A website that uses 3-D graphics to teach students about cell biology has won a prestigious Pirelli "Internetional" prize.
The Virtual Cell site was developed by Jim Rusconi, a high school biology-turned-computer graphics teacher.
Students can use the site to explore cells, and the small structures within them, such as mitochondria. Users can zoom in and virtually cut open different membranes to further investigate the cells.
"It helps students in scientific visualization and allows them to interact with the material," said Rusconi, who teaches at Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton, Massachusetts.
The site has been translated into Russian, French and Spanish. A number of universities use the site as a reference for general biology classes and it has been listed as a resource in New Scientist, and a McGraw-Hill microbiology textbook, Rusconi said.
The Pirelli awards -- sponsored by the Italian tire and cable company -- are given to multimedia projects related to science and technology.
The school was awarded the $2,700 prize, and Rusconi was invited to Italy to accept the prize.
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Girls and computer science: Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science will host a forum on April 19 on that perennial problem of how to make computer science more appealing to young women.
Experts from research, education and industry will discuss girls' relationships with technology in entertainment, education and the home. Participants are interested in new technologies that reflect women's interests and in assuring access to technology for girls in disadvantaged situations.
Forum speakers include Megan Gaiser, president of HerInteractive, which creates video games based on the Nancy Drew mystery series, Maria Klawe, dean of science at the University of British Columbia, and Jane Margolis, a researcher at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
"We are sitting on a gold mine of resources for women that we would like to pull together," said Lenore Blum, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, in a statement. "If more girls and women get involved in computer science, the technology may change."
The forum is free, but registration is required to attend.
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Sad technology tale: The San Francisco Unified School District may forfeit a $50 million e-rate grant because it cannot afford to pay the required 17 cents per dollar required to receive the funds.
The e-rate, part of the universal service fund, gives discounts to schools and libraries on telecommunications connections and Internet access.
The district would have to pay between $7 and 9 million to receive the assistance -- money that the San Francisco schools don't have.
E-rate funds have been essential in connecting schools around the country to the Internet, but the program has been heavily criticized for its confusing applications and weak invoice review procedures.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the district apparently applied for the grant without considering the costs to the district itself.
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Students caught read-handed: Oberlin College's student newspaper, The Oberlin Review, is now available to readers who like to get their news on their handheld devices.
It is believed to be the first college to make its content accessible from a handheld.
The weekly newspaper can be downloaded using AvantGo software. The subscription is free. Wired News uses the same service. The handheld version is updated each Saturday during the college academic year.
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Teenage CEO retires: A teenage Internet entrepreneur is retiring from his successful business, but not because he wants to drive around in a new Miata. He just wants to be a regular kid.
Ruchit K. Shah, 17, co-founded Internet advertising agency ClickZen.com in April 2000. With sales of over $1.5 million in ClickZen.com's first year, the company allowed him to have "more money than I knew what to do with," he said in a statement.
"I want to take a breather and enjoy the beauties of life."
ClickZen.com will continue to be headed by 16-year-old Richard Hecker, who co-founded the business with Shah.
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A portal for teachers: The National Education Association Portal Company recently selected iLearning to build an education portal for NEA members. The site will include professional development resources, education-related news, and forums where teachers can collaborate with their colleagues around the country.
"Our members asked the NEA to provide them with a one-stop site where they could find information that could support them professionally, support their local, state, and national affiliates and potentially, users worldwide," said Barbara Yentzer, NEA director of student achievement initiatives, in a statement. "The portal iLearning is building will provide for that, and empower our members with more resources than ever available before."
The NEA represents 2.6 million teachers. The site is expected to launch within the next several months.
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Charting attitudes on education: Parents In Charge, a nonprofit organization that favors competition in education, released results from a study last week that found that 82 percent of parents believe they should be able to choose which school their child attends.
A joint bipartisan polling group conducted two separate surveys from random samples of over 1,000 people aged 18 and up, both parents and non-parents.
"It's time to let education look like the rest of America," said Ted Forstmann, CEO of the organization. "The democratic principles of freedom, competition and choice should be applied to K through 12 education just as they are to our university system, which is the envy of the world."
The survey also found that 72 percent of parents believe that education would be improved if there were a number of providers "instead of a government monopoly."
"It's a very totalitarian idea to think the government should be in charge of the education of a child," Forstmann said at an Empower America conference in Silicon Valley in February.
Robin Clewley contributed to this report.
