Are We Alone?
This video segment adapted from NOVA features a variety of scientific perspectives on the age old question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Animations make vivid the improbability that we could intercept a radio wave signaling extra terrestrial intelligence.
Aerodynamics: What Causes Lift?
How does an airplane stay aloft when upside down? This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site offers an explanation based on Newton's third law of motion. Grades 6-12.
Against Isolationism: James F. Byrnes Refutes Lindbergh
The interwar peace movement was arguably the largest mass movement of the 1920s and 1930s, a mobilization often overlooked in the wake of the broad popular consensus that ultimately supported the U.S. involvement in World War II. The destruction wrought in World War I (known in the 1920s and 1930s as the "Great War") and the cynical nationalist politics of the Versailles Treaty had left Americans disillusioned with the Wilsonian crusade to save the world for democracy. Senate investigations of w
"After the Ball": Lyrics from the Biggest Hit of the 1890s
The 1890s witnessed the emergence of a commercial popular music industry in the United States. Sales of sheet music, enabling consumers to play and sing songs in their own parlors, skyrocketed during the "Gay Nineties," led by Tin Pan Alley, the narrow street in midtown Manhattan that housed the country's major music publishers and producers. Although Tin Pan Alley was established in the 1880s, it only achieved national prominence with the first "platinum" song hit in American music history--Cha
"A Youngster Needs a Knowledge of the Present": A Popular Magazine Urges Tolerance for the Distracti
In the 1950s, parents, educators, religious leaders, and moralists expressed intense concern over the perceived harmful effects of modern life on the nation's youth. This concern was not new, however. Fears of corrupting influences on youth have periodically flooded the public discourse, from child-rearing tomes of the antebellum period to congressional hearings in the 1950s on media and juvenile delinquency. The following editorial from 1950, in the popular magazine Collier's, offered one persp
A warning.
When the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike against the Federal Aviation Administration in 1981, President Ronald Reagan waited just three days to fire all 10,000 of the striking federal employees. The President's action transformed every strike in the nation into a union-busting opportunity. The Los Angeles local of PATCO distributed a leaflet with this illustration during the summer and fall of 1981. The leaflet urged other airline and airport workers to s
"A Sop to the Public at Large": Contestant Herbert Stempel Exposes Contrivances in a 1950s Televisio
Television had become the nation's largest medium for advertising by the mid-1950s, when the Revlon cosmetics corporation agreed to sponsor The $64,000 Question, the first prime-time network quiz show to offer contestants fabulous sums of money. As Revlon's average net profit rose in the next four years from $1.2 million to $11 million, a plethora of quiz shows tried to replicate its success. At the height of their popularity, in 1958, 24 network quiz shows--relatively easy and inexpensive to pr
Beyond logging of fingertip actions: analysis of collaborative learning using multiple sources of da
In this article we discuss key requirements for collecting behavioural data
concerning technology-supported collaborative learning activities. It is argued that the
common practice of analysis of computer generated logfiles of user interactions with
software tools is not enough for building a thorough view of the activity. Instead more
contextual information is needed to be captured in multiple media like video, audio
files, snapshots, etc, in order to re-construct the learning process. A softwa
"A Damaging Impression of Hollywood Has Spread": Movie "Czar" Eric Johnston Testifies before HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) held hearings in October 1947 on Communist activity in Hollywood. In the following testimony, Eric Johnston, a successful businessman who in 1945 succeeded Will H. Hays as President of the Motion Picture Association of America--the industry's institution for self-regulation--defended Hollywood against HUAC's attacks and complained vigorously that the "atmosphere of fear" resulting from the investigation precluded the production of "good and ho
The Collapse: An Engineer's Perspective
This media-rich interview from the NOVA Web site explores the collapse of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers from an engineering perspective and includes an examination of the effects of heat on the structure of metal.
Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Conflicting Paradigms or Perfect Partners?
This paper will examine the use of quantitative and qualitative methods as complementary research methods. It asks the fundamental question wether these two approaches can be used jointly in a principled manner. The pressure in educational research has been towards using the two methods alongside each other. In applied research the use of the two approaches in the same project is accepted yet we still find serious objections raised to such work when it is presented in a more formal context. Eval
Problem-solving and Web resources at tertiary level
We organised two experimental teaching designs involving web resources in two different French universities. In this paper, we describe these experiments and analyse the students' behaviours. Our aim is to observe whether the use of specific online resources favours the development of problem-solving activities.
The Microevolution of Mathematical Knowledge: The Case of Randomness
In this article, we explore the growth of mathematical knowledge and in particular, seek to clarify the relation between abstraction and context. Our method is to gain a deeper appreciation of the process by which mathematical abstraction is achieved and the nature of abstraction itself, by connecting our analysis at the level of observation with a corresponding theoretical analysis at an appropriate grain size. In this article, we build on previous work to take a further step toward constructin
New e-learning services based on mobile and ubiquitous computing: Ubi-learn project
Ubiquitous and mobile learning concerns building applications in highly dynamic and heterogeneous environments to bring computation into the real, physical world. This paper presents UbiLearn a distributed Learning platform with Nomads Objects and new e-learning services based on.
Earth Science Education Activities: Prof. Larry Braile
This collection of activities and lesson plans covers grade levels 7-12, with notes on how some of the plans might be adapted for other age groups. Topics fall mainly within tectonics, with some structural geology and planetary science projects. The PDF files include activities, hand outs, maps, and even directions for building a simple seismometer and seismograph. Also included are suggestions for incorporating specific media, such as video, into the classroom, and an essay on the state of K-12
Earth Observatory: Data and Images
This Earth Observatory site contains data and images from NASA's Earth Observatory project. The purpose of NASA's Earth Observatory is to provide an accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth's climate and environmental change. The site is useful to public media and educators. Data and images can be obtained for a variety of subjects, the Earth's atmosphere, land, life on earth,
An Activity to Introduce the Geoscience Perspective
This exercise is intended to connect students to geology and to remind them of the diverse ways in which people, including geoscientists, relate to rocks. Groups of students are asked to examine rock samples from specific perspectives such as sculptors, landowners or geologists, and then present relevant observations and questions. Next, individuals write one-minute papers summarizing what they have learned and evaluating the activity. On this Starting Point page, users can access information ab
Boston jobs for Boston residents
Christopher Lydon reports that Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston) is requesting the creation of a Boston Employment Commission in order to boost the number of Boston residents working in Boston jobs. Lydon notes that the Flynn administration would like the Boston work force to be 10% female, 25% minority and 50% Boston residents. Lydon's report includes footage from an interview with Flynn about employment in Boston. Lydon reports that Flynn's proposed ordinance would change the demographics of the wor
Bias in media coverage of Roxbury crime
Callie Crossley reports on the documentary film Street Cop, set in Roxbury. Crossley interviews Roxbury community activists Georgette Watson and Ben Haith about the documentary's portrayal of crime and drug traffic in the community. Watson complains about the negative images of Roxbury in the media and about the negative attitude of many police officers toward African Americans. Crossley's report includes footage from Street Cop and footage of Crossley, Watson, and Haith walking in Dudley Square
Ad agency works with minority students
Deborah Wang reports that minority workers are underrepresented in the advertising industry. Wang interviews Bink Garrison (Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson) about the lack of minority workers in the industry. Wang's report includes footage of workers in the offices of Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson (advertising firm). Wang reports that Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson is participating in industry efforts to attract students into the industry. Wang notes that the Ad Club at English High School teaches students
