Content is critical

USHA THIAGARAJAN

The Internet as a teaching tool is a work in progress, and its value will depend on the educational content we put into it as well as what we do with the information we take out of it. Sustained efforts must be directed at creating content that effectively uses all the advantages offered by this powerful new technology.

Fortunately, many such efforts aimed at making the Internet accessible to teachers and students are already under way, Resource lists, lesson plans, Internet facilitated collaborative projects have sprung from a variety of sources. A point to note is that some of the best of these are publicly funded.

For example the Northwest Regional Educational laboratory, a regional facility offers a library in the sky. Universities and colleges have made substantial contributions as well; Louisiana State University libraries have compiled The Faces of Science, an extensive set of profiles of African American scientists and engineers. Many nonprofit groups too are creating valuable educational content.

The committee for the National Institute for the Environment, for example, has begun building a universal library of scientifically sound information about the environment. An example of a privately funded educational resource center online is the Scholastic Network, developed by Scholastic, Inc., a well-known educational publishing company. It has been reported that the Company has invested 75 million dollars to develop elementary and middle level social studies and language arts courses.

Unfortunately, Indian teachers and students still do not have access to material that is immediately relevant to their curricular needs. One Indian teacher I know, who uses the net extensively to gather interesting resources for her students, while delighted at the natural science resources available online, is frustrated with not being able to find material for her History and Geography lessons. Here is her wish list. While teaching about the Indian Freedom movement, she would love to have access to biographical notes on the major figures, video clips from the news footage at the time, clippings from major newspapers, human interest stories, an audio recording of Tryst with Destiny speech, original writings by the leaders..... All of which would make the times come alive for her students. Similarly, while teaching about the Water Cycle, she would like her students see the bigger picture and be able to relate the water cycle process to real problems that are locally encountered. For this she would need, statistical facts and figures on rainfall, local water tables, water pollutant levels, information about the natural resources administration system and direct students to seek real solutions to real problems.

Universities, Government departments, Educational publishers, National newspapers, Historical museums are all naturally positioned to develop such online resources for schools. Educational resources designed by similar organisations in other countries can serve as helpful "How-to" models.

Meanwhile, here are my websites for the month. One criterion that I most frequently use in selecting a website is the extent to which it utilises the virtual possibilities afforded by this new media.

Paleontology without walls

http://www.ucmp.berkely.edu/exhibit/exhibits.html

Hosted by the University Of Berkeley, this site features an exploration of paleontology. The site provides three areas in which to start the exploration:

Phylogeny - the family tree of life

Geologic Time - the temporal existence of groups of organisms. Evolutionary Thought- evolutionary topics and scientists in their historical context.

A navigation guide is available to aid you in your virtual investigations

The Microbe Zoo

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/dlc-me/whatis.html

The Digital Learning Center for Microbial Ecology, a science education project developed at Michigan State University, has created this virtual zoo filled with exotic specimens. This zoo is stocked with strange creatures from the microscopic world. Zoo specimens are arranged in pavilions representing the habitats in which they naturally dwell, such as Water World, DirtLand, and the Animal Pavilion.

Virtual Galapagos

http://www.terraquest.com/galapagos/intro.html

Believe it or not, this site has been developed by two adventure travel companies in collaboration- Mountain Travel Sobek and WorldTravel Partners. They have posted their extraordinary journeys. The site features interactive maps to explore the Ecuador and the Galapagos and learn about the geology of the islands. An interesting section is the Daily Dispatches - notes by the adventure travelers as they explored the volcanic isles of the Equator and ventured into Ecuadors rainforest realm.

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