Linda Roberts, a former elementary school teacher and university professor, founded the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology during the Clinton Administration and developed the nation’s first educational technology plan. She is currently Senior Advisor to Apple Computer and several leading technology companies. Roberts is credited with spearheading the idea that educational technology implementation and use in U.S. schools should be a national priority.

Julie Evans has been finding out what teachers, students, administrators and even parents think about the use of educational technology in schools since 2003. In 2007 alone 319,223 students, 25,544 teachers, 19,726 parents, and 3,263 school leaders submitted surveys through the Speak Up annual national research study about the use of technology and science resources to prepare students for the 21st century. The Net Day Speak Up web site states, “Since inception the project has collected the viewpoints of over 850,000 K-12 students, teachers and parents from all 50 states.”

NSDL Director of Core Integration Kaye Howe says, “Both Linda Roberts and Julie Evans give advice, counsel and support to NSDL—and that has been our very good fortune. Linda has been a strong and deeply involved member of NSDL’s National Visiting Committee, and is always available to give us the benefit of both her vision, her experience and her extensive contacts. Julie’s Net Day Speak Up surveys, and her compelling presentations of the data (she is probably the best keynoter we’ve ever had at the NSDL Annual Meeting) provide invaluable and illuminating longitudinal insights into what K-12 teachers, students and parents are really thinking and doing. They have both made a critical difference in education and that will continue to do so.”

If you’ve seen the current NSF solicitation for the NSDL program, you will know that this is a transitional year for several groups including some Pathways and the Core Integration team. The current institutions that comprise the Core Integration team (Columbia, Cornell, and UCAR) do plan to respond to the solicitation. The meeting will be structured to provide plenty of time and space to discuss plans for the future, and to celebrate and share the interesting work that continues within and beyond the NSDL program.

NSDL: STEM Research and Education in Action

In 2007, the NSDL Annual Meeting highlighted a network of projects and people that had collectively reached a milestone. Presenters did not say, “When it’s built, we can….” Instead, attendees said, “What we learned was…,” and, “What we’re doing is….” Building on that ethos, the Planning Committee encourages proposals to the 2008 NSDL Annual Meeting that demonstrate how the vision of a National Science Digital Library continues to be fulfilled within, and how it contributes to, the evolving national STEM research and education infrastructure. Proposals should explore issues and report on activities that:

• Reflect cumulative experiences and provide compelling narratives about ongoing, or concluded, research (e.g., technology, education, policy) within the context of the NSDL program;
• Highlight inter-disciplinary work undertaken by NSDL projects that encompass continuums, for example, between technology developers and users, across STEM disciplines, and between public and private organizations;
• Are directly applicable to the STEM teacher and learner audiences of NSDL projects;
• Describe a vision for the role of NSDL within the evolving national STEM research and education infrastructure;
• Demonstrate the complementary contributions between STEM research and STEM education.

Please visit the NSDL Annual Meeting web site for complete information: http://annualmeeting.nsdl.org/.

Payo wrote, “Given that the brain has versatile neuroplasticity, developing student strategies to strengthen their abilities to create new pathways, connecting new knowledge to previously learned concepts and patterns, teaching students to look at problems from multiple perspectives or providing periodical shifts in attention when teaching through the use of word puzzles or discrepant events—what Willis calls “syn-naps”—can aid student understanding and capitalize on the innate processes of each individual. Such strategies are the hallmark of good teaching, but having a better understanding and intentional focus on brain-based strategies is a useful tool for any teacher.”

Comments range from agreement with Willis’s ideas about brain-based teaching strategies, to questioning the validity of her conclusions, to observations that neurological views of teaching practices are just another way to look at time-honored techniques that work.

Read more about Willis’s “Brain Glitch” theory:

http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2007/02/debating_the_br.html
http://techpsych.blogspot.com/2007/06/neuroscience-of-joyful-education-ascd.html

Expository articles for students: BPPB features versions for K-1, 2-3, and 4-5. This month author Steve Whitt looks back to a time when “Some dinosaurs lived in the cold and the darkness near the North and South Poles.” At each grade level, each issue’s article is available in three formats: text-only, a printable, foldable book, and an electronic book with audio files so that students can listen to the article as they read. Find these (and related activities) here.

