EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL MODELS: INTERNET WORKSHOP, INTERNET PROJECT, INTERNET INQUIRY, AND WEBQUESTS

As you use these instructional frameworks to integrate the new literacies of the Internet into your classroom, you will thoughtfully guide students’ learning within information environments that are richer and more complex, presenting richer and more complex learning opportunities. Each instructional model we present enables you to support the acquisition of new literacies in your classroom while you also teach important content information.

Teaching with the Internet: Sharee Mendoza’s Class

Dinosaur Mailing List is a mailing list for educators and others interested in exchanging information about dinosaurs. It is run by The Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

MIDDLE-L Mailing List is a mailing list managed by the ECAP (Early Childhood and Parenting Collaborative) at the University of Illinois.

Connected Teacher Email List this list is an area where teachers post questions about integrating the Internet into their classroom and read to learn what others are doing.

ICYouSee Guide to Critical Thinking teaches how to critically evaluate Internet information through several guided experiences with websites.

Critical Evaluation Information is collection of resources compiled by Kathy Schrock to help students of all ages learn to become better consumers of content they read on all types of websites. One tip offered is to require students to cross-reference claims from several sources before accepting them as accurate.

Citing Internet Resources provides templates to assist students in referencing information found on the Web.

The Museum of Hoaxes Weblog prompts discussion about the many hoaxes that appear on the Internet.

Several teachers sent along their favorite sites with extensive and well organized links to dinosaur resources including:

Walking with Dinosaurs developed by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).  Lots of games, puzzles, and activities.  Be certain to listen to the T-Rex and other dinosaurs!

Dino Russ’s Lair is an amazingly exhaustive set of links developed by a geologist working at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Zoomdinosaurs.com site contains exceptional resources for the classroom study of dinosaurs.

The Paleo Ring is a Webring, or collection of sites connected to one another, about dinosaurs.

Sue at The Field Museum explains how a new T-Rex is being conserved.

Dinosaur Treks is a ThinkQuest award-winning site created by a high school team. Students go on several exciting journeys to study dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Eggs takes students on a hunt for dinosaur eggs, and then shows how these are “hatched” by researchers who wish to study the embryos inside.

Webquests are complete lesson experiences on the Internet, usually developed by other teachers following a WebQuest model. Visit these dinosaur webquest locations:

Here Come the Dinosaurs Travel back through time to learn about prehistoric life in the time of the dinosaurs. Discover the size, shape, movement, and diet of various species. As students navigate through these resources they will group dinosaurs by their likenesses and differences. Also included links to extinction, fossils and dinosaur riddles.

Dinosaur WebQuest Students will use scientific inquiry to uncover why certain birds that inhabited the earth with dinosaurs were in danger of extinction. Students will trace back the ancestry of these birds to recover their DNA and save the species.

Dinosaurs Students gather information about a dinosaur of their choice in order to make a case for bringing their species back to life in the present day. Students collect facts and create a presentation to convince a local University that their dinosaur would be the best choice to inhabit our world.

Mad Scientists Network is a site where students read answers to previous questions. If their question has not been answered, have them send it via email. A paleontologist will answer it. Have students generate and exchange puzzles.

Puzzlemaker at the Discovery Channel site allows teachers and students to quickly generate their own word searches, crossword puzzles, as well as many other different types of word games and print each one out.

Sharee had decided to begin with an Internet Workshop around the critical thinking skills central to effective Internet use found at ICYouSee Guide to Critical Thinking.  She also decided to use Internet Workshop with the journal activity, “Digging for Dinosaurs.” She set a bookmark for Walking with Dinosaurs and for Dino Russ’s Lair for this experience. Set a bookmark for Yahooligans to provide independent exploration time in an area of the Web that would be safe for your students.

E-MAIL FOR YOU From: Jill Newcomb newcomb@voyager.net Cindy Ross jross@sunny.ncmc.cc.mi.us Subject: My Hero Project For our first experience using the Internet in the classroom, we decided to choose a small group to work on an activity called “Heroes.” We used two websites: My Hero and The Giraffe Project We are looking forward to other activities using the Internet in the classroom. Jill Newcomb newcomb@voyager.net Cindy Ross jross@sunny.ncmc.cc.mi.us Ottawa Elementary School Petosky, Michigan

Using Internet Workshop in Your Classroom

Kids Web Japan  invites students to make their own discoveries and then bring these to the workshop session at the beginning of the unit.

Stories from the Titantic this is a simulation, organized within an Internet Workshop model.  Students conduct research on a Titantic survivor, learn the story of this survivor, and then present testimony about what happened to the Senate subcommittee that investigates this disaster.

The Particle Adventure, developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is perfect for an Internet Workshop experience for a class in physics.

Using Internet Project in your Classroom

Examples of website Internet projects and their locations:

Flat Stanley Project

NASA Interactive Internet Projects

Global Virtual Classroom

Earth Day Groceries

Human Genetics

The Albatross Project

Global Schoolhouse Projects Registry

Monarch Watch

Mind's Eye Monster Project

International Boiling Point Project

Collaborative Projects

E-MAIL FOR YOU From: Beverley Powell (bpowell@ican.net), Ottawa, Canada Subject: “GrassRoots”—tomorrow’s socialization instrument   GrassRoots is a blossoming feature of Canada’s world-class SchoolNet Spontaneous Internet Projects to Join Are Listed at: Oz Projects Global SchoolNet’s Internet Project Registry SchoolNet’s Grassroots Project Gallery Intercultural Email Classroom Connections

Using WebQuest in Your Classroom

The WebQuest model is quickly appearing on the Internet as teachers develop and organize lessons. As a result, you can find many different varieties; some tend to focus on specific learning tasks and do not always include the collaborative aspects found in Internet Workshop.

