Sunday, November 30, 2008
Link: Library Standards UK
This is an amazing document chocked full of ideas for the high school library. It is a UK hand book for library development. This is a keeper!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
WebQuest Reflection
K. Smith
EC4 Webquest Reflection
About ten years ago I saw the word WebQuest on a conference booklet. My first impression was that it was a fun tool aimed at elementary teachers. I thought at the time that it would not be worth pursuing because we were, “Oh, so much more sophisticated...” in high school and did not have time for such computer games. I have totally changed my mind since. I completely embraced the wrong attitude, such a dangerous thing when new ideas are tabled.
WebQuests are far from trivial experiences. At the time, I felt they did not link to my goal of learning about best practices and brain science. They are certainly a best practice activity, problem solving, higher order thinking skills etc. Since then, and more so even now I realize they are perfect best practice activities. It is important to give things a second chance to new strategies, to take a second look. I finally created one a couple of years ago and now after some research I can see how it could have been made more engaging after reading quite a few more for this assignment. It did work extremely well in my English class. Unfortunately, I have missed quite a few opportunities to explore WebQuests because of my initial reaction. From now one when I dismiss something I am going to jot it down to research later and really make sure I want to dismiss the idea. Students do this all the time and they seem to miss out on so many opportunities when they do this.
Giving WebQuests a second chance has lead me to see many positive results from them. The students seem very engaged in their work when following a WebQuest. I think they are naturally forced to read more which I am sure can help reading skills. They seem to take them more places and learn more things than just the requirement of the assignment. Besides they are manipulating material in a technological environment so technological objectives can be fulfilled while learning subject area content. I did however experience some of the common problems so that is why I have not used them as much as I would like. Students seem to ask questions if they do not find the answer right away. Sometimes they seem to get frustrated with the natural abiguity that arises from some of the experiences. I now see this is all the more reason to have them more engaged in these problem solving activities. I think they need to learn to learn and live with uncertainty. My Teacher Inquiry project is less “certain” than my project on podcasting for Librarianship Part 2, and I have found by exploring things with more questions than answers, sometimes takes me deeper and certainly takes me to a place of more reflection and thinking. I feel I may be more on the critical edge of learning.
I feel now with the virtual library it will be much easier to create WebQuests. The one I made in collaboration with another teacher a couple of years ago was not done with the aid of the Virtual Library. We had some trouble with links changing quickly. I was trying to decide why I had not used WebQuest more in my classroom, and I realize that many of our assignments in English at Eastwood have almost become WebQuests. We often add links for the students to respond through multiple tasks that lead to a final product. I believe many of our assignments here online with York are really WebQuests. I do think tweaking some of our assignments at Eastwood using some of the WebQuest principles and organization will make them better. Certainly using online WebQuests created by others is a boon. True WebQuest really utilize higher order thinking skills and herein lies the craft.
I noticed under professional resources in the virtual library there are now a 123 articles linked to just the word WebQuest. They are definitely a mainstream activity. All new teachers seem to be arriving on our doorstep with such knowledge.
I think web tools for creating webquests will become very helpful to teachers making them. Here is one I found:
http://google.com/notebook/#b=BDQ18DAoQm77P2d4j I have not worked with it. Even a wiki might be very good for a WebQuest.
Generally I think formatting content in an engaging experience like a WebQuest is simply just good teaching on the web. I so like that it really can incorporate a lot of the inquiry process. I think, like anything worth while, it takes practice to make it work effectively, but probably is well worth the time. Web learning is here to stay and growing by the minute. We can all learn from a decade of experience and build on a great tradition.
Used this for a brief overview:
Rudolph, T. (2004, September). The Wonderful World of WebQuests. Music Education Technology, 2(3), 32-50. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from Education Research Complete database.
