Marcovitz Electronic Resources

Useful Electronic Resources in
Educational Technology
David Marcovitz

I had to move offices in March 2000. In order to do this, I had to get organized. I had a many papers lying around in piles. I found that many of these were printouts of web pages that I thought were interesting or useful. In order to reduce the paper lying around my office, I created this web site. It contains links to things that I think are useful. Many of these are resources that I use in my classes or point my students to for their use.

Click on a link below to go to a specific section or just scroll down to view the whole list.

Distance Education
Education Department
Educational Technology Critics
Email
File Conversion
Gradebooks
Hate on the Internet
Internet Filtering
Internet Issues
Internet Searching
Listservs
Media
Miscellaneous
Real Audio Reports
Research
Software Reviews and Evaluation
Technology Coordinators
Technology Planning and Staff Development
Videos of Technology and Teaching
Web Site Creation
Web 2.0

Distance Education

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp00-01.html

Case study about difficulties with a web-based class.

Education Department

http://www.ceoforum.org/downloads/tpchart.pdf

The StarChart for evaluating technology-preparedness of Schools, Colleges, and Department of Education.

Educational Technology Critics

http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/

The Alliance for Childhood is a group of health, education, and child development experts who challenge the use of computers with young children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/21/nteach21.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/03/21/ixportal.html

A report about a study of 100,000 15-year-olds found that students with computers at home and at school did worse on basic skills tests. See the actual technical paper at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=619101.

http://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=971

This essay by Gary Stager is a scathing indictment of the current state of educational technology and a call to do better. This is followed by his suggestions for doing better: http://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=1012

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/computer.htm

July 1997 article from The Atlantic Monthly about the failures of computers in schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/12/cyber/education/15education.html

New York Times article about the Alliance for Childhood, a group of professionals opposed to computers in schools.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2_pr.html

"PowerPoint is Evil" by Edward Tufte, one of the leading gurus of usability and human computer interfaces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/technology/17MACH.html

New York Times article about the advance of self-service machines (such as self-checkout at the grocery). What are the costs to society?

http://cec.wustl.edu/~cs142/articles/MISC/informing_ourselves_to_death--postman

1990 speech by Neil Postman, titled Informing Ourselves to Death.

http://familypc.zdnet.com/learning/entranceexams/feature/21fa/

Excellent article about the pros and cons of computer use with children.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/17lessons.html

New York Times opinion piece about the need for better qualified teachers, not necessarily more technology.

http://www.wirednews.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, opinion piece by Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems, about how technology will lead to the destruction of mankind.

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/totn/20010813.totn.02.ram -- Real Player required

NPR's Talk of the Nation show aired August 13, 2001, about the 20th Anniversary of the Personal Computer. What have we gained and what have we lost? Guests include Larry Cuban and Ray Kurzweil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/03/technology/circuits/03TOY.html

New York Times article about multimedia "toys," such as LeapFrog that try to teach.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/technology/circuits/10boardx.html

New York Times article about the resurgence of board games over computer games.

Email

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/circuits/articles/22down.html

New York Times article about the frustrations of attachments.

File Conversion

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2192-10040887.html

Konvertor is a shareware program that converts many graphics and audio files. This program runs on Windows computers.

http://lemkesoft.com/us_index.html

Graphicconverter is a Macintosh utility that can read almost any graphic file format and save in any of those formats. It is great for converting graphics files.

http://www.mindvision.com/Consumer/products/ME/Default.asp

MindExpander from MindVision is a free utility that will decompress several file types, including: ZIP, SIT, SEA, MacBinary, HQX. It is available in both Mac and Windows versions.

Gradebooks

http://www.gradekeeper.com/

Website for GradeKeeper, cross-platform gradebook software.

http://www.learninggate.com/

Free (advertiser supported) online gradebook that allows access by students and parents to grades online.

Hate on the Internet

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/cyber/articles/22hate.html

New York Times article about hate groups targeting women and children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/30/technology/30HATE.html

New York Times article about hate on the Internet and some organizations attempts to remove it.

