Finding Educational Resources on the Web

Weasel World Education Index – A host of links provided for over 30 different subjects. http://www.educationindex.com/education_resources.html
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence – Offers links to great curriculum, homework sheets, and lessons on a variety of subjects.
http://www.ed.gov/free/index.html
Special Education Resources on the Internet – Offers links to those interested in the field of special education, separated into more than 25 categories.
http://seriweb.com/
K-12 Resources for Music Educators – Choral teachers, classroom music teachers, orchestra teachers and more. A list of links divided up by musical focus. Updated frequently.
http://www.isd77.k12.mn.us/resources/staffpages/shirk/k12.music.html
Microsoft in Education – This is Microsoft's page of links to technological tools, programs, and solutions to educational challenges for both students and teachers.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx
NASA Education Enterprise – This is NASA's page of links for its Education Program with tons of activities for all levels education.
http://education.nasa.gov/home/index.html
The EnviroLink Network – This is a compilation of thousands of online environmental resources divided up by environmental topic.
http://www.envirolink.org/
The Educator's Reference Desk – More than 2000 lesson plans, 3000 links to online education information, and 200 question responses for the education community from the Information Institute of Syracuse.
http://www.eduref.org/
Education Index – An index of links to the best online education-related sites sorted by subject and life stage of the student. Search for educational information and links in over 50 categories.
http://www.educationindex.com/
BBC Learning Network – Resources for home and school divided by age group. Sections for teachers and parents.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
Smithsonian Education – This is the education website for the Smithsonian Institution with educational resources for educators, families, and students that include lesson plans, field trips, and interactive activities.
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/
SearchERIC – A bibliographic database with over 1.1 million education topic citations dating back to 1966. There are more than 100,000 documents that can be downloaded for free by anyone.
http://searcheric.org/
Documentary Educational Resources – This site has a huge collection of documentaries focused on cross-cultural understanding. Search by title, subject, or geography.
http://www.der.org/
National Geographic Education Subject Guides – For teachers, kids, and students. Find lesson plans, maps and geography, photography, news, adventure and exploration, history and culture and more.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education/
Discovery Education's Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators – This is a categorized list of sites for teaching and learning to enhance curriculum.
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
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Educational Problem Solving

This article introduces the educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site, describing competitive offerings, the customer profile, problem-oriented solutions, target markets, product offerings, and usability features. This specialist site fills this need - as our pragmatic friend for solving our educational problems.This means that the most effective, visitor-oriented problem-solving site will be an information-packed commercial site - and so is the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site and its specialist sites.Educational Testing Service. Education World. NASA Education Enterprise. Spartacus Educational. Department for Education and Skills. Times Educational Supplement. The educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site addresses these problems by targeting a multiplicity of market segments, adopting a customer profile that fits the typical education-pursuing family, considering the specific needs or problems that this family may face, offering incisive (problem-centred) solutions to the various problems, and offering a range of merchant products that deepen the visitor's appreciation of her problems and of the solutions that are applicable to them.The customer profile or target visitor characteristics of the educational solutions module is the same as for all specialist sites of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site. The site has been designed to meet the needs of visitors who have an educational problem bogging them. Problem-Centred SolutionsIt explains the problem and tells the visitor what she must do to solve her problem. The set of educational articles that we have chosen, to provide initial solution to a visitor's problem are as follows:
•Student Loans: When Your Educational Dreams Can't Compete with the Cost - Explains to students the benefits of a student loan.
• A link is also included for accessing the educational product catalogue.
• Target Markets and Product Offerings
• There are three general classes of products offered: ClickBank products, Google products, and eBay products. ClickBank products are grouped into product categories that match the target markets. Children and Parenting. This consists of visitors who want parenting solutions for improving their children's upbringing. Their needs are met through the Children and Parenting section of the educational product catalogue.
• Esoteric Needs. This consists of visitors with unusual needs. Their needs are met through the Esoteric Needs section of the educational product catalogue.
• This consists of visitors looking for scholarships, grants, or loans. Their needs are met through the Financial Aid section of the educational product catalogue.
• Leadership Skills. Learning. This consists of visitors who want to improve their learning ability. Their needs are met through the Learning section of the educational product catalogue.
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Open Source Software in Higher Education

The higher education sector is quite unlike other industries. Most commercial proprietary application vendors develop their applications focused on a wider domain spread across industries. The success of community developed open source software is quite well established. Through the course of its formative years, the open source community based approach in education has developed several alternative models.
Community Source Model
The adoption of open source in higher education seems to suggest otherwise. FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) communities are thriving well in learning environments too.In a community source project, multiple institutions come together to partner in the project. The initial focus of community source projects is on collaboration between institutions. Most community based open source projects slowly migrate to open source in the later stages.Kuali Financials was borne due to the lack of open source solutions Enterprise applications in the higher education sector are comprised of a mix of some proprietary application vendors and some key open source community initiatives.
Economic Models of Open Source
The community approach has proved sustainable as in the case of the Sakai project. Rob Abel notes how open source is a "great fit for higher education". The study, based on an analysis of open source projects in education, opines that the community-based approach is an interesting model that also helps reduce the inherent risks in adopting an open source approach.Applications like the Sakai and Kuali have proved beyond doubt that open source applications offer great configurability.
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Difference Between On-Campus Education and Online Education

On-campus education vs. online education! Indeed it seems that online education is the way of the future. How people learnSome individuals achieve fantastic results in courses taught online, however most people drop out of 100% computer-led courses. People learn using multiple senses. Each individual student has an ideal learning pace. Online education:1. Lack of immediate feedback in asynchronous learning environments: While some online education environments such as webcasts, webinars and virtual classrooms operate live with the addition of an instructor, most do not. Lessons in online education environments must be prepared ahead of time, along with any notes and instructions that may accompany the teaching.2.Staffing levels may also be higher for courses run in an online education environment, requiring for example:3. Not all people are comfortable with online education: Education is no longer only sought by the world's youth. It is difficult, however, to design online education environments suitable for everyone.4.Server failures may prevent online courses from operating. Computer viruses may infect software necessary to run online education environments. On-Campus Education:Instructors in modern classroom environments are still able to take advantage of several forms of electronic teaching tools while still maintaining the atmosphere associated with the traditional classroom environment. Like online education environments, On-campus education comes with certain drawbacks, the most common of which is the classroom itself. Older students who may not be comfortable with the use of information technology are not required to navigate their way through possibly complex online education environments, making On-campus education the most accessible form of teaching.On-campus education has one advantage that 100% electronically delivered courses can not offer - social interaction. The classroom environment allows students to clarify what is being taught not only with their instructors, but with other students.Studies have shown (Can online education replace On-campus education) that courses where online education is used to complement On-campus education have proved more effective than courses delivered entirely using only one method. These courses take advantage of both online education materials and a live instructor, and have produced results higher than those of students in either 100% online education or classroom environment courses. It would seem that online education environments will never completely replace On-campus education. Using a mix of online education environments and classroom sessions, educational institutions, corporations and government organizations can ensure that training is delivered that is convenient and effective for both instructors and students alike.

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