EC4 Webquest Reflection
About ten years ago I saw the word WebQuest on a conference booklet. My first impression was that it was a fun tool aimed at elementary teachers. I thought at the time that it would not be worth pursuing because we were, “Oh, so much more sophisticated...” in high school and did not have time for such computer games. I have totally changed my mind since. I completely embraced the wrong attitude, such a dangerous thing when new ideas are tabled.
WebQuests are far from trivial experiences. At the time, I felt they did not link to my goal of learning about best practices and brain science. They are certainly a best practice activity, problem solving, higher order thinking skills etc. Since then, and more so even now I realize they are perfect best practice activities. It is important to give things a second chance to new strategies, to take a second look. I finally created one a couple of years ago and now after some research I can see how it could have been made more engaging after reading quite a few more for this assignment. It did work extremely well in my English class. Unfortunately, I have missed quite a few opportunities to explore WebQuests because of my initial reaction. From now one when I dismiss something I am going to jot it down to research later and really make sure I want to dismiss the idea. Students do this all the time and they seem to miss out on so many opportunities when they do this.
Giving WebQuests a second chance has lead me to see many positive results from them. The students seem very engaged in their work when following a WebQuest. I think they are naturally forced to read more which I am sure can help reading skills. They seem to take them more places and learn more things than just the requirement of the assignment. Besides they are manipulating material in a technological environment so technological objectives can be fulfilled while learning subject area content. I did however experience some of the common problems so that is why I have not used them as much as I would like. Students seem to ask questions if they do not find the answer right away. Sometimes they seem to get frustrated with the natural abiguity that arises from some of the experiences. I now see this is all the more reason to have them more engaged in these problem solving activities. I think they need to learn to learn and live with uncertainty. My Teacher Inquiry project is less “certain” than my project on podcasting for Librarianship Part 2, and I have found by exploring things with more questions than answers, sometimes takes me deeper and certainly takes me to a place of more reflection and thinking. I feel I may be more on the critical edge of learning.
I feel now with the virtual library it will be much easier to create WebQuests. The one I made in collaboration with another teacher a couple of years ago was not done with the aid of the Virtual Library. We had some trouble with links changing quickly. I was trying to decide why I had not used WebQuest more in my classroom, and I realize that many of our assignments in English at Eastwood have almost become WebQuests. We often add links for the students to respond through multiple tasks that lead to a final product. I believe many of our assignments here online with York are really WebQuests. I do think tweaking some of our assignments at Eastwood using some of the WebQuest principles and organization will make them better. Certainly using online WebQuests created by others is a boon. True WebQuest really utilize higher order thinking skills and herein lies the craft.
I noticed under professional resources in the virtual library there are now a 123 articles linked to just the word WebQuest. They are definitely a mainstream activity. All new teachers seem to be arriving on our doorstep with such knowledge.
I think web tools for creating webquests will become very helpful to teachers making them. Here is one I found:
http://google.com/notebook/#b=BDQ18DAoQm77P2d4j I have not worked with it. Even a wiki might be very good for a WebQuest.
Generally I think formatting content in an engaging experience like a WebQuest is simply just good teaching on the web. I so like that it really can incorporate a lot of the inquiry process. I think, like anything worth while, it takes practice to make it work effectively, but probably is well worth the time. Web learning is here to stay and growing by the minute. We can all learn from a decade of experience and build on a great tradition.
Used this for a brief overview:
Rudolph, T. (2004, September). The Wonderful World of WebQuests. Music Education Technology, 2(3), 32-50. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from Education Research Complete database.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Web distractions
I have begun to worry that the web is distracting me from my work. Bernie Dodge also had the same worry: "And so, what we joked about in 1994 has come to pass. No matter how obscure and unimportant something is, someone else is thinking about it and there’s a place for it out there on the web. I’m not sure whether I should savor the fact that the web is preserving and reinforcing every single bit of wackiness and kitsch in the culture, or worry anew that the web is distracting us from important things." Yet, I find myself quite relaxed and with a big smile on my fact from all the humour and wackiness...perhaps now more productive now.
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