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This week's newsletter is sponsored by The Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Want Lance Armstrong to Visit Your School?

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is challenging educators to get students involved in the fight against cancer. Participating classes will have the opportunity to win a visit from champion cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. 

To enter the LIVESTRONG at School contest, educators must complete a lesson from the LIVESTRONG at School curriculum and answer the question with their students, “What does LIVESTRONG mean to you?”

Through LIVESTRONG at School, the Foundation offers free online lessons to teach your K-12 students about cancer in an age-appropriate, hopeful, inspiring and empowering way.

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Volume 12 Issue 13
March 26, 2008

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THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS
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This week, Education World reviewed three Web sites of interest to educators.

Cascades Volcano Observatory: Educational Outreach
An explosion of resources on volcanoes; includes videos.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-21.shtml

Algebra & Trigonometry
Strong site that accompanies a Prentice Hall advanced math text.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-19.shtml

ME:TAL (Mathematics for Economics: Enhancing Teaching and Learning)
Math gets real: math for economics.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-17.shtml

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REVIEWS
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Cascades Volcano Observatory: Educational Outreach
An explosion of resources on volcanoes; includes videos.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-21.shtml

REVIEW: A+
In what has been called the first battle of the Cold War, the U.S. and western allies supplied necessities to the people of West Berlin and the soldiers that were stationed there in the largest humanitarian effort that the world had ever seen. This site chronicles that effort through personal stories of the people who experienced it, newspaper articles, photos and more. It provides insights into social studies topics including the end of World War II in Europe, the start of the Cold War, international humanitarian aid, and the impact of war on cities and civilian populations. The instructional materials include an interactive map of the airlift routes, essays, a timeline of events from 1945 to 1990 and teacher guide. The guide includes activities that are grouped into four categories; history, geography, civics, and leadership.

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Algebra & Trigonometry
Strong site that accompanies a Prentice Hall advanced math text.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-19.shtml

REVIEW: A+
Visualizing Economics offers anyone interested in the field of economics some interesting and understandable information. Users will find posters for download such as “How much do you earn?” illustrating the distribution of income in the U.S. and “How rich is the U.S.?” that graphs the top five countries in each region of the world. Also available is an historical graph showing the adoption of new technologies in the United States, a graph of the highest paid American athletes, and a United States poverty map. Visitors can browse through the most popular posts, search for particular posts using keywords or locate posts by a number of categories and post their own comments about them as well as sign up to receive updates about new maps via email.

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ME:TAL (Mathematics for Economics: Enhancing Teaching and Learning)
Math gets real: math for economics.
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2008/r0308-17.shtml

REVIEW: A+
Social Studies teachers will appreciate the easy access to the standards-based materials and video clips that C-SPAN’s Classroom offers. There are six major topics: Principles of Government, U.S. Constitution, Legislative Branch, Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, and Political Participation. Users will want to register (free) for full access to all of the materials and to be able to search the video clip library by keyword, speaker, or teaching concept. Included with the video clips is a short description, discussion questions that are linked to national standards, primary source material, keywords, rating and comments from other teachers. Additionally, users will find links to other topic resources.

Each week, Education World spotlights books of interest to educators. This week, read a brief summary of two more of our "top 50 books for educators."

Classroom Instruction That Works:
Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
For a book from one of the major education associations -- the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) -- this is a relatively compact book of under 200 pages that offers nine categories of instructional strategies, along with the research and statistics to back up their efficacy. Among the nine are Summarizing and Note Taking; Homework and Practice; Nonlinguistic Representation; and Cooperative Learning. The emphasis in the book is on elementary instruction. Written by Robert Marzano and others.
Click to learn more or to purchase this book.

Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know
This is one of the modern classics in education, first published to much bru-ha-ha in 1987. The author, E.D. Hirsch, argues that education is suffering because we lack a strong common "bank" of cultural knowledge -- i.e., what every American should know. He even goes so far as to include a list, a huge list of 5,000 essential items of knowledge. Seen at the time as a conservative, even reactionary text, Hirsch argues that it is precisely those less advantaged students who would benefit from schools focusing more on getting these basic 5,000 items into every kid's head.
Click to learn more or to purchase this book.

Click the icon to the right to see more books and many other products that are available in the Education World MarketPlace.

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The Best of the WRITING BUG

If you enjoy Education World's weekly WRITING BUG feature, you'll love this book! Education World and the National Education Association (NEA) have joined forces to create a handy, pocket-size booklet with 44 of the most popular Writing Bug story starters. Use these Writing Bug activities to engage your students in effective writing. Each writing prompt will spark students' imaginations, tickle their funny bones, and motivate their pencils.

Included: In this booklet you'll find these Writing Bug titles and many more:

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Education World now incorporates www.SchoolNotes.com ~ "everybody on the same page!" The leading school-to-home communications platform, with FREE pages for teachers and automatic notification of parents and students when new homework is posted!

For a modest $24.95 PER YEAR, upgrade to Personal Edition, "Super SchoolNotes," with thousands of resources linked to your state's standards.

Click here for more information.

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MORE FEATURES OF INTEREST!

Professional Development Newsletter Sign up now!
Education World MarketPlace Books, electronics, insurance, travel, more.
Printables Library You're sure to find great resources here.
Meet Our Columnists Experts from many areas of the "education world."
Teaching Themes for Early Childhood Sue LaBella offers holiday ideas, more.
Classroom Organization Tips Ideas (and photos) that you can easily adapt.
Stress Relief Kit Take a deep breath. Then take a look here.
Classroom Management 101 Real teachers share what they are doing to manage real classrooms.
News for Kids News of our world written with kids in mind. Teacher's Guide included.

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