Final Project

Creating the Final Product

I found each of the parts interesting. I had not looked at WebQuests very often before this part of the assignment and I had not used one in class or with teachers. That will change this year. As I look to find ways to integrate technology into school curriculum, the WebQuest is going to be of great assistance. Not wanting to reinvent the wheels or the cart that goes with the wheels, I will be suggesting a number of the WebQuests I found to the teachers with whom I will be working. I like those that address science and social studies topics. These subjects get minimal attention, except in grades 4 and 7 for science. I am assigned to work with these grades so a Questing we will go. I will also try my hand at authoring a couple more, now that I do have a clue.

Probably the most beneficial for my role as a tech lead was the HotList. I found numerous resources for the teachers at my school and will be sharing my diigo list with them. I will also look to borrowing lists from everyone in class. The more resources I have at my fingertips, the more I can share with my school.

The Sampler Site was the most difficult for me. I had used FrontPage a number of years ago. Oops, it is no longer around. Therefore, Dreamweaver was not an entirely new animal, but the evolution of web page design had left me behind. Once I saw how a couple of things could be done, they did become easy, but the seeing was the hard part. I will have to spend more time working with the program, just to practice what I have learned. Then I might have time to find new things to do. With Educational Networks having created and hosting the tech academies’ web page, I do not have to worry about designing one, at least not for a couple of more years.

The Learning Experience was a unique form of a summative assessment. Did I use the web page development skills learned in the class? Did I understand my own rubric for assessing a WebQuest? Was a project/presentation a part of the evaluation process? Was I able to create a rubric for the activity? Was the activity interesting? Was it standards based? Were there sufficient resources to start the students on the road to completing the activity? I would answer yes to all of these questions except one. I am still working on ways to make the colonial period of American history interesting to today’s students. I do not know if I can get a seventh grade student to share my excitement concerning the birth of the U.S. Reading about it in a text is not the answer, so this may be the way generate interest in what most students consider a “boring” part of an even more boring subject, social studies. This project provides direction to the students, but the conclusion is theirs to create. The questions that they generate lead to answers that will often create more questions. Their project presentation will have had the students evaluate and synthesize the information they had gathered. Let’s see, the students would have searched for answers to questions they have generated, they would have used higher-ordered thinking skills to organize their final project, they would have presented their project using a wiki, or PowerPoint, or some other form of electronic media. Was the project inquiry-based? Yes. Was technology integrated into the project? Yes. Did I use what I learned to create the project for the students? Yes. Could it have been more interesting? Yes, but what can you do with the colonies and today’s kids?

Web 2.0 Education Application

What Web 2.o application should I review? Wkis, blogs and Twitter have been discussed, reviewed, and used. What does it say about us when these 2.0 applications have become part of the mainstream? So mainstream that e-mail is now viewed as “old school.”

To find an application, I googled “Web 2.0 education.” (Oh, no, Google is now a verb in the English language.) This search led me to http://hubpages.com/hub/Education20. Here I found a link to a blog, Web 2.0 Teaching Tools. This blog mentioned Classtools.net, so, why not.

Classtools was developed by Russel Tarr, a college professor in France. This “free” website houses almost 20 interactive templates for use by teachers. What follows in a quick review of a few of the templates.

Arcade Game Generator requires the teacher to write at least ten questions and answers. These questions and answers can be turned into a number of different “games.” One is a Concentration-like matching game called Matching Pairs. Another game is Manic Miner, in which arcade-like miners try to match questions and answers before they lose their time or lives.

Ever need a countdown timer? This site has one in which the teacher types in the time and the clock does it all. The time can be any time up to ninety-nine minutes and fifty nine seconds. A number of sounds can be added to make the countdown a little more exciting.

With “Post It,” students identify factors that help answer a specific question and write them on sticky notes. Then, collaboratively, more general categories about the question and factors are determined. The students then move the notes to the category in which they fit. This is a nice change of pace from using sticky notes on chart paper.

Venn Diagrams give the option of a two or three circle Venn diagram. Students would then fill in the diagram in the same way that they would fill ion paper diagrams.

Virtual Book allows students to create a four page book. The text is typed into the book, which can be saved as a web page, or embedded into a blog or web page. The length limits the use of Virtual Book but for younger students, this is another way that their work can be displayed.

Check out the other templates which include a fishbone diagrams, hamburger diagrams and a host of other web-based graphic organizers.

This site and the templates will not replace Twitter or Facebook in popularity, but it does offer a few cool tools for teachers to create and students to use.

Review of two WebQuests

Finally, I finished my rubric for evaluating WebQuests, review of 10 WebQuests, and a minor revision of my rubric. I am still finishing the Inquiry definition but I thought that it might not get finished tonight so I had better get to my blog entry for this week. I will be reviewing two WebQuests that were part of my WebQuest review, the best of the ten and the worst of the ten.


