J.P.'s
Eclectic Bookmarks
This is a collection of bookmarks compiled
by Jon-Paul Roden, Department Chair for Computer Science in the Vernon,
Connecticut Public Schools and a Teacher-Consultant for the National Education
Association. It was created as a professional development model of educationally
valuable resources available on the Internet for teachers and students.
Updated: Winter, 1999
SEARCH ENGINES & SEARCH TOOLS
Leave it to the Australians to have created one of the most incredible
repositories of search engines that I have ever come across. Here you can
find not only the TOP search engines, but also more than 50 odd search
engines that will take you from simple spider searches to well-known search
bots. You're going to have fun with this.
Here's one of my favorite meta search engines. It comes to us from
the Center for Research, Inc., at the University of Kansas. Allowing users
to search topics using nine different well-known search engines it was
the winner of the 1998 PC Magazine Editor's Choice Award.
This site was developed by the Ramapo Catskill
Library System in Middletown, NY and is a part of their own Home
Page and contains some excellent resources.
This is scary! Have you lost contact with someone and need his or
her phone number or address? Then try this - and be sure to take a step
or two beyond the basic search. You may be shocked to see just how much
you can find out without hiring a private detective.
Looking for someone's E-Mail address? This MAY be a way to find them.
What the heck, it's worth a try!
OK - here's the last of my amateur detective searches. Check this
site out if you haven't already. Have you been reading through the paper
and seen only phone number listed? Here's a possible way to find the owner.
Check it out and think about privacy rights.
COPYRIGHT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Here is the Technology Brief issued by NEA's Center for Education Technology
illustrating this controversial area.
Here's a very interesting paper by Janice
Walker from the University of South Florida. It addresses many of the issues
that those in education should consider.
Representing over 2 million Americans, the
Digital Future Coalition is a unique group of leading business, library,
educational, consumer and technology organizations committed to international
copyright law and policy that rewards and promotes creativity. In addition
to domestic legislation, the site features press releases and news articles,
issues and proposals, international information, and additional resources.
McCutchen On-Line has posted an interesting
article in the area of Intellectual Property and Technology Law. This site
refers the US Supreme Court's ruling allowing an appellate court ruling
to stand. The appellate court ruled that a business that uses someone else's
software without permission to perform repair services might be liable
for copyright infringement. The implications are interesting.
This is an article written by Pamela Samuelson,
JD, for Wired Magazine. She is a Yale School of Law graduate and now a
Professor at the University of California at Berkeley with a joint appointment
in the School of Information Management and Systems and the School of Law.
Her principal area of expertise is intellectual property law. She has written
and spoken extensively about the challenges those new information technologies
are posing for public policy and traditional legal regimes and most recently
received the McArthur Award for her work.
This is the home of the Citizens Internet
Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), a broad group of Internet users, library
groups, publishers, online service providers, and civil liberties groups
fighting for the future of the First Amendment and the future of free expression
in the Information age.
Here's a very informative piece by Ivan
Hoffman, JD. It's adapted from "Internet Law Simplified: An Easy Guide
to Making Money, Staying Out of Trouble and Protecting Your Rights." Copyright
(c) 1996 by Ivan Hoffman. While not intended as a substitute for legal
advice, it addresses specific facts that may make the outcome different
than would be anticipated by you.
Ivan Hoffman is an attorney who has written
a number of very informative articles on copyright, fair use, the Internet
and electronic rights, just to name a few. This page was selected as a
Best of the Net site. Be sure to check it out.
The CopyRong Zine on copyright is a product
investigating the different aspects of copyright in the age of digital
technology and the internet. It was created by a group of hard working
students at Simon Fraser University with a cover page (this), a table of
contents from which you can click onto your topic of interest. They've
also included some essays, the author's personal opinions, which are somewhat
different in form and content.
VERNON CENTER MIDDLE SCHOOL and
VERNON SCHOOLS INFORMATION
The Middle Grade School State Policy Initiative
(MGSSPI) is a program of grants to 15 states to stimulate statewide changes
in middle grade educational policy and practice. The initiative's focus
on states reflects the view that, while it is essential to reform individual
schools, creating the capacity for broad reform requires state-level action.
Designed as a "top-down, bottom-up" reform strategy, the Vernon Center
Middle School is honored to have been selected to be a part of this initiative.
