Author: grabe

Cindy and I explore many online sites as part of our work. At some point we began to accumulate what we felt were useful links into a database and to offer online access to any interested viewer.

Collections of web addresses are problematic in that some sites are abandoned and some locations change. Most page authors offer redirects when they move their sites, but if you don’t visit the redirect page within a reasonable amount of time, the redirect page is removed and it may seem that the site has been abandoned. I know of no easy way to check links collected within a database (help me with this if methods are available) so over the past few weeks I have been trying every link by hand. I started with about 610 links and ended up with about 575. These data probably say something about how much change occurs on the web within a year.

Anyway, feel free to visit the newly updated site.

A recent Michican State University study concludes that “Internet use has no negative effect on users’ social involvement or psychological well-being, and it increases children’s grade point averages and standardized test scores.” The study is based on the homeNetToo projects and targets low income families.

Government officials are concerned that a massive Internet attack exploiting Windows vulnerabilities is near.

The U.S. Department of Education has a monthly news program – Education News Parents Can Use. The program has been archived and can be accessed online.

The Register has reported that Netscape is gone. Browser options are now very limited – no Netscape and no new IE for Mac users. Let’s hope Mozilla hangs on and Safari continues to develop.

Is HyperStudio off the market? I have been unable to connect to either the “official” “HyperStudio” or “SiteCentral” web sites although Google still provides inactive links. I also cannot find HyperStudio as an active product on the Knowledge Adventure web site. This has to be a fairly recent situation because I checked the web sites when submitting the final draft of our 4th edition.

This is a good example of why textbooks should have associated web sites. HyperStudio is our main example of a hypermedia authoring environment for students. The same is true for many of the other major texts in this area. Our newest edition has yet to be purchased by the first student and our “example” appears to no longer exist.

We will have to develop online content to promote MediaBlender or eZedia products.

I would like to know why HyperStudio was abandoned.

I have been reading David Warlick’s “Raw Materials for the Mind.” I like his work and would recommend this resource. We share many beliefs concerning the educational potential of Internet resources and have a similar model that involves finding, evaluating, harvesting, processing, and applying online information.

I must admit some of the specific suggestions for “harvesting” online information give me some trouble. To me harvesting can mean a range of things describing both note taking and wholesale copying. In the writing I do, I stay away from describing resources and techniques for “whacking” web pages and sites. Warlick is careful to acknowledge that he is not a lawyer or expert on Internet copyright issues and he does suggest that you should contact web authors for permission (Landmark-Project permission form). He lists some of the situations that might encourage “harvesting” – e.g., classroom computer does not have Internet access, conference presentation may not involve Internet access. Still, most of the suggestions seem about convenience. Authors seem reluctant to say – DO NOT COPY MATERIAL UNLESS YOU HAVE PERMISSION. It always seems like authors are hedging. To me, the message for teachers is unclear.

Any thoughts on this situation?