The best of the WebQuests was A Balancing Act – Sharing Our World with the Grizzly Bear. This site attained a total score of 24, which on my rubric was a perfect score. Its visual appeal was outstanding, each page having a different picture of the grizzly. Navigation of the site was simple to follow. The introduction was engaging because it referred to a real problem, grizzly bear encounters in Canada. This real problem hit home because the Quest was authored in western Canada, home to these encounters. The process was well-conceived, numerous web sources were available, and the evaluation rubric, though long, was complete. The Quest encouraged collaboration as can be seen in the evaluation process. Finally, the presentations were to include items that seemed to be drawn from the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, writing a letter with recommendations supported by information that had been gathered during the Quest.


The second sight, Are All Men Created Equal?, had a score of 9, with only one category in the developing area. Had there been a 0 score available for the grading, this site would have been scored even lower. The visual appeal was lacking, only one picture and a few clip art pictures. Navigation was done strictly by the mouse, only one page housing the Quest. The introduction was poor, a real cure for insomnia. Three links in the introduction no longer work. The task was a writing task, and students were given a choice of completing one of the assignments. No collaboration was expected or encouraged. The process was in four steps, and looking at it again, I might change the score for the process, but maybe not. Only three web resources were provided for background, a very small number considering the topic of this activity. No evaluation rubric was provided; evaluation was not discussed in the WebQuest. I was not impressed by the WebQuest. Then I looked at the date it was produced – 1997. I can now understand the limited resources provided. This is an early WebQuest.

The other eight WebQuests fall between these two. To see the others and to view my rubric, please feel free to access http://nlutie.com/ecaster/iqrubric_webquest/IQ_Rubric_WebQuest.html, and soon the definition for inquiry will be added.

A Description of a Resource Depository

Before becoming the tech lead teacher at my home school, I served as the math/science specialist for more than seven years. One of the responsibilities I had was to be a resource for classroom teachers. “Do you have any ideas on how to teach subtraction with integers?” “Do you have any lessons that integrate math and language arts?” These were just a couple of the question that I would be asked and expected to answer. Due to my work with the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, I was interested in math topics for high school students.

One of the resources I would regularly use is the Math Forum’s Teachers’ Place. The Math Forum started in 1992, and is a part of the Drexel School of Education.

The Teachers’ Place has a simple organization. Its four categories are Primary and Secondary, College and University, Special Interest and General Interest. The Primary and Secondary category is subdivided into four sections: Pre-Kindergarten Teachers, Elementary Teachers, which itself is divided into K-2 and 3-5, Middle School Teachers and High School Teachers. Each of these is divided into two parts: For Your Classroom and For Your Career.

For Your Classroom contains lists of projects, individual lesson plans, collection of lesson plans, math sites for kids and Teacher2Teacher. Teacher2Teacher provides a place to ask questions or get involved in on-line discussions.

For Your Career provides links to on-line courses, articles, publications and professional organizations.

One of the links listed under Special Interest was of special interest to me as a math/science specialist. The link was to a number of science fair math projects.

One of my favorite links is to Dr. Math. Dr. Math answers questions that are posed to “him.” The Dr. Math FAQ section lists topics from A to W, (there are none listed for x, y or z.) An example of an FAQ topic is Prime numbers: What is a prime number? What's the 'Sieve of Eratosthenes'? What is the largest known prime? This question is linked to a Dr. Math site that of course answers these questions, but also provides links to Dr. Math archives on the subject as well as a number of web sites related to the topic.

I have used Math Forum Teachers’ Place for many years and will continue to do so because it delivers a wide variety of resources for the classroom teacher. I also find the site to be easy to navigate. The Teachers’ Place also provides the “extras” that many teachers would find valuable. So if you need a list of the first 10,000 prime numbers…

Criteria for Evaluating Web-based Materials

Criteria for the Evaluation of Web-based Materials

When I first tried to evaluate web-based materials, I used only two methods. First I would search a topic and then review individual sites in a general manner to see if the site was applicable for my subject. The other method was the “word-of-mouth” method. My colleagues would suggest a site and I would use it because they said that it was okay.