Virtual Bookshelf: Kate Hastings, a children’s librarian, has selected children’s literature about polar dinosaurs and fossils for this issue with ideas for classroom use and recommended grade levels. Find this article here.

Misconceptions and Formative Assessment Probe: In addition to listing common student misconceptions about how the fossil and archaeological record of the polar regions through geologic time, this article includes a formative assessment probe (pdf file) that can be used to assess student ideas following the model used by Paige Keeley and others in the three volumes of Uncovering Student Ideas in Science (NSTA Press). An “interactive fossil sort” created by Content Clips can be used as part of the formative assessment process. Find these materials here.

Science and Literacy Lessons: In this article Jessica Fries-Gaither highlights lesson plans for teaching about fossils, fossil formation, and making inferences from fossil remains. For each lesson there are suggestions for modification to fit K-2 classrooms, ideas and lessons for integrating literacy, and creating rubrics (using RubiStar) to help teachers assess their students’ work here.

Callendar, G., “The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature” (1938)
Each CAC feature will provide an accessible overview of a topic, showing how the selected papers influenced subsequent work and built toward scientists’ current shared understanding of the topic. The feature will include links to related NSDL teaching resources, as well as bibliographies of contemporary articles that cite the classic papers. “The idea here is to work with academic publishers to create a free showcase for what they publish,” says Michael Luby of NSDL Core Integration, who is building the site. He is working on other CAC features in the subjects of chemistry (the development and discovery of plastics) and physics (giant magnetoresistance). Luby is also developing “Timely Teaching,” a feature that will give publishers a place to share full-text contemporary journal articles on hot scientific topics for free use in classrooms.

The overall project, which goes by the name Primary Article Learning Environment (PALE), springs from a body of research that shows many benefits to exposing students to primary sources in scientific journal articles in addition to textbooks. Luby believes that the site will be particularly useful to instructors at community colleges and smaller regional institutions that are primarily focused on teaching, and where libraries may not have the budgets to support journal subscriptions. The interactive aspects of the wiki mean that the project might evolve in many different directions. Luby hopes that once the site gets going, users will add value to the resource as they build knowledge through contribution.

NSDL projects and other providers who have multimedia materials that may be appropriate for inclusion in the site are encouraged to contact Susan Van Gundy.

NSDL on iTunes U allows users to:
* download videos, podcasts, educators’ guides, and other resources for teaching and learning;
* play audio and video on your iPod, Mac, or PC; and,
* burn a CD.

If you already have iTunes installed on your computer, click here to go directly to NSDL on iTunes U. You can also open the iTunes Store and navigate to iTunes U, then Beyond Campus, then NSDL on iTunes U. If you need to download iTunes first, go to download iTunes for Mac or Windows machines and follow the instructions provided. After installation you may need to restart your computer before you can connect to the iTunes Store. Once iTunes is running on your computer, open the iTunes Store and navigate to iTunes U, then Beyond Campus, then NSDL on iTunes U.

Thomas Midgley, Jr.

The NSDL Wiki was set up recently to provide a collaborative online environment where users can organize, create, and annotate resources. Vetted articles and referenced resources can then be added to the library for search and discovery on nsdl.org . After registering, you or your group can use the NSDL wiki to develop specific topic areas for use in classrooms or research. You can also use the wiki’s extensions in your own MediaWiki project.

Guy Smiley

Sesame Street characters have been mainstays of K-5 classrooms for decades because they have the power to make little kids sit still and pay attention. Sesame Workshop is a not-for-profit group that encourages teachers to use its characters freely, but quality control issues have arisen in the last few years. “About 18,000 Sesame Street clips are posted on YouTube,” says Ludwig. “Some of them are of really poor quality, and some of them manipulate the characters in ways that young children should not see. We wanted to make a free service so people can use Sesame Street the way it should be used.”

The current video section of the site is a beta version. When the full version launches this summer, Ludwig says that teachers will be able to search Sesame Street clips by character, topic, or curricular goals. He also anticipates an area where registered users will be able to save clips and remember their favorites. “I was born in 1968, and Grover can still make me laugh or cry. It’s powerful stuff,” he says. “Now people who grew up with the show will be able to introduce it to their children.”