Web Based Activities
"This is the first time I've used the Web, found something useful, and then learned enough to work through reading a piece of 'classic' literature--how very cool!"
- Sabrina, ninth grade English student
(quoted in The Tech-Savvy English Classroom, S. Kajder, Stenhouse Publishers, 2003)
Overview
The Internet as Curriculum
This issue of the Educational Technology Journal (FromNowOn) provides an overview of effective ways to employ the Internet in support of a curriculum. The three strategies explained are: provide good interfaces, elevate prospecting skills, and provide scaffolding. Each strategy described includes examples and links.
Using the Internet to Promote Inquiry-Based Learning
This e-paper describes a structured approach to inquiry-based learning that uses the Web as a primary information resource. The authors address an "intuitive" eight-step process that begins with an essential question and ends with a knowledge product produced by students, typically completed in a cooperative setting. Project pages and the skills required by both student and teacher are also addressed.
WebQuests
The WebQuest Page
This site is designed to serve as a resource to those who are using the WebQuest model to teach with the Web. The "Examples" section provides links to hundreds of examples of WebQuests in all content areas.
A WebQuest About WebQuests
This interactive site, developed by WebQuest pioneer Bernie Dodge (Ed Tech Department, San Diego State University), is designed to teach teachers the elements of a good WebQuest by doing one. It asks the reader to critically analyze a number of examples from four different perspectives (efficiency, collaborative learning, higher-order thinking, and technology).
WebQuest Taskonomy
This site, also by Bernie Dodge, describes the most common types of task formats, suggests ways to optimize their use, and links to examples of each kind. He says, "The task is the single most important part of a WebQuest....A well-designed task is doable and engaging, and elicits thinking in learners that goes beyond rote comprehension."
A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests
This rubric, designed by Bernie Dodge, will help teachers evaluate the WebQuests they create against several categories (overall aesthetics, introduction, task, process, resources, and evaluation) and pinpoint ways in which the learning activity isn't doing everything it could do.
Resources for Designing an Original Web Lesson
Designing and Developing a Problem-Based Learning Unit for Grades K–16
This Center for Problem-Based Learning site walks teachers through the curricular decisions and many steps involved in creating a standards-based, problem-centered learning activity.
Landmarks for Schools
Landmarks for Schools provides links that teachers and students can use to access information and data within the context of social studies, science, and mathematics.
Search Thinkfinity
The Thinkfinity program is a partnership with several credible educational organizations that provides a "seal of approval" on site content from experts in the field. Their search engine only accesses information from the Thinkfinity partner sites and partner-reviewed sites. These sites can be used as reliable resources in a WebQuest or Internet Scavenger Hunt, and images can be inserted into Web lessons.
Blue Web'n
Blue Web'n is an online library of 1,200+ outstanding Internet sites categorized by subject, grade level, and format (lessons, activities, projects, resources, references, and tools). Searches can be made by grade, broad subject area, or specific sub-categories.
Essential Questions
From Now On (FNO)
This FNO Educational Technology Journal home page and other sites by Jamie McKenzie provide numerous articles and resources on inquiry- and Web-based learning. The following articles are particularly helpful in learning to write a good essential question:
Creating Essential Questions
This Galileo site outlines the key components of effective essential questions.
Three Categories of Questions: Crucial Distinctions
This Foundation for Critical Thinking site provides a helpful way to understand the difference between questions that require a reasoned judgment (the aim of inquiry-based learning) and those that are factual or require an opinion.
Essential Questions (Samples)
This is a list of sample essential questions developed by the Farmington High School staff in 1999.
|