This is the "official" Vernon Center Middle
School web site. It was created by teachers in the building and contains
some vital information about the school
This is the American School Directory's
site for information about VCMS. We've provided them with some information,
but they somehow started with some basic information about almost every
public school in the United States. Use this site to check out other schools
and school districts.
Here's the home page for Rockville High
School, the secondary school that students leaving the Vernon Center Middle
School typically attend.
Here's information from ASD about other
schools in Vernon, Connecticut. Hopefully other schools will be creating
their own real web pages during the year.
NOTE: This site may
be active only during the trip
Since 1971, VCMS has been sending a group
of students for an eight-day intensified ecology study at the Bermuda Biological
Station. This site links to the station and allows the Vernon students
to share in their daily discoveries and communicate with the other students
and staff back at the school, their parents, and other interested people.
TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHERS
Adopted January 8, 1997, this is the Official
Position of Connecticut's State Board of Education.
This is where you'll find Connecticut's
Statewide Educational Technology Plan and the Guidelines for Technology
Infrastructure in Connecticut Schools. They're both in Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Format, but they've a link to an Adobe Reader if you need one.
This is the Official Report of the
Task Force on Educational Telecommunications, established by legislative
act (P.A.96-245) to examine ways in which the state can develop and support
education technology in the Connecticut public primary and secondary schools,
and specifically to identify funding resources for the infrastructure that
will be needed in the coming decade in the state's schools, libraries and
institutions of higher education. Serving as the only teacher on this Task
Force, I was quite proud of our work.
Now I know that this is not Connecticut,
but take a look at what our neighbor to the south is doing. These competencies
apply to teacher education faculty (yes, that's higher ed.), pre-service
teachers, and in-service (veteran) educators. The purpose of these competencies
is to further enable North Carolina K-12 students to meet the standards
of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study in terms of both its general
computer literacy objectives, and the more specific goals of the computer
literacy strand. These are part of the more comprehensive K-12 Curriculum
Matrix from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Having visited
UNC-Charlotte as a member of an NCATE Training Cadre, I know first-hand
just how serious the folks in North Carolina are about technology.
TEACHER VACANCY LISTINGS
Here's the listing that the Connecticut
Education Association posts at the end of each month. It's the most comprehensive
single listing for the state's school districts.
Now don't be surprised when the page starts
off with NEA staff vacancies - although it's a great resource for those,
too. If you surf down the page, you'll find a number of sites and a great
list of links to many states that have a "central" listing. It should be
bookmarked by every pre-service education student.
Here's a newcomer to the educational job
listings. HireEd.net is an online job bank and resume posting service sponsored
by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
VALUABLE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
This is the OFFICIAL site of the Connecticut
State Department of Education. It contains links for State Board of Education
Members, Reports, & Calendar; Vocational Technical School System; BEST;
Teacher Certification and Professional Development; Adult Education and
Training; the Connecticut School Improvement Initiative; State Student
Advisory Council; Educational Technology; the Education Improvement Panel;
Charter School Information; Public Acts/Special Acts/Statutes; Connecticut
Education Directory (Under Update Review); State Government Phone Directory;
the Connecticut Mastery Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Test
(Student Objectives Brochure
Here's the official site for our own Connecticut
State Library System. Using this site, users can link to valuable bibliographic
information, collection management, government information services, state
history and genealogy, Connecticut Statutes and legislative references,
and many more areas.
Did you think that I wouldn't link to the
NEA's valuable Message Board and EduLinks areas ? I facilitate these areas
for NEA and am proud of what we've established.
The Gateway provides the key to one-stop,
any-stop access to high quality Internet lesson plans, curriculum units
and other education resources. Browse subject and keyword lists, or search
The Gateway. Retrieved records will link directly to the Internet resources
they describe - it's that easy! The Gateway to Educational Materials Project
is sponsored by The U.S. Department of Education's National Library of
Education, and is a special project of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information
& Technology..
Here's a wonderful web site with a great
number of links that are sure to help any teacher.
Here's another GREAT site with links for
teachers, parents, and students. It's one that you'll return to over and
over again and pass on to your friends.
You think that you know what you're doing
developing your web site ? Well, here's a site created by a teenager in
Pennsylvania with some help from his father that is not only a great source,
but shows what can be done in terms of creating a great web site project.
(note: I've had some trouble connecting with
this site, but am leaving it on the page in the hope that it will be active.)
