Best Practices
MIT Provides
Free Online Courses for High Schools The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a website with resources for high school students. The purpose of the site is to assist teachers and students with instructional resources for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the high school level. The program is called MIT OpenCourseWare: Highlights for High School and can be found at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm. The purpose of the program is to provide teachers and students with materials to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers. The resources have an open license so that they can be used, redistributed and modified for noncommercial purposes. The site has more than 2,600 video and audio clips, animations, lecture notes and assignments taken from MIT courses. One of the nice features of the site is that the resources are organized to align with Advanced Placement (AP) biology, physics and calculus curricula. In addition to AP coursework, students and teachers can find introductory courses for chemistry, engineering, math, computers and electronics. The site also provides a Knowledge in Action area to help students with building new objects, saving the world, and improving writing skills. For example, in the writing area, the site provides resources for writing essays, technical writing, and short stories. In the building section, students can learn how to build robots, furniture and electronic devices. The goal is to help high school students strengthen their skills, think creatively, and use problem solving strategies. It is estimated that more than 10,000 high school teachers visit this site each month. MIT is continually working on making these materials useful for high school teachers and students. Visit the site and check out the resources.
How Can I Access
United Streaming? If you were one of the many teachers that accessed United Streaming through ASSET you should know that those resources are now part of IDEAL. The initial transition of resources from ASSET to IDEAL occurred in December, 2007. IDEAL’s mission is to provide a single access point to educational resources and information for all Arizona educators to enhance Arizona’s learning. As of Dec 10, 2007, United Streaming, Recipes for Success and Thinkfinity (formerly Marco Polo) are available through IDEAL as the single access point. If you were accustomed to going directly to the ASSET portal for these resources, you need to obtain an IDEAL login. To receive an IDEAL login, go to https://www.ideal.azed.gov/ and click on the Activate Your Account section on the bottom of the page. Click on Standard and fill in the form and click on Submit. Some teachers have experienced a problem when they try to create an account because they are not in the system, so we recommend they contact the IDEAL helpdesk at 480-965-9411 or support@ideal.azed.gov. Once you log in, you should click on Curriculum Resources in the left navigation bar and then Discovery Streaming will appear on the left navigation bar. In addition, some teachers have experienced a problem when they try to connect to United Streaming because the handshake from IDEAL to United Streaming does not work. If this happens, you need to contact the IDEAL helpdesk at 480-965-9411 or support@ideal.azed.gov. If you use Discovery Streaming, it is important that you connect through the IDEAL portal and not go directly to Discovery Streaming. This is crucial so that the Arizona Department of Education can track what resources are valuable to teachers as they continue to fund resources in this portal. IDEAL v2.0 was released on January 28th with the goal to make IDEAL a true collaborative resource that will support educators statewide. Get your IDEAL login today and take advantage of the resources. |
|
|
|
