I have received an email from Warren Hein at AAPT about the
development of a proposal for funding that would have a wide
impact upon the physics teaching community. He seeks input
from physics teachers on a proposal to the NSF's program
known as the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and
Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL)
(see < http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl/>
for program details).
Warren's email:
The NSDL proposal we are planning to submit will be a
collaboration between AAPT , AIP, APS, AAS, and maybe ASP
(Astronomy Society of the Pacific). AAPT will be playing the
lead role.
We are interested in knowing how the physics and astronomy
education community views such an effort and what they think
should be the emphasis of this first proposal. We hope this
proposal will form the framework for the Physics and
Astronomy Digital Resources for Education (PADRE) effort that
other educators can then connect to with their own proposal
either this year, or in future years. We see this as building a
number of different communities and providing resources that
can be accessed depending on the needs of the user (high school
teacher, college teacher, elementary teacher, student, or the
public).
We expect that NSF funds will be available to support this effort
for a number of years and we are trying to put something in
place that the rest of the physics and astronomy education
community can contribute to on an ongoing basis. We see
PADRE not only as a resource, but a place educators can submit
digital educational materials for peer review, not unlike
MERLOT is currently doing. We plan on cooperating with
MERLOT in this effort.