Quality K-16 Professional Development

Online and Onsite Opportunities

Online NTEN Courses Jason Academy University of Maryland College of Life Sciences

Onsite Albertson’s Food Safety Science Inquiry Webwatchers

NSTA Program funded by the National Science Foundation National Science Foundation over the three years NSTA Program funded by the National Science Foundation

The Need Currently over 4 billion web pages on the net Pages being added at rate of 7.3 million per day! Sizing the Internet: Cyveillance white paper report, 7.10.2000

“Have you tried searching under ‘fruitless’?”

The Need “More than half of the nation’s school districts report that kids are the campus experts when it comes to school technology” USA Today- June 5, 2002: At U.S Schools, Students are Technology Teachers- by Karen Thomas Citing report: “Are We There Yet”-2nd major report from National School Boards Foundation

The Need 811 school districts surveyed, including 90 of largest 100 found: Only 43% of new teachers are “average” in their ability to use the Internet for classroom instruction Most Internet use is for research-based projects, with very little use of interactive learning and collaboration

The Need The UCLA Center for Communication Policy just released study suggesting: Schools should incorporate the NET into their instructional practices Stressed importance of teaching students how to critically evaluate online information

The Solution- A program to train teachers how to find, evaluate and assemble appropriate Internet education resources aligned to NSES

Web Guide Components

Web Guide Structure Guides are for teachers and take drill down approach Web Guide Topic Area Several Themes for each web guide topic area List of Keywords for each theme Clicking Keyword provides list of URL Resources aligned to keyword

Web Guide Structure Each Keyword coded with six URLs: 2 Core Content URLs 2 Inquiry Activity URLs 2 Aligned- Assessments URLs Cutting across all three areas pages may contain or address: Misconceptions, Multimedia, Interactivity

Where are the Web guides ? http://webwatchers.nsta.org

Webwatcher Training Programs Six programs scheduled for spring 2003 Blends face-to-face and online training Facilitated by experienced WebWatchers Access to Web Guides developed by other teams in the field

What if? You could not only access the existing web guides, but create you own based on topics of interest to your district or county? No HTML programming needed!