What Makes a Good K-12 Resource

1. What Makes a Good K-12 Resource Katy Ginger (support@dlese.org) DLESE Program Center (DPC) University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) http://www.dlese.org/Metadata/presentations/2005/2005-NSDL-K-12-resource.ppt

2. Primary Goal of DLESE Facilitate learning about Earth at all educational levels, formal and informal • Strategies to Achieve This Goal • Develop high quality collections • Provide access to Earth data, imagery & tools • Create discovery and distribution systems • Provide support services to create/use materials • Facilitate communication and collaboration across all interests of Earth system education

3. Scope of DLESE Collection • Emphasizes Earth as a System • Study of processes, states, cycles and interactions • Global and local perspectives • Interdisciplinary connections between atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, space and biosphere • Emphasizes Education • Learning and teaching for improved understanding of Earth’s history, processes, and resources • Supports research and assessment activities

4. Collection Criteria for all Resources • Be relevant to Earth system education • Function reasonably well • Have attribution as to origin • Reflect sound scientific principles and practices and current scientific knowledge • Have an obvious and intended utility for teaching, research or learning about the Earth system • Be free of advertising that is distracting or off topic for the learner • Be free or low cost to educational users

5. Collection Criteria for Reviewed Resources • Documents a process for ensuring: • Scientific accuracy • Importance or significance • Pedagogical effectiveness • Completeness of documentation • Ease of use for teachers and learners • Inspirational or motivational for learners • Robustness as a digital resource

6. DLESE Resources (Vocabulary/ Granularity) • Educational materials – classroom activity, computer activity, field activity, lab activity, tutorial, lesson plan, syllabus, curricula, course modules, field trips, problem set, demonstration, photo, visualization, webcast • Assessment and pedagogical materials - exam, quiz, self-assessment, learning/teaching technique and educational research • Research materials - journal article, summary, abstract, case study, report, theses, policies, proceeding, bibliography, etc. • Data - Earth and space data (imagery, numeric values, map) • Annotations - comments, reviews, teaching tips, additional content • News and opportunities - information on grants, conferences, workshops, professional development, opportunities, etc. • Tools - software or applications for interacting, accessing, manipulating or viewing, calculators and converters, models

7. DLESE Studies on Resource Quality/Reuse • 2001 Discovery of Resources • DLESE required metadata captures much essential info. but not all • 2002 K-12 Perceptions on Quality • Quality & limits on advertising should be emphasized in library policies (all) • Scientific accuracy is paramount (grades 6-12) • Age appropriateness/engaging activities is paramount (grades K-5) • Complement, don’t replicate traditional materials (all) • Label biased sites (grades 6-12) • Current state of web resource design needs to be improved (all) • Metadata should add value over the content of resources (all) • 2003 Implement Nat. Science Education Stds. in Search • Use the word ‘supports’ to connect resources to standards • Pre-service teacher likely to search by standards but master teacher not • Associate standards at state or district level • 2004 Preliminary Web Log Analysis • Grade range & resource type are the most often used qualifiers on search • 2005 Community Review System (an annotation system) • How many have used it? Will work for my students? Is it accurate?