Last Friday, I had the opportunity to see George Mehler present learningscience.org (Thank you to the Center City Regional Superintendent, Janet Samuels.) According to their About Us page:

learningscience.org is an organization dedicated to sharing the newer and emerging "learning tools" of science education. Tools such as real-time data collection, simulations, inquiry based lessons, interactive web lessons, micro-worlds, and imaging, among others, can help make teaching science an exciting and engaging endeavor. These tools can help connect students with science, in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. Take a look at a few different types of "learning tools" at this link, Tool Examples. At this point in our project we are highlighting some of the best web resources for science concepts. Although our main emphasis is on students, teachers, and parents, really anyone interested in science education will find the site useful and informative.

I’d encourage anyone looking to do web-based science lessons to start poking around through the links he’s set up. There really is, as they say, something for everyone. It’s easy for me to imagine SLA teachers incorporating the links that George has found into their moodle course site and giving students assignments that take the web-based learning that George has found and digging further.

And what I also like about George is that he does his presentations for free. I’m sure that a lot of people wonder why… but to anyone who has done some Open Source work, you know. George gets paid by the Central Bucks School District, and they’ve given him the space to create the site, and it seemed pretty clear to me that he views this work as an extension of what he does for his school. It also allows him to stay true to his and his collaborators’ view of the site. (Mind you, this is all conjecture on my part.)

Either way, it is a great site, and it was, for me, wonderful to see someone demonstrate his view of an educational tool that could help our schools without a pricetag involved. We need to highlight and celebrate the work that folks like this do, because in the end, I still believe that a growing network of dedicated teachers — connected by communication technologies in ways that were not possible 20 years ago — will do more good than any corporate package ever will.