Concepts of Teaching With The Web
Since the first innovative teachers began bringing the Web into their classrooms, there have many different visions of how it would fit into teaching. This page is a short summary of some of the better concepts.
Internet Activity Structures
Judi Harris, who for many years has written about developing Internet activities for K-12 students, is the author of a book called "Virtual Architecture: Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecomputing". In that book, she outlines three broad catagories of Internet activities.
-
Interpersonal Exchanges include activities which involve communication between students and/or between students and adults. The primary purpose of these projects is to help students learn about other people, careers, and cultures. The activity structures in this catagory are keypals, global classrooms, electronic appearances, telementoring, question-and-answer activities and impersonations.
-
Information Collection and Analysis activities also involve communications but with more of a specific purpose. Students collaborate on joint projects with students and adults at other schools, businesses, governement offices and other organizations. The activity structures in this catagory are information exchanges, database creation, electronic publishing, telefieldtrips and pooled data analysis.
-
Problem Solving activities are the most involved and elaborate, and often the most rewarding, projects in which students can be involved. Again students use the resources of the Internet to work on solving specific problems, sometimes through communications with other student and adult groups. The activity structures in this catagory are information searches, peer feedback activities, parallel problem solving, sequential problem solving, telepresent problem solving, simulations and social action projects
WebQuest
Developed in 1995 by two San Diego State University professors Bernie Dodge and Tom March, the WebQuest concept has been used by thousands of teachers to create web-based projects. In general, a WebQuest is an open ended, inquiry-based project which uses the web as a primary (but not the only) information source for students to use. Very often, a project will require students to assume a particular role in order to complete the assignment. The final product of a WebQuest can vary from a simple written report to a formal presentation.
Article - Some Thoughts About Web Quests
CyberGuides
In some ways, CyberGuides are a subset of the WebQuest concept. However, all CyberGuides start with a specific book, usually fiction but not always, and require students complete one or more projects based on the book. These projects extend what students have read in the book by having them look at the history, culture and other aspects related to the topics and concepts. The CyberGuides linked from the main web page have all been written by classroom teachers and are keyed to the California language arts standards.
ThinkQuest
Rather than being designed by teachers, ThinkQuests are designed by teams of students. Sponsored by Oracle Corporation, the annual competition involves students between the ages of 9 and 19 who work in a team of three to six, supervised by a teacher-coach. Teams get approximately five months to work on their sites, focusing on their chosen topic area. The projects are all web sites which are designed to teach other students about a specific topic or concept. Although the official ThinkQuest program is a contest which awards prizes to the winning teams, the ThinkQuest model is an excellent format for teachers to use for student projects. All projects submitted which meet the minimum criteria are placed in the Think Quest Library.
