Lindley Graham

 Examine the effectiveness of using wikis in facilitating teaching and learning

 Introduction: This is the most important part of the webquest. In the introduction, students are given the “hook” to create interest and are prepared for the purpose of the activity.

 Task: The task focuses learners on what they are going to do with the Webquest. The task very clearly describes the students end result.

 Process: The steps student will take to accomplish the task are laid out in the process section of the webquest. The process tells students what action steps will be taken, what online resources will be used, and how students should organize the collected data.

 Evaluation: The explanation of the evaluation (assessment) criteria is important for the students to know. This is generally given to students in the form of a rubric.

 Conclusion: The conclusion brings closure and encourages student reflection. This is where students complete an assignment, are give homework, or select activities they can do as extensions, to learn more about the topic.

 Teacher’s Page: This optional conclusion to the Webquest is to help other teachers with their implementation of your Webquest. In this section, information such as targeted learners, core standards, and examples of student work can be included.

 Select a topic from your subject area and use the following to develop a lesson: a. Webquest (Using Zunal or PowerPoint) b. Digital Story  Teachers must export the site into a Word document.

 Determine the effectiveness of using blogs in the teaching /learning environment.  Create and publish a blog for use in instruction.  Review using Format Factory and Embedding a video

 Use a range of Internet search tools to locate resources to support individualized or collaborative teaching and learning activities;  Evaluate and select web-based resources to enrich teaching and learning activities;  Plan an activity that will allow students to utilize suitable web-based resources to promote concept learning.

 A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

 Personal blogs: an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual  Corporate and organizational blogs: enhance the communication and culture in a corporation  By genre: focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs  By media type: vlog, linklog, sketchblog, photoblog  By device: defined by which type of device is used to compose it

Mrs. Brown wants the Grade 8 students in her Spanish Class to have an immersion experience where they go to a Spanish speaking country and interact with native speakers. This is a requirement for all Grade 8 students of Walter Fletcher High. Before she plans the trip, she needs to motivate the students to begin to learn some basic conversational Spanish. Mrs. Brown has read that technology can assist with the teaching of Spanish. She has a personal blog and wondered whether this might not be a way of helping students to use Spanish but is not sure if this might be the solution to her problem.

 In groups, develop some strategies, using blogs, which you would suggest that Mrs. Brown could use to assist her.

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 A secondary school teacher, Mr. Murray, heard his colleagues talking about useful websites that they found that made lesson planning easier. These teachers got great ideas for lesson activities and when the time came for their class to use the computer lab; their students were engaged and captivated by the web-based activities! The students agreed that doing these kinds of activities helped them to understand difficult concepts and made learning fun. Mr. Murray wondered how he could locate resources in a timely manner that would help him with lesson planning, capture and maintain the interest of students, and help students achieve objectives. Mr. Murray’s colleague suggested that the way to go about finding what he needs is to search diligently; just keep searching. The problem with this, however, he thought was that he had only a limited period of time for searching. He needed an efficient way to enhance the quality of his activities. He tried getting from other colleagues, terms that they used in their searching to get what they wanted.

 How can Mr. Murray approach searching the Web in a more systematic and efficient manner?

 Search Engines - A Web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.  General – Google and Yahoo  Visual – Cuil and Viewzi

 Analyse your topic to help you decide which key words you will enter in the search box.  Ask the following questions:  Does the topic have a unique word or phrase? If yes, type the word or phrase in quotation marks e.g. “ionic bonding”  Does the topic have several words with no characteristic words or phrases? If yes, enter more than one term in quotation marks to get a shorter list.

 Be flexible and feel free to change the key words as you browse the search results.

 Try a subject directory if the search engine is not yielding suitable results.  Subject Directories - A subject directory is a catalogue of websites organized by humans.  Explore the following subject directories  Librarians' Internet Index Infomine infomine.ucr.edu About.com  Google Directory directory.google.com Yahoo! dir.yahoo.comdirectory.google.comdir.yahoo.com  Encyclopedias:  Smithsonian Institute  Encyclopedia Article Center

 Meta-Search Engines – Search tools that transmit your search simultaneously to several individual search engines and their databases of web pages  Clusty  Dogpile  Task Visit the following website and read about the features of selected meta-search engines.  net/MetaSearch.html net/MetaSearch.html  Type key words into the search box and observe the kinds of pages that are generated.

 If you are using Google, to help you refine your search help and find websites in an efficient manner, visit Google Help: Cheat Sheet:  The “Cheat Sheet” gives a description of the kinds of pages would be returned if you entered key words in the search box in a particular format.

 Using the websites you identified, design a lesson activity involving the use of web-based resources that students could do to promote concept learning and achievement of named lesson objective(s).  Identify the features of the web-based resources that can facilitate the attainment of specific lesson objectives.  Use the lesson plan template provided to guide the lesson design. You may also refer to examples at

Phase of lesson DescriptionToolAdvantageous feature of tool PlanningInvolves researching and collecting relevant resources including visuals and data ImplementingCarrying out the steps in a lesson; using maps, charts activity sheets etc for facilitating teaching and learning RelatingFacilitating teacher to student and student- student interaction during instruction Assessing

CategoryWebsite Suggestion for use in a lesson (Include CSEC objective) Lesson Plan Worksheet Puzzle-maker software Test-maker or Test creator Videos Interactive tutorial Quizzes Puzzles Games Web quests Concept maps

WebsitesCriteria AccuracyAuthorityObjectivityCurrencyCoverage Total Value Comments 1. 2.

 Accuracy  Is there an author?  Is the purpose stated?  Are the qualifications of the author listed?  Objectivity . What is the nature of the opinions?  Is the Information detailed enough?  Are goals/objectives stated?  Authority  Is there a publisher?  Is the domain given?  Are the qualifications of the publisher given?  Currency  a. Is there a publication date?  b. When last was the site updated?  c. Are the links up-to-date?

 Coverage  Are the links evaluated?  Is there balance between text & images?  Is the information presented cited accurately?