September 2005 — Features

Print this article

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal

Dissecting a Network-Based Education System

By Tiffany Davis, Seong-Moo Yoo, and Wendi (David) Pan

These content standards can be browsed and searched by subject and grade; a keyword can be specified in a search. Results are then presented in two formats: One is very similar to the way standards appear in a book, while the second format is a printer-friendly version. Both versions include the course (subject), year, grade(s), topic (within the subject area), links to related Web resources, and lesson plans for each content standard.

Personal Workspace. ALEX grants a personal workspace to users who register to create an account. An online form is provided for registering,which asks users to enter their name,a user name,and an e-mail address. When the user clicks submit, this information is stored in the user database table. To complete the registration process, users must respond to a system-generated e-mail message that contains a link the user must visit. This link includes hash and e-mail parameters which are compared with corresponding values that were stored in the user database table when the online registration form was submitted. Once confirmed,the user is asked to enter his affiliation information before he is allowed to use his personal workspace. Most of ALEX’s users are affiliated with schools or other educational organizations.

Teacher-Created Lesson Plans. Teachers who register can use their personal workspace to create lesson plans. The “Create Lesson Plan” link appears on the personal workspace for all users. A lesson plan interface is composed of three forms: The first form is where the user fills in descriptive information about the lesson plan, such as title, materials needed, and duration of the lesson. Most of this information is required, and JavaScript is used to verify that the user populates the required fields. From this initial interface, users have two options: They can associate this lesson plan with content standards or create steps. The lesson plan cannot be submitted for approval until it has been associated with content standards. To associate or align a lesson plan with content standards, users are presented with a search screen where they must select the course of study and grade that correspond with the given lesson plan. Users are then presented with content standards matching their search criteria.

MarcoPolo Lesson Plans. The MarcoPolo Education Foundation (www.marcopol'education.org) has seven partners that provide lesson plans. These partners are the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Council on Economic Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Geographic Society. These MarcoPolo lesson plans have been incorporated into the ALEX network-based education system.

Web Resources. Registered users can search for Web resources that have been correlated to Alabama content standards, and view pre-selected Web resources that have been categorized by audience and type.