Net Talk: November/Decmeber 1996

Economic Education Resources on the Web

The Internet offers many resources for educators in the field of economics, many of them with applications in Eastern Europe and the nations of the former Soviet Union. Among the best that CCSI has found are:

EcEdWeb
http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/
The pre-eminent clearinghouse for economic education in the U.S., EcEdWeb is a catalog of links for a wide variety of resources. The site is regularly maintained by Kim Sosin, co-director of the Center for Economic Education at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The links are grouped under such headings as:

Economics Resources for Teachers (mostly K-12)
Economics Resources for Teachers (mostly college)
Links to Useful Economics Information and Data
Links to Other Economic Education Sites

Most links include informative, brief annotations. Don't miss the section "Using the Internet to Teach Economics: An Idea Page" which is accessible from the pages for "Economics Resources for Teachers."

Resources for Economists on the Internet (EconFAQ)
http://wueconb.wustl.edu/EconFAQ/EconFAQ.html
Maintained by Bill Goffe of the Dept. of Economics at the University of Southern Mississippi, the EconFAQ is often cited as the most comprehensive list of links to Internet resources related to economics. The list is regularly maintained and includes hundreds of links. For each link Goffe provides a brief paragraph describing the site and sometimes offering some tips on how to navigate through it. When referencing a large site with many documents Goffe will often create links to especially interesting domcuments.

Select List of Internet Resources for Teachers of Economics in Secondary Schools
http://www.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/ecowww/school.html
Although there are not a lot of links from this page, Robert Dixon, who compiled the list, seems to have a knack for finding good resources and good examples of how the Internet can be used for economics education. He also writes clear, useful annotations which highlight what the referenced site has to offer. Dixon is at the University of Melbourne and has links to a variety of Australian Web sites.

World Wide Resources in Economics
http://www.helsinki.fi/WebEc/
Another meta index to WWW resources in the field of economics, this one comes from Finland. WebEc is very easy to navigate through.

Business Education on the Internet: Biz/ed
http://bized.ac.uk/
Biz/ed offers both a lot of content and links to useful business and economics education resources available on the Internet. Biz/ed is a nonprofit consortium which includes Blackwell Publishers, the University of Bristol, and the Economics and Business Education Association, a professional association of British teachers of econo-mics and business studies. Biz/ed also sponsors the econ-business-educators electronic mailing list (see column right).

The highlight is the section titled "Company Facts," which includes profiles of businesses. The profiles are presented in interview format in which a series of 15-20 questions are posed and answered. The company profiles include:

The Body Shop, a relatively small business which makes and sells cosmetics and tioletries
Trades Union Congress, the major labor umbrella group in the UK
British Petroleum

Questions posed to the owner of The Body Shop include:

What strategies does the business use in the process of quality control?
Can you outline ways employees are motivated?
How is your business affected by government policy?

Questions posed to the Trades Union Congress include:

Why do people join trade unions?
How are trade unions financed?
What is the impact of trade unions on business?
What are examples of good employment practices?

Federal Reserve Board
http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/
The Federal Reserve Board is the central bank of the United States. The Fed and its 12 branch offices (www.bog.frb.fed.us/otherfrb.htm )are a major source of data about the U.S. economy. In addition each Fed office also publishes newsletters and analytical reports, many of which are available on-line. Perhaps most importantly the Fed is a major source of on-line economic education materials, including:

The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions (www.bog.frb.fed.us/pf/pf.htm)

This is a large document available in Adobe format which describes how the Fed works and to what ends. There are seven sections, each averaging around 200 KB in size. The section on "Monetary Policy and the Economy" includes subsections: on the goals of monetary policy; effects of monetary policy on the economy; and limitations of monetary policy.

Understanding the Home Mortgage Process (www.bog.frb.fed.us/pubs/mortgage/morbro_1.htm)

This series of documents takes the reader through the steps of securing a home mortgage loan and provides information on what kinds of information consumer lenders are looking for.

The Credit Process: A Guide for Small Business Owners (www.ny.frb.org/pihome/addpub/ credit.html)

This document outlines the steps owners of small business go though to apply for loans from banks. It includes explanations of what banks look at when considering a loan from a business.

EconomicsAmerica
http://www.economicsamerica.org/
EconomicsAmerica (also known as the National Council on Economic Education) is a leading source of materials and information dealing with economic literacy in the K-12 environment. This site is under development but already contains a directory of all the state Councils of Economic Education which are affiliated with the NCEE, lesson plans available for grades 2-4 and grades 9-12, and more.

This article is from the November/December 1996 issue of
Net Talk

For more information or to order a subscription, see our publications page.

The URL for this page is: http://www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/nettalk/96-11/econedwb.htm
Last updated: May 1997

Center for Civil Society International
[email protected]