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Welcome to WebTech! We are
going to be doing some exciting things together! I hope each class
session will make you anxious to get back to school and implement the
wonderful activities and projects you develop. We will be creating and
implementing a variety of Web-based projects and activities including a Scavenger Hunt,
WebQuest and a Class Home page. In addition, we will be participating in a
number of Internet projects and activities. Therefore, we need you
to do a little "preplanning" before you arrive on Day 1.
The more preplanning you complete in advance, the more you will be able to
accomplish during our seven training days together.
Please take a moment to respond to the
Middle Grades WebTech Discussion Group.
Building Blocks |
Day 1
Prep | Day 2 Prep | Day 3 Prep |
FrontPage
Building Blocks
- in picture
format
WebTech is based on six areas
fundamentally important to teaching with the Web:
Research
Communication
Resources
Online Activities
Internet Projects
Web Publishing
Day 1 Prep: Scavenger Hunt
A Scavenger Hunt is a list of questions for students to research on the Web.
Teachers should use scavenger hunts when they want students to gain some solid
knowledge on a topic! The basic strategy is to find Web pages that
hold the information you feel is essential to understanding a given
topic.
The scavenger hunt includes a list of links
to exact pages--not the home page of a huge Web site--for students to use to conduct their research. This helps to focus student research and to prevent students from
wasting class time searching unproductively on the Web.
To challenge students to
think at higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, teachers should include a "Big
Question". Including a culminating "Big Question"
allows students to synthesize what they have learned and shape it into a
broader understanding of the total picture.
To prepare for the Scavenger Hunt you will be publishing on
Day 1, click on the following link to see some examples.
Scavenger
Hunt Examples
Model your
scavenger hunt after this one.
Complete the following and come prepared to publish your Scavenger Hunt on
Day 1.
1. Develop an idea for your Scavenger Hunt.
2. Write a rough draft of 5 or 6 questions.
3. Write down the Web sites you plan to use.
4. Install and play around with
Microsoft FrontPage.
Day 2 Prep: WebQuest
A WebQuest is an
inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that
learners interact with comes from resources on the Web. A
well-written Webquest demands that students go beyond fact-finding.
It asks them to analyze a variety of resources and use their
creativity and critical-thinking skills to derive solutions
to a problem. The problem is often “real world”—that is, one that
needs a genuine and reasonable solution.
Basic Premise:
-
Challenge students with
AUTHENTIC tasks
-
Provide them with an
abundance of RESOURCES
-
Support higher level
thinking through ACTIVE learning
(Verb
List)
-
Work together
COLLABORATIVELY
Short Term WebQuests:
-
Instructional goal is
knowledge acquisition and integration.
-
Learner will grapple with
a significant amount of new information and make sense of it.
-
Completed in one to three
class periods.
Long Term WebQuests:
-
Instructional goal is to
extend and refine knowledge.
-
Learner analyzes a body of
knowledge deeply, transforms it in some way, and demonstrates an
understanding of the material by creating some end product.
-
Completed in one week to
one month.
Critical Attributes:
There is questionable educational benefit in having learners surf the
net without a clear task and most schools ration student connect time
severely. To achieve efficiency and clarity of purpose, WebQuests should
contain the following parts:
- An introduction that sets the
stage and provides some background information.
- A task that is doable and
interesting.
Discuss the
Taskonomy of Tasks - In
Pictures!
- A set of resources needed to
complete the task. Many (though not necessarily all) of the resources
are embedded in the WebQuest document itself as anchors pointing to
information on the World Wide Web.
Information sources might include:
- web documents
- experts available via e-mail or
realtime conferencing
- searchable databases on the net
- books and other documents physically
available in the learner's setting
Because pointers to resources are
included, the learner is not left to wander through webspace completely
adrift.
- A description of the process
the learners should go through in accomplishing the task. The teacher
suggests steps that the learner should go through in completing the
task. It may include:
- strategies for dividing the task
into subtasks
- descriptions of roles to be played
or perpectives to be taken by each learner
- how to conduct a brainstorming
session.
- how to organize the information
acquired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or directions
to complete organizational frameworks such as timelines, concept maps,
or cause-and-effect diagrams as described by Marzano (1988, 1992) and
Clarke (1990).
Discuss Scaffolding:
- Scaffold - temporary structure used to
help learners act more skilled than they really are (Dodge, 2001).
- To justify the expense of using the
web for learning, we need to include an evaluation component in
order to measure results. Since the learning we're looking for is at the
loftier reaches of Bloom's Taxonomy, we can't gauge it with (readily) a
multiple-choice test. An evaluation rubric is in order!!!
- A conclusion that brings
closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned,
and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other domains.
To prepare for the WebQuest
you will be publishing on Day 2, click on the following links to learn
more about WebQuests and to see examples created by other teachers!
WebQuest Information
Sample WebQuests
WebQuest Matrix
Complete the following and come prepared to publish your WebQuest on Day 2.
1. Develop an idea for your WebQuest.
2. Write a rough draft of all 6 components.
3. Write down the Web sites you plan to use.
Day 3 Prep: Class Home Page
To prepare for the Class Home Page
you will be developing, click on the following links to see what other
Middle Grades teachers have done:
Side Bar Format -
School Mascot Theme
Image Map -
Curriculum Theme (Language Arts)
Table Format -
Curriculum Theme (Math)
Side Bar and Image Map -
Mr. Counter's Class Home Page
Table Format -
Mrs. Slanovits 6th Grade Class Page
Table Format -
Mrs. Grass' 6th Grade Class Page
Side Bar -
Creating Worlds - Mr. Rosetti's 8th Grade L. A. Class
Table Format -
Home Page of Mr. McAllister
Mrs. Basilio's Geography and Social Studies Web Page
Table Format -
Mrs. DeCosa's English Home Page
Mr. Kinder's Class Home Page
Table Format -
Macon State College Middle WebTech Home Page
(Thanks Monica)
After exploring the links above, complete the following:
1. Storyboard a rough layout for your Class
Web site. You must have a link for each of the following items: (Sample
Storyboard)
Newsletter (Parent's Page)
Calendar
Scavenger Hunt
WebQuest
KeyPals
Internet Projects
Student Publishing
Newsgroup
E-mail
Online Quizzes
Internet Links
Counter
Credits
Other items to be included
on your Class Web site:
Graphics Disclaimer
Page Update
Menu System
If you have time to locate some graphics for use on your home page, try the following link:
School
Graphics - Backgrounds, clipart, and more!
Clip
Art/Graphics
2. Decide on a background for your class home page. Use the link below:
Backgrounds for Class Home Pages
3. Write a rough draft of a calendar for your class.
Sample Calendar
#1 (monthly)
Sample Calendar #2 (monthly)
Sample Calendar #3 (yearly)
4. Write a rough draft of a newsletter for your class.
Sample Newsletter #1
Sample
Newsletter #2
Sample Parent's Page
5. Install the
sidebar template.
Yahoo - Set up an e-mail account.
FrontPage:
FrontPage 2003 can be purchased
from Sonny Rogalevich, CDW for $86 (shipping $9.99).
Sonny Rogalevich
Government / Education Account Manager
CDW*G, Inc Computing solutions built for Government & Education
Direct Phone Toll Free: 877-685-9672
Direct Fax: 847-419-8678
Email: sonnrog@cdwg.com
Web Address: <http://www.cdwg.com/>
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