SciLinks: Bringing Vetted Websites to Your Classroom

SciLinks, NSTA’s premier internet technology product, helps science educators harness the resources of the internet by connecting key textbook subjects to NSTA-approved web pages that enrich student learning inside and outside the science classroom. By linking to a brief notation found in the margin of a science textbook, NSTA Press book, or NSTA journal, teachers and students can access vetted web pages that provide real-time information and new content on a host of science topics. Since its debut five years ago, SciLinks has had nearly 76,000 teachers and more than 384,000 students complete the free registration to use the site, and countless more use it as guests.

Now, SciLinks has refined its assignment tool to make it easier for NSTA members and registered teachers to expand on their students’ use of the targeted resources. Teachers may now create question pools and use them to generate and assign tests to their students. SciLinks can respond with immediate feedback or hold the results of a test for subsequent teacher comments.

Getting Started

The first step to get the most out of SciLinks is to become a registered user. At the www.scilinks.org page, click on “Need a user name and password?” to complete a brief registration. Once you are logged in, enter a SciLinks code from this journal (i.e., SC0405003), into the box that says “Enter a SciLinks Code.” If you have logged in as an NSTA Member, you also have the option of simply entering the keyword(s) (i.e., “How do plants grow?”) into the “Member’s Only Keyword Search” box. The filters on the page can be used to refine this list of websites according to certain criteria, such as lesson ideas or core content.

NSTA has developed the SciLinks Assignment tool to help teachers guide their students’ use of the vetted websites. Registered teachers can now assign codes or selected web pages to their students and create multiple-choice, matching, true/false, or short-answer questions about the material on the selected pages. When students log in, they may click on the “View Your SciLinks Assignments” link to view the web pages and complete the assignment. Full details about this tool can be found under the “Teacher” login.

We believe teachers will find the new assignment tool a handy way to make better use of the internet in the classroom. We welcome your suggestions about SciLinks. E-mail us at info@scilinks.org. We look forward to your comments.

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