistry, physics, astrosciences, computing, technology, biology, and botany
http://www.cosmo.org/astrocamp.htm
Even a so-so yo yo coaxes a grin as it spins its modest act of treason against the law of gravity. Actually, a yo yo works with gravity, combined with rotational kinetic energy, when it climbs back up the string. Read the scientific explanation at PhysLINK.com. Then check out the Yomega company's Web site for a look at just how sublime the humble yo yo has become. Subtle design features distinguish the autoreturn, the transaxle, the roller bearing, the fixed axle models. Name another sport where you can outfit yourself with top-of-the-line engineering for $9.95.
PhysLINK: http://www.physlink.com/ae18.cfm
Yomega: http://www.yomega.com/
Diffraction: An Excellent Site
This is a rather amazing way to teach college students about diffraction. The site uses software that allows students to simulate using x-rays and neutron beams to understand crystalline structure. The software is really quite amazing and the graphics colorful and useful. Clearly these materials require a teacher to interpret them for students, but we can't help but think that these programs are a wonderful aid for anyone teaching crystallography. Given the importance of x-ray diffraction in the history of 20th-century science, especially in the study of protein structures, this site will interest a variety of students and teachers in the sciences. Readers should note that this site assumes a great deal of knowledge; it is not for beginners.http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/mineralogie/crystal/teaching/teaching.html
The Last Word in Finite State Machines
As this site makes clear, "a finite state machine is an imaginary machine that is used to study and design systems that recognize and identify patterns". This site, running out of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is for the advanced high school student or teacher interested in learning more about computer science. There's an array of interesting exercises for teachers to use in the classroom as well as a set of resources and definitions. The authors of the site clearly see finite state machines as useful in educating students about basic mathematical concepts such as reasoning and recognizing a pattern. These exercises and definitions presuppose a fair amount of knowledge, but they should work if both the students and the teacher are motivated to learn about this key topic.http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/workbk/machine/machine.html
HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Sports and Health
Teach Your Patients about Asthma: A Clinician's Guide
The National Asthma Education Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, offers this site to help physicians instruct patients in the management of their asthma. Although much of the material is aimed at doctors, patients and their parents or caregivers will find useful information in Part III: Patient Worksheets. These worksheets, created for doctors to give to patients, cover the full range of concerns that this chronic condition involves. In addition to basic worksheets about what asthma is, the warning signs of an asthma episode, and management of asthma in infants, there's specific information about drugs commonly used to treat the condition as well as about the use of equipment such as metered-dose inhalers, spacers, nebulizers, and peak flow meters. With childhood asthma on the rise, daycare and school personnel could benefit from the background information available in an easily accessible format here. However thorough this or any site is, though, it can't replace knowledge of each patient's individual treatment plan.http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/MedEd/medicine/Allergy/Asthma/asthtoc.html
More than six million Americans - most of them children - have food allergies, according to the Food Allergy Network (FAN), a nonprofit organization. Because many food allergies can be life threatening, FAN has created Food Allergy News for Kids, a Web site to help children understand and manage their allergies. For children from preschool through about intermediate-school age, there's FanKids, which solicits kids' stories and offers instructional puzzles and games. Two sections in FanKids stand out: the PAL (Protect a Life) Program, which tells children how to talk to their friends about their allergies so the friends can help them avoid triggering an allergic reaction, and School Project Ideas, which discusses the science involved in allergies and suggests simple experiments that illustrate the processes. FanTeens, currently under development, contains a couple of articles aimed at students with food allergies who are about to go off to college. This section includes a printable emergency health care form that students can fill out for each food allergy listing their symptoms, medications, and emergency contact information. (This form requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be downloaded free.)
