Note:
District Six no longer exists. I am now a
science teacher in Region 10, New York City, which encompasses the former
districts 3, 5, & 6. MiddleSchoolScience.org is in no way affiliated with
Region 10 or the NYC Department of Education. I am solely responsible
for the contents of this website. (M. Gatton, September 1, 2003)
MiddleSchoolScience.org is a website designed primarily to address the needs of middle school science teachers in Community School District Six in New York City. Our Discussion Forum, however, is open to any middle school science teacher and everyone is welcome to participate.
MiddleSchoolScience.org is designed around the philosophy that one of the most important and underutilized forms of professional development is teachers talking to teachers. This website is designed to serve the practical goal of establishing a center for teacher-to-teacher interaction as well as creating a link between teachers and the district. This site is an integral part of our District Six professional development strategy.
The idea for creating an online community of science teachers comes from my personal involvement in an online community for photographers (extremely amateur, in my case) called photo.net. The simplicity of the website's design and the practicality of its features is a model of the internet's capability in terms of linking people together with a shared interest. Photo.net is a highly successful, non-commercial website that anyone with an interest in building an online community should visit. In fact, our Discussion Forum is a LUSENET forum, created by photo.net founder, Philip Greenspun and hosted on his server free of charge. A number of photographs used in page banners are compliments of Mr. Greenspun's generous policy on using images from his website.
(NOTE: Since writing this section, photo.net has gotten more commercial and sophisticated in its layout & design. I still like the older, simpler design better. Another victim of success.)
A special thanks is due to Stacy Douglas who supported MiddleSchoolScience.org from the beginning and made it a part of District Six Science.
Building the Site
This website is designed using Microsoft FrontPage with a little help from various sources including my brother, Robert Gatton. I have also benefited recently from Terry Kearns' work on the Grady High School Cyberspace Project and its associated School Webmasters Forum. The default font for the bulk of the text on this website is Book Antiqua. After extensive testing I found this to be the most pleasing (of the ridiculous number of fonts loaded onto my computer!) in terms of size, spacing, and style for on-screen viewing, at least to my eyes. It is included in MS Office 2000. The headings are Cornerstone. All photos are by me except where otherwise noted. I have no financial interest in any of the for-profit companies or entities linked or mentioned on this website and do not endorse their products except where there are no alternatives, such as Adobe Acrobat. I recommend that everyone download a free copy of Acrobat Reader because it is the only simple option for making publications available online for quality printing.
M.
Gatton
(revised 9/2003)