As the Internet comes of age, more sites are offering incredible multimedia learning experiences for students. Most of the sites showcased in this column belong in this “wow” category. While these sites provide exciting interactive material with strong visual appeal, the downside is the necessity of a high bandwidth connection to experience the full impact of the media. One possible workaround in a school would be for teachers to showcase the site first and then have students visit different sections of the site independently.

The first site called Humanities Interactive at http://www.humanities-interactive.org/nonjavaindex.html is the creation of the Texas Humanities Center.  There is a Java-enabled version of the site, but I found it to be confusing to navigate, so I would recommend exploring this non-java version first. This collection of art, artifacts, architecture, maps and documents is a work in progress.  At present there are seven main topics and each topic provides a similar format for exploration: Exhibits (the heart of any of the topic sites with lots of visual information - start here and be prepared to spend some time), Reading Room (essays and documents - some of the topics do not have anything here yet), Learning Activities (suggestions for enhancing the learning experience –some have teacher's guides), Media Theatre (for now the content is limited to Texas Border Studies and is the same at each topic), Games (involve applying what has been learned from exploring the site - good model for self-paced learning) and About (information about sponsors and creators).

Of the seven topics, Ancient Cultures of Our World, Understanding Other Cultures and Literature and Our Imaginative History have the closest match to our Alberta curricula, while The New World and The Medieval World would be more suitable for independent studies. Students will find the Ancient Cultures of Our World especially interesting. Here they can view exhibits on Tutankhamun, Pompeii, the Bronze Age of China, the Ice Age and the Middle East. Two of the key hotlinks are dead on this title page. For Learning Activities the direct link is http://www.humanities-interactive.org/ancient/ancient_activities.htm.  Teachers’ guides such as the one for using the online Senet game in Tutankhamun and backgrounders for other topics are available here. The Reading Room link is http://www.humanities-interactive.org/ancient/ancient_reading.htm.

The next site Becoming Human at http://www.becominghuman.org/ is a "journey through the story of human evolution in a broadband (high-speed internet connection and 64 MB of ram) documentary experience". The content here is most appropriate for High School students. The site indicates that online lessons and activities will be available by the summer, but there is already plenty here to explore. Donald Johanson narrates the documentaries, which are enhanced with sounds, images and Flash elements. He is the prehistoric archeologist who discovered "Lucy" (3.18 million years old ape-human link skeleton).  Thus the creators of this site have a high level of expertise and the information is extremely rich and current.

Another very timely site is the web site for the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous space project, http://near.jhuapl.edu/, which contains pictures, videos and updated research information about the NEAR spacecraft landing on the Eros asteroid. Space.com http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/nearlanding_preview_010212.html also covers the NEAR landing. Several other space-related sites are worth visiting. Eye in the Sky http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/ is another winner from National Geographic. This project is “an investigation into the state of the planet from the point of view of the satellites” that circle it. Four key topics are presented: Nature’s Fury, Human Impact, Exploration and Human Conflict.  The images and presentations for each of these are awe-inspiring and thought provoking. However the some of the images of human intervention such as the effects of deforestation can be disturbing. Teachers will want to start with the Classroom Ideas link at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/classroom.html, which presents ideas for using the site with students from the primary grades all the way to High School.  Views Of The Solar System, http://solarviews.com/eng/homepage.htm is a collection of images, animations, information and links relating to our solar system. Be sure to check out Activities/Lessons for some neat teaching ideas.  The Student Resources link provides an excellent model (including sample HTML code) for teaching students about the ethical use of Internet resources and crediting sources.  Nasa’s Earthlights at http://www.cojoweb.com/earthlights.html is an amazing compilation of satellite views of the entire world’s lights at night. This image is truly worth a thousand words and could generate a good discussion about light pollution.

And speaking of thousands of words (and ideas), I’ll leave you with an invitation to take some time to explore ThinkQuest’s current award winning Internet Challenge and ThinkQuest Junior  projects.  Go to the ThinkQuest home page at http://www.thinkquest.org/index.html and click on the project links in the Library section on the right side of the page.

Note:  All links are active as of: January 18, 2004.
 

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