Internet Filtering

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/970912.me.03.ram

Real Audio report about the limitations of web filters from National Public Radio.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/regional/121599ny-schoolfilter-edu.html

New York Times article about how small town values limit what New York City can do with the Internet.

http://www.peacefire.org/amnesty-intercepted/

An article from Peacefire about a study they did of blocking software that blocked web sites of human rights groups.

http://www.cdt.org/legislation/106th/speech/001218cipa.pdf

Text of the Children's Internet Protection Act that requires schools and libraries receiving E-Rate funding to filter the Internet. This file is in PDF format and requires Acrobat Reader to view.

http://www.edweek.com/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=18filter.h21

Education Week article about schools trying to balance requirements of the Children's Internet Protection Act with their academic needs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/technology/10CND-FILTER.html

New York Times article about filters blocking health information on the web.

Internet Issues

http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2009/in-praise-of-the-internet-shifting-focus-and-engaging-critical-thinking-skills/

Great article about critical information literacy. It emphasizes the need to take advantage of resources that might be dismissed by standard methods of evaluating Web sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/weekinreview/13numb.html

Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea by Geoff Nunberg is an excellent article about the importance of information literacy.

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesun/20000806.wesun.07.ram

Real Audio interview with Katherine Tarbox who was almost raped by a pedophile after "meeting" him online.

http://www.bostonreview.net/ndf.html#Internet

Series of articles from the Boston Review asking the question, "Is the Internet Good for Democracy?"

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/articles/23sick.html

New York Times article about fakes in Internet support groups.

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/burbules/ncb/papers/who_lives_here.html

Paper about access and credibility in cyberspace.

http://www.jiti.com/v1n1/shade.pdf

Net Gains: Does Access Equal Equity?

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~eetap/pdf/evalwebsites.pdf

Document about evaluating websites.

http://www.ftc.gov/dotcons/

Federal Trade Commission site about scams on the Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/technology/28CHEA.html

New York Times article about plagiarism and the Internet.

http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n4.html

Article about technology and fair use.

http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/pdfs/web.pdf

Advertisement from United Health Foundation that proclaims: "Would you take medical advice from your neighbor's sixteen-year-old kid? You may already have." It lists tips for checking out health sites on the web.

http://www.loyola.edu/library/ref/plagiarism.html

Pointers to resources about plagiarism and the Internet from a workshop by the Loyola-Notre Dame Library.

Internet Searching

http://chronicle.com/live/2007/03/oblinger/

Why Johnny Can't Search (Intelligently) - A discussion of problems students have with information literacy.

http://206.58.233.20/L&L/archive/vol29/no1/featuredarticle/valenza/index.html

"What's Not on the Web," an article about the need to use resources other than free web resources to do successful research. Written by a librarian who is frustrated at the poor quality of research that is done by students who ignore the library.

http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2000/s1103/12s03/12s03.asp&guid=n05jv4g0

Smart Computing article about tricks of using search engines.

http://www.quick.org.uk/

The QUality Information ChecKlist. An excellent guide to evaluating information on the web. It is geared to K-12 students and comes with a Teachers' Guide.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/circuits/articles/10thin.html

Article about searching strategies and how students often use poor strategies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/technology/25SEAR.html

New York Times article about specialty search engines that find more information about specific topics.

Listservs

http://www.topica.com/

Advertising-based email mailing lists. Users can set up their own email mailing lists.

http://groups.yahoo.com/

Advertising-based email mailing lists. Users can set up their own email mailing lists.

http://www.loyola.edu/education/facstaff/marcovitz/Listservs/Listserv_List_Long.html

List of education-related listservs.

http://www.loyola.edu/education/facstaff/marcovitz/Listservs/Listserv_List_Short.html

List of likely to be active education-related listservs.