News for Kids: http://www.fankids.org/
Acrobat Reader: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
SKILLS FOR LIVING
Domestic sciences, study skills and other day-to-day skills for getting through life
Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2000-01 Edition
The venerable 'Occupational Outlook Handbook', familiar to high school students and their guidance counselors since time immemorial, is now online. Produced by the Department Of Labor, this is an attractive and very usable site. The site is fully searchable, and a side bar has links to all of the major sections. The handbook provides an encyclopedic directory of various professions. Each entry provides a description of the profession, certification requirements, working conditions, earnings and, of course, the outlook for employment. Each page is also offered as a .pdf (Acrobat readable) file for convenience. Links for further information are also included. Think you might want to work on a fishing vessel, or perhaps become a radio announcer? You might want check out the handbook before you quit your day job. Canada also offers several similar resources, although the oldest of those, published by the Canadian government, seems to have some online headaches. We offer an alternative.US Occupational Outlook: http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm
Canadian Career Directions: http://www.careerccc.org/careerdirections/eng/e_ho_set.htm
RESOURCES
Encyclopedia, libraries, reference resources, and other places to which teachers can turn
Creative Teaching - Enjoy Your Profession
"If you're not having fun, you're not being the best teacher you can be." This is the motto of Creative Teaching, a site that seeks to spur teacher's creativity and sense of fun. There are essays, resources, and ideas here that can be of great use to teachers at all levels. The author, Robert E. Morgan, has been a teacher for 30 years, and this is evident in the quality of the material presented. There are articles about the creative use of video games, using variety and fun in the classroom, developing a teaching style, and more. Resources include puzzles, word games, and 'humorous grammar rules'. Links to recommended educational sites are also included. Breaking away from the routine is difficult in any job, but spontaneity and creativity can be vital to the learning process. Teachers looking to expand their arsenal of innovative and enjoyable lesson ideas can find lots of ammunition at the Creative Teaching Web site.http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/
ADMINISTRATION
Education theory, school and board administration, and teaching aids
Policies for Saving Lives and More
Because food allergies can be fatal, the schools of Prince Edward Island, Canada, have in place a policy outlining the procedures for dealing with life-threatening allergies. The policy directs that school registration information should ask parents whether their child has "a life-threatening allergy to certain foods, insect venom, medication or other material". If so, the school must take necessary steps to see that the child's environment (including classrooms and buses) is free of the allergen. Further, the policy directs the principal to see that school staff, including bus drivers, are aware of the child's medical situation and know how to handle emergencies. The plan includes directives on the availability and use of the EpiPen, "a disposable spring-loaded self-injectable syringe with a concealed needle that contains the drug epinephrine", used to treat anaphylactic shock.http://www2.gov.pe.ca/educ/mindir/index.asp?year=1997&dir=06
ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION
Distance learning, home schooling, and special education opportunities
Sexuality Education for Children and Youth with Disabilities
Talking to your kids about sexuality can be difficult for even the most mellow parent. So, dealing with a disabled child's sexuality can be terrifying. Fortunately for the majority of parents, there are bushels of books that deal with the subject. The parents of the disabled child aren't so lucky. The NICHCY (National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities) aims to provide guidance and information about sexuality for children with disabilities. They've placed a very thorough 37-page paper on the subject online. The paper is broken up into sections, such as 'Developing Social Skills', 'Teaching Children and Youth about Sexuality', and 'How Particular Disabilities Affect Sexuality And Sexuality Education'. Each section is about a page or so, and deals with basic issues and concerns. The authors state that this should be used as a resource document, and each section ends with many references for more information. This is a fabulous starting place for the parents of disabled children or those who work with these children, and the references provided offer an ample resource for in-depth discussion of these topics.http://www.nichcy.org/pubs/newsdig/nd17txt.htm
TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING
Computing as the medium
http://www.purefiction.com/pages/res1.htm
Consider the plight of a traditional librarian trying to deal with the Internet. Providing organized access to something as volatile, dynamic, and disorganized as the Internet is truly what they call in business 'an opportunity'. Founded in 1996 as a public nonprofit and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Internet Archive is tackling that 'opportunity' by taking snapshots of Internet sites at various time periods, in essence preserving the place as it was, and making the resulting archive available for scholars and researchers. To gain access to it, you must register and describe either a project that requires you to get your grubby virtual paws on the material or a plan to deposit material. As of March 2000, the Archive had 1billion Web pages, 50,000 FTP sites, and 16 million Usenet postings amounting to well over 14 terabytes of data. The site describes the challenges of preserving digital materials, how the snapshots (really Web crawls) are taken, the limitations to such automated processes, what plans for the future are, and just why digital libraries are important.
http://www.archive.org/
RESIDUE
A little of this, a little of that
http://www.inventorsmuseum.com/index.htm
Maryland Public Television LearningWorks
In five searchable sections, Maryland Public Television's LearningWorks provides educational information for all segments of the population. The parents' section highlights children's educational TV shows as well as community activities and events. The teachers' section offers materials about MPT's available educational programs, including an educational video service (scheduled for availability beginning in October 2000) and professional development broadcasts. For the kids, a link to the network's KidWorks brings up listings of programming aimed at preschoolers through teens. Child care providers will find information on training workshops and kids' programming in support of the National Education Goal that by 2000 all children will begin school ready to learn, and on resources to engage school age children in learning. Finally, the higher and adult education section details the network's GED programming, its College of the Air (telecourses that earn college credit), and Literary Visions (a 26-part TV series on reading and writing about literature).http://www.mpt.org/learningworks/