Archived: Online Learning Materials

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

FOR RELEASE:
July 6, 1998

Contact: Jim Bradshaw
(202) 401-2310

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR ONLINE LEARNING MATERIALS

Seven partnerships involving teachers and federal agencies will each receive up to $50,000 to develop online learning materials, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley announced today.
For example:

Teachers and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will organize The Constitution Community, which will develop dozens of lessons and learning activities based on online images of the Louisiana Purchase, the Treaty of Paris, Rosa Parks' arrest record, and other primary documents.
Teachers and the National Parks Service (NPS) will create instructional units on expeditions that opened an overland supply route to "New Spain" and led to the founding of a presidio and mission in the area now called San Francisco more than 200 years ago.
Teachers and NASA will develop lessons for use during the upcoming wind tunnel test of the Wright brothers' first airplane (flown at Kitty Hawk). Students will manipulate data generated by the test and learn about lift, drag, thrust, and other aeronautics concepts.

"These partnerships will allow students to use primary documents, scientists and other federal resources as springboards for learning," Riley said. The secretary noted that the partnerships will also build "online learning communities" of students, teachers, scholars and others who use and contribute to the materials, and to each other's learning.

Riley also said that the lessons learned from this collaborative effort will be useful to federal and non-government organizations as they develop new ways of using the Internet to offer unique learning resources to teachers, students, and families across the country.

Funding for the seven partnerships and 10 planning efforts comes from the Government Information Technology Services Board (GITSB) Innovation Fund, administered by the General Services Administration. GITSB selected the U.S. Department of Education to receive funding for this effort on behalf of the Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) Working Group. This working group created the FREE web site, which makes hundreds of teaching and learning resources from across the federal government available in one place: http://www.ed.gov/free/.

The titles of the seven partnerships and federal agencies selected to receive up to $50,000 are:

Connecting Classrooms to NASA Aeronautics Experts (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Energy Transfer and the Building Envelope: The Case of the Straw-Bale Wall (Department of Energy)
NASA EarthKam Project (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Pocket Change -- Past, Present, Future (U.S. Mint)
The Constitution Community (National Archives and Records Administration)
Voyage Across Technology (Department of Agriculture)
Web De Anza: On-line Learning to Foster Historical Inquiry (National Park Service).

Brief descriptions of the seven proposals can be found at: http://www.ed.gov/free/. Another 10 efforts will receive $5,000 to support the development -- with teachers -- of plans to create Internet-based learning materials:

Food Safety (Department of Agriculture)
National Parks as Labs -- Bridging the Watershed; An Educational Partnership Between Potomac Area Parks and Schools (National Park Service)
Connecting Peace Corps Volunteers to Educators for Global Education (Peace Corps)
History of Reconstruction and Emancipation in the U.S. South (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Disease Detective: Teaching Decision Making Skills for Life (Centers for Disease Control)
Using Portuguese to Learn About Brazil (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Bridging Time and Cultures: Scientific Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (National Park Service)
Making Waves (U.S. Geological Survey)
The Jefferson Road School Virtual Learning Community (U.S. Geological Survey)
-- Project Stream (Department of Interior).

An announcement and updates on the availability of 1999 funding will be provided on the FREE web site and on EDInfo, an e-mail service of the U.S. Department of Education featuring several notices a week on new reports, funding opportunities and other information (see http://www.ed.gov/MailingLists/).

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