Web Sites of Previous MIT Programs

Evergreen Master in Teaching Program

Evergreen State College

OSPI

Using Technology to Teach Mathematics and Science Project

• Goal: Create a web site with annotated and critiqued links and program names that would help you (and others) teach math and science.
• Requirements:
  • A web site with an annotated and critiqued list of technology resources that would help you to teach math and science.
    • As you peruse the websites, use the following questions to guide your critiques.  These are the same questions that would be helpful for your students to answer as they make use of electronic resources.  These questions were adapted from The Power of Questions (pages 55-56) by Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich,  Your critiques should answer these questions and then contain your conclusions about the relative strengths, weaknesses, and potential usefulness of the sites.
      1. Who is the author of the site?  If the author is one person, what are that person’s credentials?  If the author is an organization, check it out in the Encyclopedia of Associations.  Is there an address or email address given?  Why does it matter to know this information?
      2. What country or state does this website come from? Why does it matter?
      3. How objective is the website?  What is its purpose – to inform you, convince you of a point of view, sell you a product or service, amuse or entertain you?
      4. How current is the website’s content?  Has it been updated to reflect current news and trends?  Check the date of creation, the last update, and if the links are up-to-date.
      5. What is the intended audience for the site?  At what age or reading level is it aimed?
      6. How is the site organized?  Is it organized logically?  Is it well designed?  Is it easy to navigate?  Does it overwhelm you with ads?
      7. Does it represent any biases against gender, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientation, gender?
      8. What are the underlying assumptions about how learning occurs?  In terms of literacy instruction, what model does the site seem to represent?
  • A self assessment on your participation in the project
  • An assessment of each member of your working team in relation to this project.
• Phase 1: Prospecting: Look around to see what is available.
  • Use Google
  • Use the Curriculum Library
  • Search the web using other tools
  • Ask your cooperating teacher for suggestions
  • Ask your cooperating teacher if she/he knows someone else in the school you could talk to.
  • Complied a list of programs and web sites that we might be able to use to create our web site.
  • Some web sites you might start with:

• Phase 2: Divide up the list of hot prospects and each group do more research on the products and web sites on your list so that you can give a clear annotation with critique.
• Phase 3: Create a web site with this information. I am not sure where to put this but one choice would be to put it in my "student" account, sugmas00. I think I can give you access to it.
• Timeline:
  • Phase 1, we take time each week to discuss progress and problems. Week 5, you will be given class time to go to the computer lab to continue your research.
  • Phase 2, we will take class time during week 7 to divide up the list. We will take time each week to discuss progress and problems
  • Phase 3 shoudl be completed by week 5 of spring quarter.