Media

http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/llinks/pix.htm - Links to lots of great free image sites
http://www.indezine.com/products/clipmedia/freeimages.html - Indezine's list of free sources of pictures

http://www.pics4learning.com/ Pictures for Learning

http://www.surweb.org/search/collections_imatrix.asp - State of Utah Resource Web

http://www.classroomclipart.com/ - Classroom Clipart

http://www.morguefile.com/ - Morgue File (don't worry; it's not what it sounds like although not all pics will be appropriate for students)

http://www.theteachersguide.com/Freebies.html The Teacher's Guide Free Educational Clipart
http://www.teachnet.com/how-to/clipart/ Educational Clipart from Teachnet

http://www.octagamm.com/boutique/mainball.htm Ball Boutique
http://www.bellsnwhistles.com/ Bells 'n Whistles
http://www.windyweb.com/design/index.html Windy's
http://www.designsbydonna.com/designs/designs.html Designs by Donna
http://www.harrythecat.com/graphics/index.htm Animated GIFs
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/ NOAA Photos
http://www.free-graphics.com/ A1 Clipart

http://www.aaaclipart.com/ AAA ClipArt (lots of ads unless you join)

http://www.hellasmultimedia.com/webimages/ Graphics from Hellas Multimedia (lots of pop-up ads)

http://freefoto.com/ Free photographs for non-commercial use

http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdgraph.htm

Information on graphics on the web, including difference between JPEG and GIF and tips for reducing image size and download time.

http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/Webanim/

Tutorial on how to make animated GIFs, including pointers to programs you can download to make the process easier.

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/

Music that can be freely used in educational multimedia projects.

Miscellaneous

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/technology/techspecial3/03ethan.html

New York Times article about educational uses of new technologies, such as blogs, podcasting, voice over Internet, and virtual worlds.

http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~chip/teach/units/

Chip Bruce's educational technology activities. Great lessons for educational technology classes.

http://www.netlingo.com/

The netlingo Internet dictionary. This is particularly good for finding the meanings of abbreviations used in email and chat rooms.

http://www.landmark-project.com/citation_machine/

The Citation Machine. This site will take information about your sources and give you the APA and MLA citation formats. It can't handle all different citations, but it is great for the basics.

http://www.aauw.org/research/techexecsumm.cfm

Tech-Savvy: Education Girls in the New Computer Age (2000) is from the American Association of University Women and describes some of the issues girls face in the computer age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/technology/circuits/15SCHO.html

New York Times article about the proliferation of gadgets (cell phones, portable DVD players, organizers, etc.) in schools, and the discipline problems that arise from students having them.

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/

This is a FAQ for PowerPoint. It includes answers to some basic PowerPoint questions, a pointer to a PowerPoint newsgroup with active discussions from knowledgeable people, and some information about using VBA with PowerPoint.

http://www.iste.org/L&L/archive/vol27/no1/feature/

Interesting article from Learning & Leading With Technology about constructivism and technology.

http://www.microsoft.com/education/tutorial/classroom/default.asp

Microsoft tutorials for using its products in education.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/circuits/articles/06down.html

New York Times article about homework help sites on the web.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/cyber/education/16education.html

New York Times article about teaching computer ethics.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/circuits/articles/10libe.html

New York Times article that lists several shareware sites.

http://sesd.sk.ca/teacherresource/rubric/rubrics.htm

Information about and examples of rubrics for assessing student work.

http://www.ncmec.org/html/ncmec_default_child_safety.html

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's pamphlet about child safety on the Internet.

http://www.cast.org/bobby/

Use this tool to check your website for accessibility.

http://www.msde.state.md.us/Special%20Reports%20and%20Data/MarylandPlanForTechnology/MarylandPlanForTech.html

Maryland Plan for Technology in Education

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te800.htm

Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement. Good overview of why to use technology and how to prepare for its use.

http://www.jindagi.com/ref/

Portal for accessing several dictionaries and thesauruses, including a dictionary of slang.

http://www.air.org/forum/wpapers.htm

Seven white papers about current and future trends in educational technology. These papers were commissioned by the US Department of Education in the Fall 1999.

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280.shtml

An educator's guide to copyright. This series of articles appeared in Education World Magazine in October 2000.

http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=EDTECH

EDTECH Archives sorted by month, not searchable by topic.

http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/EDTECH.html

Searchable version of the EDTECH archive.

http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/2002/Feb1202_128.html#1a

Essay by Steve Talbott about why computers will never be intuitive.

