Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World Raymond Ross Boris RabovskyJohn WhiteMichelle Furlong

Information Seeking Research Tracy Burdick Activities are structured to accommodate different search styles by providing guidance and support at each level. Personalize the experience with topic choices and real-life assignments to motivate and involve students. Incorporate different types of writing (opinion, information gathering, news article) so students are exposed to a variety of styles.

Designing the Site When faced with the challenge of designing for a young demographic, many standard site designs render themselves ineffective. We found that simplifying our design technique and using more graphics which diverted attention to the content rather then to the graphic itself. The best way is to forget commercial web design and start from the idea that an 8 th grader has never seen a computer.

Assessment Measures Clear, descriptive Rubric used to guide the students in completing the final activity on the WebQuest: writing a newspaper article about the voyage of Shackleton and the Endurance. Embedded assessment to evaluate the success of the project. Polls appear on several pages throughout the site to measure the effectiveness of activities in achieving the goals. Given the choice to watch a movie about the Shackleton voyage or go on working on the website, 90% of the students continued to complete their WebQuest. Open ended questions administered by PLMA teacher to gather feedback from students on their opinions of WebQuest.