This U.S. Department of Education links
to the most recent additions to ERIC, the federally funded national information
system.
EDUCATION NEWS
At the moment, Web surfers have the opportunity
to read through each week's installment of Education Week. Who know how
long they will keep this site a free area. This is a GREAT way to stay
on top of the latest.
Here's another feature brought to us by
Education Week. It's a resource of some of the best articles written about
education each day in some major newspapers around the country. It's really
worth your time.
EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS AND RESOURCES
What can I say ? I'm a loyalist and an active
union kind of guy ! From this Home Page of the NEA, users can get to a
number of other excellent NEA sites.
Here's a site currently undergoing reconstruction.
This will be an incredibly valuable resource not only for CEA members,
but for the education community in Connecticut as well.
Phi Delta Kappa is an international professional
fraternity for men and women in education composed of recognized leaders
in the profession and graduate students in education whose leadership potential
has been identified. Members include classroom teachers, school administrators,
college and university professors, and educational specialists of many
types.
Here's my own Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa's
web site. It includes some of our philosophy, activities, officers, and
membership information. You'll also find links at this site to Chapters
throughout the country.
This is a wonderful web site listing MANY
of the key officers and members in PDK Chapters throughout the nation.
NCATE is a coalition of 33 specialty professional associations of teachers,
teacher educators, content specialists, and local and state policy makers
founded to help establish high quality teacher preparation. Through the
process of professional accreditation of schools, colleges and departments
of education, NCATE works to make a difference in the quality of teaching
and teacher preparation today, tomorrow, and for the next century. Education
leaders today look on NCATE as the first step of the professional development
continuum for educators.
The National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization governed
by a 63-member board of directors. Its mission is to establish high and
rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able
to do, to develop and operate a national, voluntary system to assess and
certify teachers who meet these standards and to advance related education
reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in American schools.
This site will give teachers the information that they need about the certification
process and valuable contacts and phone numbers for answering specific
questions. If education leaders view NCATE as the first step of the professional
development continuum for educators, certification by the NBPTS is certainly
the credential that will clearly identify exemplary members of the teaching
profession.
Have you heard about CACUTE ? It's the Association
of Colleges and Universities for Teacher Education in Connecticut. Check
out this web site to find the listing of the teacher education institutions
in Connecticut associated with CACUTE and the Certification Officers at
CACUTE institutions.
CELEBRATION OF EXCELLENCE is a program of
the Connecticut Department of Education with funding from The William Caspar
Graustein Memorial Fund, The Connecticut Center for School Change, SNET,
and the Connecticut General Assembly. Now in its fourteenth year, CELEBRATION
OF EXCELLENCE is dedicated to improving the quality of public education
for all Connecticut students by recognizing and disseminating innovative
and exemplary classroom curriculum projects and providing professional
development and networking opportunities for educators. Since the program's
inception in 1985, CELEBRATION OF EXCELLENCE has recognized over 1,300
Connecticut public school teachers for the development and adaptation of
creative classroom programs with proven positive impact on student learning.
This is the latest CECA web site, the Connecticut
Educator Computer Association. Here's where Connecticut teachers can find
a wealth of technology resources for their classrooms and schools.
This is the CEMA web site, an association
mainly composed of library/media folks in our schools.
This is the web site of the Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development. In addition to being a wonderful
organization, this site allows users to search for many of the topics both
researched by ASCD and other organizations.
The National School Board Association web
site offers users a good view at what's "hot" on the school board side
of the table. This site also has a GREAT link to their National
Conference on Technology.
Here's a site with links that are featured
on the National Association of Secondary School Principals. You may get
a "kick" out of their disclaimer when you visit the site, but there are
some interesting and useful links.
MORE GREAT TEACHER RESOURCES
The University of Arkansas site offers not
only information about its programs and curriculum, but also has some great
clickable resources for teachers, students and parents. Check it out.
Looking for a lesson plan ? While there
is a group working on a Universal Lesson Plan Catalogue, it isn't ready
quite yet - so try this link. It's one of many that profess to be a treasury
of plans (and it does have a good number)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES
This is the "famous" Putnam Valley (NY)
annotated list of Internet sites with K-12 educational standards and curriculum
frameworks documents. Unlike many site of this nature, it is frequently
updated and you should find it a most valuable tool.
