|
|
Welcome to the EduQuery Archives |
|
About EduQuery EduQuery.com was born as an answer to a need I realized while in grad school in the late 90's. At the time, I was working on a Master's in Educational Administration with an Ed Tech focus at Texas A&M. There were few sites for educational research, so I set out to make one of my own. In due course, the site became a sort of blog with commentary on educational issues and news of the day; a permanent host site for various grad school articles and projects; an online journal with other various articles (mostly written by me at that time); a list of resources linking to useful educational articles and sites with a bias toward those dealing with research; and a book review site. Feedback from friends, fellow students, and other netizens was mostly positive. Since I was thrilled to help make a difference for other folks in education, as well as students (grad or undergrad), remarks such as these from a student at Humboldt State University in California tended to make my day: I was so happy to find a site that puts all its energy into talking to educators. This site does not give out lesson plans or unit summaries (although it does have an extensive links page). This site is simply a place for educators to go and find out what is happening in education. You can check out the most recent educational news articles, or read reviews of educational books, by other educators. I liked it and spent an hour reading some of the articles and felt like I was really finally a teacher! I was also pleased as punch to find EduQuery listed under "Helpful Education Websites" in East Tennessee State University's Student Teaching Handbook. As a repository for grad school work for my fellow Aggies, one article dealing with constructivism became quite popular on the Web. This series of Web pages, entitled "Traditional Instruction vs. Constructivism" was written by fellow Texas A&M Ed Tech students Jane Allen, Holly Carmona, Chris Calvin, and Bonnie Rowe. It has been referenced or linked to by several other sites and articles dealing with constructivism. Although I placed it on the site early on, and rearranged the site several times, this article was referenced so often I decided to leave it in its old location at www.eduquery.com/construct.htm. Some of the interesting references to this article can be found in online
documents like Criteria
for Conducting and Evaluating Critical Interpretive Research in the IS Field Constructivism can be seen as a theory about knowledge and learning.
Drawing on a synthesis of current work in cognitive psychology, philosophy, and
anthropology, the theory defines knowledge as temporary, developmental, socially and
culturally mediated, and thus, non-objective. Interpretivism can be seen as an
epistemological dimension, where “reality is...constructed by knower” Source:
Allen et al. (2000): http://www.eduquery.com/construct.htm As far as my own grad school projects, for one of Dr. Karen Murphy's classes at Texas A&M I created an online International Phonetic Alphabet Tutor. This project used RealPlayer files to illustrate artificial phonetic sounds. I think with sound being more integrated in today's Web browsers, I might have done things differently had I completed the project at a later date. I had a strong interest in educational issues and current events, so I posted links to articles dealing with the topics of the day. On occasion, I would write my own articles on various topics. One that generated an extraordinary amount of interest and comments from readers dealt with online plagiarism by students. To this day, it is widely linked to other sites and on occasion generates an e-mail from someone either mad at me for writing about it or thanking me for making them aware of the issue. Amazingly (to me anyway), even though it was written as an opinion piece
it is cited as a reference in some scholarly works such as the following: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/98518683/PDFSTART. Elsewhere, the article often shows up in a list of links to sites dealing with online plagiarism. A good example is at the Information Technology Department at Monash University in Australia: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/projects/plague/papers.shtml Reviewing books on the site and on Amazon.com proved very interesting. I like to read, and I perused several books from authors and publishers as time permitted. One book I felt was very important to new teachers, having read it early upon embarking on my career in education: The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher, by Harry Wong. I found it to be the single most effective book in preparing me for teaching as an undergrad, and so happily plugged it on my Amazon affiliate page. I contacted Harry Wong by e-mail in August of 1999 and commenced a dialogue with him regarding the book and his philosophies on teaching. This series of e-mails culminated in an interview I placed on EduQuery and linked to my review of his book. He is a popular speaker in school districts around the country and I discovered later that he plugged EduQuery by including it in his list of favorite sites. The districts hosting his lectures often placed those sites on their servers, usually under a heading that stated something to the effect of, "Harry Wong's Suggested Sites." Thus EduQuery grew in stature thanks to the kind plugs by Harry Wong. Someday I hope to find the time to write down more stories about the site. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the anecdotes and Web pages I've shared here. Lately the site has become even more focused on educational research as we have started and serve as the host site for the Journal of Applied Educational Technology. Drop a line if you'd care to share your experiences in the early days of the Web or if you have an interesting anecdote dealing with educational technology. - John Rice, Summer 2004
Links to older pages, projects, and ideas Web Tech | Product Reviews | Tips for Teachers | Graduate Projects Old News | EQ_Archeology | Online Article Review | Book Reviews
[Home]
|
||