Final Photo Story

Web Quest Link!

Native Americans meet the English!

Blog Question

What new things (food, weapons, illnesses, animals, etc.) did the English bring to the Native American culture when they landed in Colonial North America?

Elementary WebQuest

Best ones: Grow School Green and Unraveling the Underground Railroad
Worst ones: Where is my hero and Ancient Egypt Webquest

Best means that there are clear outlines in the directions with clear indications of the end results. A good WebQuest will state what each group will do and will contail the process in which it is to be done. The pages should contain interesting graphics and also a rubric that is easy to understand and simply outlined.

Worst means that there is no clear indication of the assignement. When it WebQuest is read, there is confusion of the different steps. If the assignment is too simple it is boring to do so the students won't be challenged. If the rubric isn't clear then the students won't know what they are expected to do.

Affiliator

Your Role

___Efficiency Expert

ü  Affiliator

___Altitudinist

___Technophile

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	The students are to work in groups to visit different websites that promote saving the gorillas. There is a lot of opportunity for group projects.	The content is really easy for secondary education. Group members could get bored easily.
Shakespeare	There are different research responsibilities that each individual group member can be assigned and the research is divided up evenly.	No weaknesses found for group work.
Earthquake	Allows all group members to put together ideas and experiences that will work to create a sound structure. Students ideas can grow off of other student’s ideas.	Work seems to be unevenly distributed. Students get to choose their own partners.
Foreign Country	There is a contest with the lesson, gives students incentive to do their best work. All the criteria for assignment is listed and listed again to clear confusion.	Roles for each group member are not clearly defined. How the group will be assigned is missing.
Waves and soung	An abundance if info to work with.	Not given a clear explanation of the assignment. No group activities listed. No explanation on how to divide work.

Thoughts on the Top 10 Wiki

I remember doing something that is similiar to this activity in my elem. school. We didn't however use any internet resources to compile or gather our info. We used books from the library or our science textbooks and information that our teacher gathered beforehand for us. I remember her setting different areas for us to learn about and having to find a specific number of things for each. For our final presentation of our animals we gave reports on the things we learned and showed pictues from the books we had.

This assignment goes along with my hands on learning style. My learning style is to learn by doing hands on things. By adding all the info that is expected to be added I am physically going out and searching for this info. Then I physically have to type it in. That covers two different ways to learn that I actually have to do something to get the info.

I am not surprised that there were no text books used in this assignment. In this technology age, text books are not really needed to teach things. Most things that are needed can be found on the internet. Sometimes the things found are even more interesting and more dynamic than that is found in the texts!

The only thing that worries me about this assignment are the students abilities to use technology to find and use the info. Most students today are on computers every chance they get. However, some of the low ses families do not have anytime access to computers so they are more slow to use them effecitively.

Views on Blogging

Keeping a blog for a course is a new experience for me. I would rather do assignments and projects that work with technology instead of using a text book and paper to just write things down. By using blogs, we have more freedom to personalize our assignments and use our individual experiences and knowledge and to be creative as well. The only difficult thing is that it constantly needs updated. Student's lives are extremely busy in this era. Most of us work and go to school and still try to find a balance between life and our school life. Always having to update my blog can be stressful when I have a hundred other things to do.

Keeping a blog as a teacher is something that I think I will be doing. By having one, you can keep a record of lessons that have worked out well for you in the past. Teachers keeping blogs also makes it easier to collaborate with other teachers and find ways to make lessons more fun or learn about new lesson ideas.

Having a blog has definitely expanded my collective intelligence when it comes to media. Looking at other students blogs gives me alternate views on topics and also teaches me new things. Being able to respond to their ideas can open their eyes to new ideas as well.