Describes two activities that involve thinking of slope as rate of change. Uses a calculator-based laboratory, graphing calculator, appropriate probes, and web sites to make the concepts of slope and y-intercept come alive for middle grade students. (ASK)

Describes an interactive internet exercise that enables students to engage in cooperative library and web research on a controversial topic in science, specifically the cloning of extinct lifeforms. Creates a dynamic learning environment in a large introductory geology course and demonstrates the importance of scientific literacy. (Author/SAH)

Addresses the use of the Internet for telecollaboration, or communicating and working with others in different locations, in the elementary social studies classroom. Focuses on a set of activity structures to help teachers design curriculum-based, telecollaborative activities. Provides examples of telecollaborative activities. (CMK)

Presents suggestions for how to promote a learning community in a distance education environment. These include: promote initial bonding; synchronous activity helps more than asynchronous; monitor and support continued interaction and participation; provide multiple means of communication; and encourage both work and social interaction, publicly…

Reviews information sources available on the Internet that relate to environmental issues. Topics include databases, subject specific resources, appropriate educational information, electronic journals, bulletin boards, CD-ROMs, bibliographies, government information, electronic newsletters, and listservs. (LRW)

Discusses new trends in the World Wide Web. Highlights include multimedia; digitized audio-visual files; compression technology; telephony; virtual reality modeling language (VRML); open architecture; and advantages of Java, an object-oriented programming language, including platform independence, distributed development, and pay-per-use software.…

Provides an overview of the development of cooperative library automation and connectivity in Idaho, including telecommunications capacity, library networks, the Internet, and the role of the state library. Information on six shared automation systems in Idaho is included. (LRW)

Explores when district courts supervising a desegregating school district should authorize virtually integrated classrooms. Discusses the Internet and how its communication abilities and resources are used in the classroom. Argues that using the Internet to create virtually integrated classrooms can help eliminate the effects of racial segregation…

Educators will be challenged to teach students to use the Internet as critical consumers. There are numerous issues, including equity (due to income, educational level, gender, urban-rural setting, and age differences), connectivity, staff training, curriculum integration, and evaluation, that have profound implications for sustaining democratic…

Results are reported from surveys and interviews with 22 rural teachers who participated in "Reach for the Sky," an initiative that links reform in math and science education with telecommunications use. Topics include benefits and frustrations of using the Internet, math/science resources found on the Internet, and the impact of…

Navigates through a gopher site and then describes some common ways to use different mathematical gophers to obtain desired information. These skills include finding, reading, and downloading text-based files, searching a database, and downloading software. (AIM)

The Baldufa project at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) is designed to assist physics teachers and students with teaching and learning activities. It has established Web and electronic-mail servers, is creating physics-related documents to be shared, is elaborating teaching strategies for using stored information, and offers…

Discusses indexing and access to digital resources, especially on the Internet. Topics include subject searching versus indexing; multiple terms of access; folk classification; basic level terms; folk access; Bradford's Law; Zipfian distributions; vocabulary scalability; the Resnikoff-Dolby 30:1 Rule; domain-specific indexing; and implications for…

An additional 200,000 students entered public and private elementary schools in Fall 2000. Elementary schools numbered 63,000 in 1997-98 and are steadily growing larger. Most have Internet connections. Proportionately more black than white or Hispanic kids are enrolled in preschool programs. Well-educated parents volunteer more often. (MLH)

Simply typing in a word or two will not "automagically" produce good results on the Internet. Choosing the shortage of school administrators as a topic, this article outlines search techniques (including Boolean logic), reveals major Web sites' reactions to those techniques, and outlines tricks for improving search results. (MLH)