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Editors' Note: Happy New Year from everyone at COATT! We look forward
to a year as your source for timely, useful education technology news
and information.
New Video at the COATT Website,
Is COATT for You?
For the start of the New Year, the COATT website (www.coatt.org)
has added several new items. A new video, Is COATT for You?, covers the principles
of COATT and reasons as to why a teacher or a teacher candidate should go through
the steps of applying for a COATT Award.
Everybody is Talking Handheld
Computers
While at the COATT website, you might want to also check out recent information
on the March 18, 2003 video conference presentation by Dr. Elliott Soloway,
University of Michigan faculty member and founder of Go Know, an educational
software development company based in Ann Arbor. Dr. Soloway will speak on
the use of handheld computers in K-12 education. This event is free. Check
the website for locations (www.coatt.org/news/archived/soloway.html).
Check out the Ottawa Area ISD site for registration information on the
Second State Handheld Conference, January 28, 2003 in Holland. Details
can be found at their website (http://www.remc7.k12.mi.us/remc/train.html)
New Communication Arts Website
Many may be familiar with the portal website developed by the Marco
Polo Educational Foundation. The website became the access point for
ReadWriteThink (http://www.readwritethink.org/index.asp),
The International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council
of Teachers (NCTE) of English. Like all Marco Polo websites, it includes
instructional lessons, student activities, and teacher resources. ReadWriteThink
is definitely a great resource for teaching writing in the elementary
and middle schools.
Staff Development for Project Based
Learning and Assessment
The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) is a nonprofit organization
that documents and disseminates stories about exemplary practices in K-12 public
education in their newsletter Edutopia and their online version in Edutopia
Online (http://www.glef.org/index.html).
Reading about the exceptional school districts is motivational enough, but
GLEF has now developed two professional modules.
The first module released "Project-Based Learning" (http://www.glef.org/PBL/index.html)
can serve as a half-day workshop on implementing project-based learning
into instruction.
The newest module released is on assessment (http://www.glef.org/Assessment/index.html).
The module looks at why assessment is important and the different types
of assessment. The modules are free to educators. According to the site,
all activities within the module correlate with the National Educational
Technology Standards produce by the International Society for Technology
in Education (http://www.glef.org/PBL/index.html).
The New Teacher Resource Network
The New Teacher Resource Network website is published by Eastern Michigan University
(http://www.newteacher.org/).
As stated at the site, it is an emerging effort by EMU to include information
for student teachers, cooperating teachers and supervisors in one place.
EMU has also included a listserv to answer questions posed by members of
the community.
Always Time for a Freebie
More than 30 federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds
of federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The
result of that work is the FREE web site, Federal Resources for Education
Excellence. The resources contain websites, but also links to virtual fieldtrips,
printed materials, workshops, and grant information (http://www.ed.gov/free/).
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