• WebQuest Page provides examples of webquests for grades K-12.   One of these is the wonderful database of webquests created by teachers in the Saskatoon (East) School Division in Canada.

Citation Strategies for Internet References

•Learning Page of the Library of Congress: Citing Electronic Sources - This resource provides examples of how to cite the wide variety of media now available to our students. It also contains links to other citation style resources on the Internet.

•Another link to many different citation guides is located at the Internet Public Library’s, Citing Electronic Resources. 

Visit the collection of collaborative projects developed by Susan Silverman in New York at Mrs. Silverman’s Webfolio.  You can find an example of a project description by visiting the "About this Project link" for the Online Autumn project. The beauty of Susan’s style of Internet Project is that each project results in rich curricular resources developed by classrooms around the world that then become available for all of us to use. Are you interested in having your class read the fall poetry of other primary grade children? Visit Online Autumn. Is your class doing a unit on apples or pumpkins with your young students? Visit Pumpkin Patch or An Apple a Day.

INTEGRATING NEW LITERACIES WITHIN
INSTRUCTIONAL MODELS

A Final Word

As you begin to incorporate the Internet into your classroom, making it an integral part of teaching and learning, you will develop new ideas and new ways of teaching. We encourage you to share these ideas with other teachers who are also learning about this new resource for education. We suspect the Internet will have its greatest impact on teaching and learning through the new ideas that teachers share with one another and the new connections that are formed between teachers and students around the world.

Additional Instructional Resources on the Internet

Busy Teachers’ Web Site—Great locations to wonderful sites organized by subject area. A wonderful resource for teaching ideas and curricular resources.

Civil War Photograph Collection—This site at the Library of Congress contains over 1,000 photographs from the Civil War, many by Mathew Brady.

Digital Dozen— Each month the 12 best sites for K-12 math and science are carefully selected by the team at the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Math and Science and posted here.

Geometry Problem of the Week—Part of the exceptional Math Forum site, this location provides you and your students with a challenging geometry problem to solve each week.

Global Grocery List—This Internet Project site allows your students to engage in computation, analysis, and conclusion-building for social studies, science, and mathematics.  Students share local grocery prices to build a growing table of data form around the world.

Reading Online - This is the International Reading Association’s free electronic journal. In addition to great articles and a discussion forum, this site contains resources for teachers, including lists of Internet projects, useful websites, and tips for technology use.

The Biology Project— A central site for all high school biology teachers.   Problem sets and tutorials in: biochemistry, cell biology, developmental biology, human biology, chemicals and human health, and much more. Some sections are also in Spanish.

The Constitution: A Living Document— A complete unit with lesson plans, activities, and evaluations for students in Grades 6–8 who are studying this important U.S. document. 

The Exploratorium—A palace of hands-on science learning in San Francisco, this site makes outstanding interactive adventures in science available to the world. A great location for science, fun, and learning.

The ThinkQuest Library—  Here you will find over 5,000 websites created by students from around the world who entered the competitions for web lessons sponsored by ThinkQuest. Spend some time looking for exactly what you need for your class. Then, consider entering a project from your own school!

The Nine Planets Tour— This is the best tour through the solar system that exists. At each stop, beautiful photographs of each planetary object are displayed along with information about the object. Short sound clips and videos are also available. Many links take you to related sites. A wonderful journey!

The United Nations Cyber Schoolbus—  Is your class studying the United Nations? Visit this site developed by the UN. Take a field trip to the United Nations, explore the mission of this organization, and find teaching ideas. Many classroom activities.

VolcanoWorld— Study volcanoes around the world, talk to a vulcanologist, obtain realtime data on active volcanoes, and many more fun activities for kids and adults.

Online Communities for Teaching With the Internet

EDInfo Updates from the US Department of Education. Subscription address: listproc@inet.ed.gov or go to http://www.ed.gov/ index and click on Ed Newsletters and check the EDInfo box.

Recent messages: http://www.ed.gov/MailingLists/EDInfo/index.html

Archives: http://www.ed.gov/MailingLists/EDInfo/Archive/ index.html

EDTECH - Here is a list with an extraordinarily large (3,500) number of subscribers who discuss K-12 issues of technology use in schools. The list is especially useful if you have questions about new technologies and new literacies that are entering schools. The archives may be viewed from the link to “Discussion Logs” on the homepage.

Subscription address: http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe

Homepage: http://www.h-net.org/~edweb/

K12ADMIN - A mailing list for K-12 administrators, but the conversations focus largely on instructional issues. Over 1,000 members.

Subscription address: listserv@listserv.syr.edu

Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/k12admin.html

RTEACHER - A forum for conversations about literacy in both traditional and electronic contexts.  This is a very supportive list and diverse group of educators interested in using the Internet for literacy education. They also discuss nonInternet aspects of literacy education.

Subscription address: listserv@bookmark.reading.org

Homepage: http://www.reading.org/virtual/rt_listserv.html

Archives: http://www.reading.org/archives/rteacher.html

Teachnet T2T -  Exchanging ideas, articles, research, experiences, and questions about teaching

Subscription address: majordomo@t2tforum.com

Homepage: http://www.teachnet.com/t2t/

WWWEDU - A moderated discussion list with over 1600 members from 35 countries. Focuses on the use of the WWW in education.

Subscription: www.edu-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Homepage: http://www.edwebproject.org/wwwedu.html

Archives: http://www.edwebproject.org/wwwedu.html

K12-AUP - Acceptable Use Policies Discussion

Subscription address: majordomo@merit.edu