Real Audio Reports

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/19981102.atc.15.ram

Technology Anxiety Withdrawal by Andrei Codrescu on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/19990714.me.12.ram

Internet Values by Jim Sollisch on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/19990708.me.11.ram

My Electronic Vacation by Tom Chapin.

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20021209.atc.10.ram

Interesting and funny piece about facts and what is good and bad about them.

Research

http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v1n10.html

Technology Refusal and the Organizational Culture of Schools

Software Reviews and Evaluation

http://www.superkids.com/

Reviews of educational and children-oriented software.

http://clrn.org/

Resources that support educational technology in California schools.

http://ericir.syr.edu/ithome/digests/software.html

ERIC digest about evaluating software: Seven Steps to Responsible Software Use.

http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/criteria/cd.asp

Criteria for evaluating CD-ROM databases.

http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/criteria/courseware.asp

Criteria for evaluation computer courseware.

http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling417/guide.html

Software evaluation guide for language instruction.

http://www.kde.state.ky.us/oet/customer/eim/eimeval.asp

Software evaluation checklist from the Kentucky Department of Education.

http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/emc300/software/evalform.html

Another software evaluation checklist.

http://dmxweb.mfi.com/dmx/tmag_c/

Tech*Learning Product Guide. Reviews of educational software.

http://www.childrenssoftware.com/

Children's Software Revue Magazine. Many reviews of educational software available on a subscription basis (you must pay).

Technology Coordinators

http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n37/

Systems of Practice: How Leaders Use Artifacts to Create Professional Community in Schools by Richard R. Halverson. A good article about forming a professional and collegial community in K-12 schools. Although this article doesn't deal with technology specifically, it provides a good model for building a school community that uses technology effectively.

http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/may99/reilly.htm

Article about technology cooridinator as electronic janitor.

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~bc2j/techcoordinator/lit_roles.html

A literature review about the roles of the technology coordinator. This is part of a project at the University of Virginia by some graduate students to explore the roles of technology coordinators.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/education/26education.html

New York Times article about the need for technology support personnel in schools.

http://minot.com/~nansen/

The Technology Leaders Resource Center is a good set of pointers to resources useful to the technology leader/specialist/coordinator.

http://netizen.uoregon.edu/documents/cipa.html

Supporting the Saffe and Responsible Use of the Internet by Students: A Children's Internet Protection Act Planning Guide. This guide offers a detailed discussion of how to keep in compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Technology Planning and Staff Development

http://www.fno.org/FNOFeb94.html

Issue of From Now On dedicated to technology planning.

http://www.nctp.com/

The National Center for Technology Planning.

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te1000.htm

"Critical Issue: Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use" gives schools practical "action options" for planning and implementing professional development for tech use and provides "illustrative cases" of how some schools have established their programs.

http://www.stw.ed.gov/products/1747/99chart.pdf

STaR Chart for assessing school technology preparedness.

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/EdTechGuide/

An Educator's Guide to Evaluating the Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms. Good resource for technology specialists who need to evaluate the overall educational technology program in their school or in an individual classroom.

http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper42/paper42.html

"Implementation Strategies: Will Teachers Use Educational Computing?" This paper discusses strategies for getting teachers to negotiate the change process and adopt uses of educational computing.

http://www.convergemag.com/Publications/CNVGMay00/FundTechGrants/FundingTechGrants.shtm

Article about grant-writing from Converge Magazine.

http://www.bcps.org/offices/csc/support/donation_standards.htm

Baltimore County Public Schools technology donation standards. A good model for what kinds of equipment can be accepted as donations.

Videos of Technology and Teaching

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=849; Mr. Meyer is a new teacher who is thinking about how he is going to use new technology to inspire.
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8&feature=related; This is a great video (especially after the first 30 seconds) about how children learn differently today.; http://www.dallasisd.org/keynote.htm; Keynote speech "Do you believe in me" from a student for the opening convocation for 20,000 Dallas teachers to open the new school year. This video is approximately 7 minutes.