Eight National Education Goals have been
established for the nation as a framework for education reform. As part
of this effort, the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) was created in
1990 to measure the nation's progress toward reaching these Goals. The
NEGP web site offers a variety of resources to help you find out about
the Goals, our nation's and each state's progress toward them, key issues
in the area of education reform, events and programs.
This USDE site contains a paper written
by Judith Warren Little presenting a problem of "fit" between five streams
of reform and prevailing configurations of teachers' professional development.
It argues that the dominant "training" model of teachers' professional
development - a model focused primarily on expanding an individual repertoire
of well-defined and skillful classroom practice--is not adequate to the
ambitious visions of teaching and schooling embedded in present reform
initiatives.
This site is a part of the North Central
Regional Educational Laboratory's Pathways to School Improvement series
written in cooperation with the Regional Educational Laboratory network.
I've also added several links to specific pieces that appear below.
LIVE NEWS AND WEATHER
You know what CNN looks like on your cable
TV. Well, here it is with the top stories and more on the net !
Here's the site for America's oldest continuously
published newspaper. Check it out if you want to know what's happening
in Connecticut.
OK - so you want to find out what's happening
at The University of Connecticut ? Here's the web site for the Daily Campus,
the largest college daily newspaper in Connecticut.
So you're looking for more a more local
source ? This not only will link you to a Hartford radio station, but will
link to other national and local resources as well.
Here's Microsoft's answer to Ted Turner's
CNN Interactive. I wonder which battle of the big guys will win out ?
This is a GREAT way to check the local Central
Connecticut weather. From this map, users can easily link to other weather
features in the Intellicast family and stay right on top of what's happening
in the world of local meteorology.
Oswego, New York is one of those towns mentioned
by national weather forecasters for its incredible weather - really its
incredible snow. Here's a live weather cam that YOU can actually control.
Check out the weather on one of SUNY's finest campuses. Am I prejudiced
or what ?
Here's another weather site that's adding
a new airline delay feature and includes current temperatures from Belize
to Beijing.
Are you looking for something special to
share with your kids ? This is one of the pages from innovative School
WeatherNet(tm), a concept developed by the Automated Weather Source (AWS).
It's certainly a state-of-the-net product. Visitors should also visit the
AWS homepage. You might find an interactive site in your neighborhood.
You don't even have to call the phone company
to find out the "right" time ! This is the ATOMIC CLOCK from the U.S. Naval
Observatory just above the Vice President's residence inn Washington, D.C.
FUN STUFF AND MIND CANDY
Well, you can't expect
me to work all of the time so here are a few of the sites I visit when
I need to relax.
Here's one of the most fantastic sites I've
discovered. It's a guaranteed showstopper in the classroom. Using this
link, you can view either a LIVE map of the Earth showing the day and night
regions at this moment, or view the Earth from the Sun, the Moon, the night
side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude,
longitude and altitude, from a satellite in Earth orbit, or above various
cities around the globe.
Real Audio is a fun plug-in option and this
site allows you to connect with many of the locations on the net. Here's
a comprehensive listing of stations not only in the United States, but
also throughout the world.
My kids love this site. From here you or
you kids will be able to explore a number of foreign language virtual sites
loaded by the folks at Southern Methodist University. You're going to love
it.
This is an example of what a community college
can do to advertise and promote a school's courses and programs. Since
it's almost in my backdoor, I like to keep current with its work.
BREAKS AND VACATION TRAVEL
Here are some good
links that you'll find useful when it's time to refresh and charge your
batteries on that long-awaited vacation or educational adventure.
Planning your vacation doesn't get much
easier that the Fodor's Personal Trip Planner. Simply choose the city and
respond to the checklist of available information. You may also want to
check out their main page. Have fun !
This has to be one of the coolest sites
you've seen ! Using this web site, you can WATCH a commercial airline's
flight in progress. You're not going to believe it so don't waste time
and do it right now.
You say that your board of education didn't
send you on those frequent conference and convention junkets like counterparts
in the business world ? Well, here's a tool that many business travelers
have been using that just might help teachers, too.
Here's a handy tool when you're getting
ready to forget the classroom and get away for some quality time. It's
also a neat site for kids when they're dealing with the study of foreign
lands and their currencies.
This site works best with 
or
later versions of Netscape.
Have
any comments, suggestions, or great links that you think I should add to
these bookmarks ? If so, send them along to me
before you forget them.