Online Science Educatrion Resources: Why so few teachers use them?
As I am reading the posts of my students in the Educational Technology Course, I realize that every day I am exposed to at least 5 new web sites that offer amazing science education resources. Yet, not all of these resources are created equal and considering that we all work and teach, we have relatively little time to explore what is there. So what if we had a huge universal database of science education resources, that would include research by topic, media, type of the environment, difficulty level and what is more important allow teachers rate those resources. Something similar exists in Physics and Astronomy in the comPADRE.org resource, but I am unaware of a similar general database. For example, if I were a teacher who is getting ready for teaching natural selection topic for my high school students, I would love to go there and find out what are the best available resources out there and how teachers used them. It is not the same as google, as I want to know what other teachers think of them and how they are used… The reason I think so few teachers use what is out there is because we do not have the time to explore it all and we are often not sure if our investment in these new resources will pay off. Just sometimes too much can be a factor that will prevent teachers to use these resources…