IN 1999, Branch, Kim and Koenecke wrote Evaluating Online Educational Materials for Use in Instruction, an article found on a library instruction web-site. They suggested seven topics that might be addressed concerning evaluating a website.
• Judge the accuracy of the information and take note of the date modified.
• Is the level of information in this site appropriate for the intended audience?
• Is the information in this site presented clearly?
• Is the information in this site closely related to purpose, content, activity, and procedures?
• Is the information in this site complete in scope and ready for use?
• If a website has activities, are the content, presentation method, and learner activity potentially engaging?
• If it claims to be comprehensive, is the information in the site well organized?
They also post a set of questions to be answered for each of the topics. For example, theses four questions are suggested for judging accuracy: Does the site provide evidence that it comes from reputable sources? Does the site contain any obvious biases, errors, or misleading omissions in the document? Does the site contain advertising that might limit the nature of the content?
Is the information current and up-to-date?
Looking at these seven topics and related questions, I found these to be a great way to evaluate web resources.


21st Century Information Fluency, formerly a part of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, offers an evaluation wizard which I have used occasionally to evaluate web-resources. The on-line process walks the user through, step-by step, a method to evaluate a site.
To evaluate a site, its url had to be entered into a form. Then the evaluator is directed to select one of eight evaluation criteria: author, publisher, objectivity, links from, data accuracy, evidence and links to. After selecting one of the criteria, the site asks three to four guiding questions concerning the selected topic. Tutorials are also provided to assist in finding answers to these specific questions. A place for notes is also provided. Once the evaluation has been completed, a report can be printed, with all the notes that have been collected concerning that specific site.
So I decided to use the 21st Century Information fluency’s tutorial on the Evaluating Online Educational Materials for Use in Instruction site. The related report is pasted here:

Author:
Branch - Head of Tech Dept , U of Ga
Kim - author of several articles on technology.
Koenecke - author of articles on distance learning and on-line learning

Publisher:
Lorenzen - Ed d in library science - head of lib services at Central Michigan U. Michael Lorenzen

Objectivity: Objectivity appears to be present

Links From: links from go to a wide variety of related sites, both in and out of the web site.

Date: date can be found, but date does not affect the reliability of the overall information provided.

Accuracy: Facts along with grammar are accurate.

Evidence: Comments can be made on the author's blog which was last added to in May of 2009.

Links To: Links are reliable, and support article. This article has appeared in several bibliographies related to web source evaluation.

Looking at the report, I can honestly state that the original site, Evaluating Online Educational Materials for Use in Instruction, is a reliable source of information. This method of evaluation seems to be a real improvement over the “word-of-mouth” method.

The Value of Internet Resources in Education

The growth of the growth of education resources available via the internet has mirrored the growth of the internet. Sites are available for student practice, research, teacher lessons plans and professional development. Some of the sites have a subscription cost, while others are free, though supported by advertisements. In my home school, many teachers have come to rely upon these many resources.

The internet provides students immediate access to world and local news. Students can find out what is happening now, not having to wait for the evening news or reading the morning’s paper. Google news searches numerous world news sources for current stories. Postings for July 4, 2009 included “Biden in Iraq…” from 8 minutes ago (Reuters) and “Calm urged after N Korea launches missiles” (BBC News, 45 minutes ago.) As events occur, the rapidly become available on the internet.

Other sites offer information and opportunities that can bring social studies and science to life. The National Archives web site, www.archives.gov, offers photos of the most important documents of American history for study by students. The NASA web site, www.nasa.gov, provides students with current information about the planets, dwarf planets and other space related subjects.

Some teachers still feel the need for additional student “drill” to practice math facts. Sites such as Funbrain, www.funbrain.com, provide this type of drill, in a game setting, in which students practice facts, but play a game while completing the skill practice. The Math Forum, mathforum.org, offers math support for all grade levels, including high school and college. PBS Kids, pbskids.org, now focuses on activities for children from pre-K to Grade 3. The site provides activities, stories and printable pages based on many of their popular shows, including Arthur and Barney.








Blogs and wikis provide students with the opportunity to collaborate between rooms in a building and between schools. With Wikispaces, wikispaces.com, providing ad free wikis for education, the technology budget can be stretched that much further. Elluminate, elluminate.com, allows a few students to communicate in real time throuogh its white board and audio feeds. Skype, skype.com, lets a limited number of individuals communicate face-to-face at no cost. Many of the above mentioned sources are valuable for students and teachers.

There are also many sites that provide support for teachers. Recipes4Success, recipes4success.com, and Atomic Learning, http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/home, provide tutorials for teachers, some free, others at a subscription cost. Diigo, diigo.com, and delicious, delicious.com, provide a web based bookmark site. This lets teachers use their bookmarks in school. These sites and resources have become valuable tools for students and teachers.

The question becomes where do students access these resources? In the U.S. 67% of homes have internet access, but in some states, like North Carolina and Mississippi, this per cent drops to below 55%. School becomes THE place to access these resources.

Internet resources even have monetary value saving school districts money over the costs of encyclopedias, atlases and copies of Bartlett’s Book of Quotes. Yes the initial costs of accessing the internet are high, but over the long run schools may, indeed, save money.