Thursday, November 29, 2007

New Links on our web for the week of November 29, 2007 Books and Reading LitLovers.com "An online community dedicated to books and book clubs—because both enrich our lives. We've got great resources to enhance your book club experience. Whether you're selecting books, or thinking & talking about them, LitLovers is the place to come." Business Small Business Administration: Free Online Courses "The failure rate of small businesses continues to remain quite high, so those individuals wishing to start such an enterprise may wish to consult some of these free online courses. Offered as a service by the Small Business Administration (SBA), these courses come from a variety of organizations, including Kutztown University and the South-West Texas Small Business Development Corporation. Most of the courses take approximately 30 minutes to complete, and they include such offerings as "Starting Your Small Business", "Developing a Successful Business Plan", and "Building Your Brand". Other courses cover such timely matters as government contracting, risk management, and e-commerce. The site also features links to relevant resources offered by the SBA and courses available in Spanish." (SR) Health Care.com "the premiere source of trustworthy care options for every family member, from elderly parents to children, and even pets. Our Senior Care Directory provides a comprehensive listing of resources by state in seven categories: housing resources, transportation resources, home care, end-of-life care, legal resources, and financial planning and management." Holidays Christmas Carols Database Homework Mathematics Help Central: Precalculus Trigonometry "Holly Camp was a twenty-five-year-old divorced mom with two kids under the age of four when she enrolled in college. Although she was intimidated by her first algebra class, when she aced the first test, she took that as a sign that her mission was to help others who might be in a similar predicament. Visit for her trigonometry class notes and printable graph paper, but don't leave without reading her inspiring story." (STN) The Math Page: Topics in Precalculus '"When one thing depends on another, as, for example, the area of a circle depends on the radius, or the temperature on the mountain depends on the height, then we say that the first is a ‘function' of the other." Lawrence Spector, a math teacher at Borough of Manhattan Community College, introduces precalculus with twenty-five topics including logarithms, polynomials of the second degree, irrational numbers and mathematical induction. If you return to the homepage, you'll find another twenty-one trigonometry topics, along with lessons for algebra, plane geometry and calculus.' (STN) MathWorld: Pre-Calculus "MathWorld is an extensive math encyclopedia, "created, developed and nurtured by Eric Weisstein with contributions from the world's math community." The precalculus section covers complex numbers, conic sections, exponents, logarithms, functions, and vectors. The table of contents doubles as a glossary of more than thirty-five precalculus terms. Simply click on any of the terms to view a more detailed definition, along with links to related lesson, explanations, and animated illustrations." (STN) Reference Desk Maps: Finding Our Place in the World "How do we find our way through the world, geographically speaking? Do we all carry around a type of "mental map" in our head, formed through experience and repetition? Some would say yes, some would beg to differ. Maps remain a powerful way to represent the world in all its spatial glory, and this online exhibit from The Field Museum explores the history of maps and their history over the millennia. Designed to complement an ongoing exhibition at the Museum, the site includes a photo gallery, information about the participating institutions, and about researchers at the Museum who use maps and mapping technology in their own work. The interactive feature is definitely worth a look, as visitors can examine two dozen different maps in detail from Chicago to the Marshall Islands. One can imagine that this remarkable site could also be used in classrooms to expose students to the wide variety of maps that have been created by human hands." (SR) Search Both this search site lets you search two search engines at the same time and puts the results in boxes next to each other so you can compare them. (DS) Wikiquote "A free online compendium of quotations from notable people and creative works in every language, including sources (where known), translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information." (IRN) Teacher Resources Interactives: Dynamic Earth" "Conveying the dynamism of various geologic processes can be hard in the classroom or on the web, but this interactive feature from the Annenberg Media's Learner.org site does quite a fine job of introducing students to plate tectonics, plate boundaries, and such perennial favorites as earthquakes and volcanoes. In the "Earth's Structure" section, visitors can roll the mouse over such features as the crust, the mantle, and the outer core of the Earth to learn about each feature. Moving on, the "Plate Tectonics" area includes the "Continents Over Time" interactive feature which asks visitors to place images of the continents in the correct geologic order. Perhaps the most dynamic area of the site (with good reason) is the "Slip, Slide & Collide" area. Here visitors will learn about what happens at different types of plate boundaries through the use of colorful graphics and explanations that are easy to understand. Overall, the site is a great overview of some basic principles of geology, and one that can be used with students of different ages." [KMG] Physics Applets "Created as part of the Museum Informatics Project at the University of California, Berkeley, this website serves as a clearinghouse of high-quality physics applets that can be used in a variety of settings. The site is divided into a few basic topical areas, such as mechanics, waves, properties of heat and matter, and optics. While a search engine isn't provided, visitors can use the "Find" function provided by most browsers to look for specific items of interest. It is worth noting that the applets dealing with various fields of optics are quite strong, and visitors will no doubt locate at least a handful of applets here that they can use in the classroom or just to increase their own understanding of physics. (SR) The Educational Multimedia Visualization Center "Teachers looking for ways to incorporate dynamic visuals into their earth science courses need look no further than this fine site. Created by staff members at the department of earth science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the site contains dozens of interactive animations and visualization tools that can be used in the classroom to demonstrate various processes. These resources are contained within the "Downloads" section, and visitors can peruse the table of contents for specific features. The table of contents includes global tectonics, regional plate tectonics, Ice Age earth, and four other chapters. Some of these animations include the deglaciation of North America, the South Atlantic spreading, and the Himalayan collision." (SR) 3:13:21 PM

© Copyright 2008 Jocelyn Shaw. Last update: 11/18/2008; 2:38:55 PM. Photo curtesy of Marjorie O'Brien