Mt. AlverniaLindley Graham

Review Webquest and Wiki

Examine the effectiveness of using wikis in facilitating teaching and learning

Parts of a Webquest

Introduction: This is the most important part of the

webquest. In the introduction, students are given the “hook” to create interest and are prepared for the purpose of the activity.

Parts of a Webquest

Task: The task focuses learners on what

they are going to do with the Webquest. The task very clearly describes the students end result.

Parts of a Webquest

Process: The steps student will take to

accomplish the task are laid out in the process section of the webquest. The process tells students what action steps will be taken, what online resources will be used, and how students should organize the collected data.

Parts of a Webquest

Evaluation: The explanation of the evaluation

(assessment) criteria is important for the students to know. This is generally given to students in the form of a rubric.

Parts of a Webquest

Conclusion: The conclusion brings closure and

encourages student reflection. This is where students complete an assignment, are give homework, or select activities they can do as extensions, to learn more about the topic.

Parts of a Webquest

Teacher’s Page: This optional conclusion to the Webquest is to help other teachers with their implementation of your Webquest. In this section, information such as targeted learners, core standards, and examples of

student work can be included.

Group Assignment

Select a topic from your subject area and use the following to develop a lesson: a. Webquest (Using Zunal or PowerPoint) b. Digital Story

Teachers must export the site into a Word document.

At the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

Determine the effectiveness of using blogs in the teaching /learning environment.

Create and publish a blog for use in instruction.

Review using Format Factory and Embedding a video

Also…

Use a range of Internet search tools to locate resources to support individualized or collaborative teaching and learning activities;

Evaluate and select web-based resources to enrich teaching and learning activities;

Plan an activity that will allow students to utilize suitable web-based resources to promote concept learning.

What is blogging?

What is a blog?

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Types of blogs. Personal blogs: an ongoing diary or

commentary by an individual Corporate and organizational blogs: enhance

the communication and culture in a corporation

By genre: focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs

By media type: vlog, linklog, sketchblog, photoblog

By device: defined by which type of device is used to compose it

Mrs. Brown scenarioMrs. Brown wants the Grade 8 students in her

Spanish Class to have an immersion experience where they go to a Spanish speaking country and interact with native speakers. This is a requirement for all Grade 8 students of Walter Fletcher High. Before she plans the trip, she needs to motivate the students to begin to learn some basic conversational Spanish.

Mrs. Brown has read that technology can assist with the teaching of Spanish. She has a personal blog and wondered whether this might not be a way of helping students to use Spanish but is not sure if this might be the solution to her problem.

Group Work

In groups, develop some strategies, using blogs, which you would suggest that Mrs. Brown could use to assist her.

Create your own blog.

www.wordpress.com

Mr. Murray scenario A secondary school teacher, Mr. Murray, heard his colleagues talking

about useful websites that they found that made lesson planning easier. These teachers got great ideas for lesson activities and when the time came for their class to use the computer lab; their students were engaged and captivated by the web-based activities! The students agreed that doing these kinds of activities helped them to understand difficult concepts and made learning fun. Mr. Murray wondered how he could locate resources in a timely manner that would help him with lesson planning, capture and maintain the interest of students, and help students achieve objectives. Mr. Murray’s colleague suggested that the way to go about finding what he needs is to search diligently; just keep searching. The problem with this, however, he thought was that he had only a limited period of time for searching. He needed an efficient way to enhance the quality of his activities. He tried getting from other colleagues, terms that they used in their searching to get what they wanted.

Question:

How can Mr. Murray approach searching the Web in a more systematic and efficient manner?

What is a search engine? Search Engines - A Web search engine is a

tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.

General – Google www.google.com and Yahoo www.yahoo.com

Visual – Cuil www.cuil.com and Viewzi www.viewzi.com

Search strategies 1

Analyse your topic to help you decide which key words you will enter in the search box.

Ask the following questions: Does the topic have a unique word or phrase?

If yes, type the word or phrase in quotation marks e.g. “ionic bonding”

Does the topic have several words with no characteristic words or phrases? If yes, enter more than one term in quotation marks to get a shorter list.

Search strategies 2

Be flexible and feel free to change the key words as you browse the search results.

Search strategies 3 Try a subject directory if the search engine is not yielding

suitable results.

Subject Directories - A subject directory is a catalogue of websites organized by humans.

Explore the following subject directories Librarians' Internet Index www.lii.org

Infomine infomine.ucr.eduAbout.com www.about.com

Google Directory directory.google.comYahoo! dir.yahoo.com

Encyclopedias: Smithsonian Institute http://www.si.edu/ Encyclopedia Article Center

http://encarta.msn.com/artcenter_/browse.html

Search strategies 4 Meta-Search Engines – Search tools that transmit

your search simultaneously to several individual search engines and their databases of web pages

Clusty Dogpile Task 1.1.3 Visit the following website and read

about the features of selected meta-search engines.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/MetaSearch.html

Type key words into the search box and observe the kinds of pages that are generated.

Search strategies 5

If you are using Google, to help you refine your search help and find websites in an efficient manner, visit Google Help: Cheat Sheet: http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html.

The “Cheat Sheet” gives a description of the kinds of pages would be returned if you entered key words in the search box in a particular format.

Activity 1 (Group Work) Using the websites you identified, design a

lesson activity involving the use of web-based resources that students could do to promote concept learning and achievement of named lesson objective(s).

Identify the features of the web-based resources that can facilitate the attainment of specific lesson objectives.

Use the lesson plan template provided to guide the lesson design. You may also refer to examples at http://www.getworksheets.com/samples/lessonplans/

Lesson plan template 1Phase oflesson

Description Tool Advantageous feature of tool

Planning Involves researching and collecting relevant resources including visuals and data

Implementing Carrying out the steps in a lesson; using maps, charts activity sheets etc for facilitating teaching and learning

Relating Facilitating teacher to student and student-student interaction during instruction

Assessing

Lesson plan template 2Category Website Suggestion for use in a lesson

(Include CSEC objective)Lesson Plan

Worksheet

Puzzle-maker software

Test-maker or Test creator

Videos

Interactive tutorial

Quizzes

Puzzles

Games

Web quests

Concept maps

Group AssignmentWebsites Criteria

Accuracy Authority Objectivity

Currency Coverage Total Value

Comments

1.

2.

Accuracy Is there an author? Is the purpose stated? Are the qualifications of

the author listed?

Objectivity . What is the nature of

the opinions? Is the Information

detailed enough? Are goals/objectives

stated?

Authority Is there a publisher? Is the domain given? Are the qualifications of the

publisher given?

Currency a. Is there a publication

date? b. When last was the site

updated? c. Are the links up-to-date?

Coverage Are the links evaluated? Is there balance between text &

images? Is the information presented cited

accurately?