This project is developing an online selection, customization, and presentation service for elementary teachers that provides high quality, online resources for an underserved audience of the National STEM Education Distributed Learning (NSDL). It extends the results of a Targeted Research study that examined ways to increase the educational value of online collections. It also builds on the Content Clips (CC) web site www.contentclips.com, which includes multimedia resources and Flash templates that let teachers dynamically blend resources from different web sites to assemble customized online presentations. The CC approach helps teachers integrate multimedia resources into classroom instruction and takes advantage of the growing adoption of electronic whiteboards and projection systems. This new effort is assembling 30 sets of images, animations, and video clips that support standards-aligned content units commonly taught in Grades 2-5. The team is also upgrading the Content Clip site interface, developing new options for teachers to customize presentations, and creating support aids to help teachers use the service features. Outreach efforts involve workshops for teachers and promotion through publications, web sites, and conferences. The project team includes experts drawn from universities, K-12 schools, educational publishing companies, the NSDL Resource Center, and other NSDL projects. The CC service supports underrepresented groups, including ELL students and children in rural communities, by providing visual examples and tools to expand background knowledge and develop vocabulary skills. Teachers of any grade or subject, such as history or art, can also use the system to customize and present online multimedia resources.
