Technology in Your Classroom : Hot Websites :
Hot Websites May, 2004
By Linda Lindroth
Two wildlife sites with great information for your Earth Day follow-up, plus a free resource that will help keep you on track
Spring is in full swing, so here are two websites that celebrate the natural world. Spring also means the end of the school year is near, so I've included a site that will help you organize your lesson links for next year.
Cyber Tiger
www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/tigers/maina.html
From the first screen, where a student names his or her tiger and gets a "Tigergram" describing the arrival of that tiger in the CyberZoo, this simulation engages the student and provides ownership for their learning about habitats and environment.
The mission is to make sure the Siberian Tiger survives its journey to the zoo and is comfortable in its new home. The website directs students as they build the tiger's habitat, design its diet and choose Tiger Toys. Students can learn more about tigers with "Roam the Web" links, an interactive adventure called "Tiger on the Loose: Zoo Trek," which links to famous zoos across the U.S. and "Roar More About It" for books and articles from National Geographic.
National Museum of Wildlife Art
www.wildlifeart.org/Frame_Games.cfm
Learn about wildlife and art with the interactive games at this site, which helps students meet art and humanities standards and celebrate our environment while they're using their creative and analytical skills to reach the goals in each simulation game.
In "My Life as an Elk," students learn about the elk through slides with audio narration at any point in the presentation. Compare human babies and elk calves, meet the elk's predators and more.
"A Brush with Wildlife" invites kids to create a composition while learning about art principles in an animated tutorial. Students can submit finished artwork to the Critique Gallery.
The "Animal Athletes" section offers six physical education games to heighten children's awareness of wildlife and the environment in which we live. Kids can use the online artwork at the "Art Tales" museum to write a story, create a field guide or curate an exhibit. Students can select artwork to write about as they learn about the frontiers of the American West. They can even add music to their selections.
TrackStar
trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/
TrackStar is a free resource to help teachers organize and annotate web resources for class lessons and projects. Once you've registered, it's easy to search for, customize existing or create your own web-based lesson track, complete with directions, annotated links and a due date. Each track has a Track ID number and a url so it's easy to assign the chosen lesson(s) to your students. Try this out by visiting the TrackStar website and typing in Track ID 197212 for a Space Day track.
Need a lesson on a particular theme? Type in a keyword or theme to find existing lesson tracks that fit your curriculum. If you find one that is almost right, just log in and customize the track to more closely match your curriculum needs. Lessons are created by teachers, so they're practical and based on core curriculum.
Getting started is easy. Just click on "Track-A-Day" to see themes for the current month and the next month to help introduce the tracks and how they can be used by students. I love the feature that allows you to see the web resources in a frames box on the left of the screen and the current link being viewed at the top of the screen, with the annotation visible so students can always see the assignment's description at the top of the page, even as they're moving from link to link. This is great for keeping your students "on track," whether they're doing research or answering questions.
Creating your own lesson track is easy. Just log in, type a title and description, select the type of track and submit. Then, just type in the web resources you're going to send the students to for completing their activity. There are four types of tracks:
- Resource List: Links for research, thematic units or presentations.
- Worksheet: Create questions that can be answered by the links in the annotations.
- Extended Learning: Supports higher-order thinking skills with projects, webquests or compare/contrast.
- Demo: For training purposes. Demos are deleted after one week.
Once you've created a track, you can use the free QuizStar resource to build a quiz for the lesson. Your quizzes are accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. Quizzes can be created in multiple languages and can even have media files attached. What a great way to provide assessment variety and make review possible at school or home.
Breeze-- Tech Spotlight
Teachers still can't be in two places at once, but now it's easy to be in two locations and hold a meeting, seminar or workshop. Macromedia's Breeze product makes live web conferencing a reality.
Breeze uses Macromedia Flash player to deliver online presentations to millions of users using their standard web browsers. Teachers and students can use familiar tools such as PowerPoint and their web browser to create engaging contenet complete with live or recorded audio and video. it's possible to share screens, applications and files or have a two-way chat. Quiz and survey authoring make it possible to add questions to check the understanding of participants. Control meeting access and email participants with the access link.
For more information, call 800-470-7211 or visit www.macromedia.com The list of features and comparisons with other conferencing products makes it easy to see the features offered in Breeze. Call for pricing.
Linda K. Lindroth is Technology Editor and Web Coordinator for
