Education Sites
Teaching with the World Wide Web
Lisa Leonor Grable, NC State
There are many possible ways to incorporate the use of the Web into the classroom. This is true whether the instructor has an active connection in the classroom or not. Of course, it can be more of an adventure and more fun if the instructor has the capability of allowing all the students to actively work on the Web. The World Wide Web can be thought of as a huge library of subject resources that can be used for research or interaction. Users of the Web will need to learn to discriminate between what is useful and accurate and what is not. We present here a few ideas for what can be done with the Web in the classroom.
Interaction
Students may use an online simulation to experiment or experience. These can be created with programming languages such as Java or Shockwave.
Example: Space Trak game from Science Junction
Portfolio
Students may write two-page papers to be included in a portfolio. Research can be done on the Web for papers and students should be encouraged to make proper citations in their references (see http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html). Students may write about the life of a historical figure or find activities to try at home.
Examples:
How to cite information from the Internet and Web
Pascal's Triangle
4000 Years of Women in Science
Class Web-zine
The students are divided into teams to work on different aspects of a topic. As the students write about the information they find, take pictures and video, and make drawings, they add this to a class magazine located on the Web. As each week of the unit passes, the table of contents grows as the class adds more information. The class could invite other classes to visit the "web-zine" and correspond about it.
Example: Ligon History Project, Ligon Middle School, Raleigh, NC
Problem Sets
Questions can be posted on a web page as homework assignments or practice tests. With the use of a special script and cgi-bin directory, students can send their answers to the instructor by filling out an on-line form.
Discussion Forum
Various forum formats exist which can be set up for on-line discussion of class topics. The instructor may assign using the forum similarly to journal writing. In this mode, everyone in the class will see each others' reflections. Each student may be required to post messages a certain number of times during the semester or a single student may be assigned each week to stimulate and lead discussion. See http://courses.forum.ncsu.edu/cgi-bin/netforum/sciteach/a/1 for an example.
Other Examples:
SciTeach Forum, used to promote communication in a senior class
General Listserv Information from NC State Computing Services, explains how an electronic list works
Cooperative Experiment
Students at different locations can do a laboratory at the same time and compare the results through the use of web pages.
Examples:
Water What-ifs, Science Junction, data submission
Sample submitted data
Solar Eclipse 1998 data from Science Junction, example of use of database
Talk to an Expert
Several sites provide a professional for students to talk to or ask questions. The following are examples: Teachers Connect Town Meeting, Smithsonian, VIMS, GLOBE Project, Scientific American.
Printed Web Pages
With the use of a color printer, the instructor can bring web pages into the classroom as overheads or bulletin board items. Data sets or graphic images are examples. This can help students with limited access to get a feeling for what is on the web. In addition, programs such as Web Buddy or Web Whacker enable the harvesting of websites to display on a computer without a live Internet hookup.
Example: 20th Century in Pictures from Corbis
Compare your region to another region
Students can collect gravitational field strength, historical information, or writings and photos and periodically check their results against results posted on the Web for other locations.
Example: Monu-Mental from MidLink magazine.
Worksheet
The instructor writes a web page which gives the web sites to visit for the lesson. The students are given a worksheet with questions to answer. The students' job is to visit the given websites to read and find answers to the worksheet questions. This activity is timed.
Scavenger Hunt
The instructor writes a question sheet for the students. This could contain review questions for a unit already finished or questions to begin a unit. It could contain questions from several units to use as an advanced organizer at the beginning of a quarter or semester. The students may use any search engines they wish to find the answers to the questions. They must give the answer in complete sentences and provide the URL of the page on which they found the answer (for an example, see the 1999 Science Olympiad at http://www.ncsu.edu/science_house/olympiad/questions99.html.) The instructor may wish to provide the students with keywords to use in their searching. This activity can be used to find simple facts but could also be used to bring in biography, history, and culture for a multidisciplinary experience.
Virtual Field Trips
Many sites on the web contain photographs, quicktime movies, and quicktime virtual reality movies. Students can visit a research lab, a museum, a national science center, historical site, or a remote location (such as the surface of Mars) to have a virtual experience.
Examples:
Moore Square, Raleigh
Which Way is North? from Science Junction
Virtual Tour of Ellis Island from Queensbury Middle School
More from the Web
The Web can be a great source of lesson plans and other resources created by teachers and others concerned with education.
Online Tools for Schools from NC State
American Memory from the Library of Congress
WebQuest on Spanish culture from Filamentality
