Instructional Apps of the Internet - June 28

Today I caught up on discussion board postings for the course.  I hadn't realize until now that there were discussions that I was expected to be posting in.  When I looked in the discussion boards I noticed that my peers had been actively discussing away!  Oops!

Blogging

I participated in the discussion for blogging today.  The main question was whether blogging as an educational tool is valuable because the blogger (student, we assume) takes more care into what they are typing because they know that it will be viewed by others (the instructor, classmates and even others!) and therefore is more involved in their thinking, understanding and learning, which leads to a greater level of understanding.  I agree with these theories.  Any time that a learner has the chance to discuss or summarize their thinking is beneficial, but when it takes place in a way that more people that just the teacher & the student can see, the need for quality postings (and therefore increased learning) increases.

I do believe that, like any instructional tool, blogging can be useless if not used effectively by the instructor.  If the instructor doesn't do something to guide the blogs, such as listing the topics for the weeks of the course and telling the students that those should be the primary sources of blogging, the blog can just become a worthless account of what the student is doing--not thinking.  For example, look back to my first paragraph.  Does it have any educational value for me (the poster) or you (the reader)?  What about the second paragraph?

WebQuests

I also participated in the discussions available on WebQuests, although I'm not sure if it was a required part of the course.  Regardless, some interesting and thought-provoking comments and resources were posted by my classmates that helped me understand WebQuests and develop thoughts on the finalization of my WebQuest for the assignment.

I see the value of WebQuests, at least the examples that I have seen thus far, as an organizational tool for doing projects that are similar to those that are already done in some classes.  It almost acts as a course management system for a certain unit or project, rather than an entire class.  I see this in the way that it contains steps for what is to be done and directions such as

• Visit this site and answer these 3 questions.
  
• Find the answer to this question on the internet.
• Visit this site and complete the included crossword puzzle.
• Write a paragraph explaining this concept.  Below are some websites that may be helpful.

In many ways these instructions are things that some teachers already have their students do, but the WebQuest presents the opportunity for an engaging, organized center for activities, tasks and assignments about a certain topic.

Instructional Applications of the Internet - June 22

Today I began working on getting caught up in my Instructional Applications of the Internet course.  I had not received an email introducing the course (NOTE: this turns out to have been due to my mistake...) and did not know what to get to work on.  Upon searching about the Vista site, I realized that I needed to get cracking on a WebQuest Proposal!

I decided to do my WebQuest on the different graphical representations that 8th Grade Math students (my students in particular!) need to be familiar with.  The students need to see uses of the graphs, need to know what graph is best for what circumstances and need to be able to derive conclusions and create arguments based on the graphs.  I felt that the best resource for these graphs would be the World Wide Web!  So, I will design a WebQuest that will give them the opportunity to find different types of graphs on the internet, explain why it is the appropriate type of graph for the situation and explain a conclusion that could be arrived at from the graph.