Summer Tips
Vacation Planning
The web can be a useful tool to help plan your summer activities. Most destination now have at least one web site with detailed information on local events, historic sites, parks, hotels and restaurants, etc. Web indexes such as travel.yahoo.com and travel.lycos.com have compiled extensive lists of local sites. Maps are available showing driving directions (maps.yahoo.com), detailed topographical features, or you can even view an aerial photo (terraserver.com). You can also compare prices and make a reservation for transportation, lodging etc. The major online travel reservation sites include travelocity.com and expedia.com. The major airlines and hotels also have websites, often featuring online only and last minute specials.
Graduate Studies
Graduate courses are a component of many teacher's summer plans. Don't forget that many of you school library resources are available online and useful for assignments. The library resources web page (www.chuh.org/resources/) includes links to:
- ProQuest -full text of over 600 magazines (including a number of educational journals) and newspapers including the past 5 years of the Cleveland Plain Dealer
- Electric Library (full text/pictures from periodicals, books, maps, and transcripts from NPR and ABC news.
Most college libraries are online and, with your student ID, you can get to many of their resources from any Internet connection.
Professional Development
While you're surfing the web, take a look at the increasing number of educational resources that can add interest to the lessons you plan for the next school year. The district's Web Resources database is featured on the Heights Instruction page (www.chuh.org/instruction/). The database is linked to proficiency outcomes and will eventually link to the district curriculum guides (www.chuh.org/curriculum). Judi Wolf included her extensive K-8 WOW sites (www.chuh.org/Judi/) in the database. It also features links to primary source material and related lessons; a variety of map resources; and statistical data that can be used in Social Studies, Science and Math classes with a spreadsheet or graphing program.
Also available are the District Summer Institute Courses The course listings have been published and are also online at (www.chuh.org/staffdev/).
Technology Teaching Concepts
As we went to press with this issue, Judi Wolf unveiled her new web site, Technology Teaching Concepts. The student and teacher links on this site are organized by type of activity.
Search Tips
The most effective technique for searching is to build on what others have already done. You should start by finding the web sites of experts that has already searched out and found the best related web links for the topic you are interested in. The HeightsNET search page (www.chuh.org/search.html) is organized for this.
The first section, Teacher/Librarian Recommended Subject/Topic Directories, includes web site compilations that have been rated with educators and students in mind.
The second section, Comprehensive Subject/Topic Directories, includes a number of web sites that have categorized the web but not necessarily evaluated the quality of the sites. The oldest and most well known of the categorized sites is Yahoo.
The third section, Full Page Content Searches, includes sites that index every word on every page of hundreds of millions of web sites. Use these sites when you are trying to very specific detailed information. Each site has advanced search capabilities that can be exploited to narrow a search from hundreds of thousands to a more manageable number. They each sort their results in ways that attempt to place the most useful sites on the first page. Check the search help page for the site you are using for more information. For an overview see
One content search site, Google (www.google.com) ranks the results by the number of web sites that link to the pages that matched your search criteria. Thus you will see the sites that others felt were valuable enought to include on their web pages. This is very effective for finding some of the most useful material on common topics, but not as good for finding unusual sites that have not been linked to by others.
Negotiations
The Union web site will feature updates on negotiations and will have copies of all publications to the membership. Since negotiations will be occurring over the summer, keep up-to-date by checking www.chtu.org. If you send an e-mail request to negotiations-sub@chtu.org, you will receive an e-mail whenever new information is posted.
Union Technologist Index