Working with a partner....
Choose a topic that you might use with learners in your future teaching practice. Every lesson or learning activity is driven by goals and objectives that will lead to student learning. Determine what you want students to learn from this activity and use that information to choose web pages and write questions.
Go to Filamentality and follow the steps to register your topic.
Click on "Add Links" at the bottom of the page.
Use your search/evaluation skills to search the Internet for links to sites with good information on the topic. Be sure that the information on the sites can be read comfortably by students at the targeted grade level. Collect ten links. It is best to do this by opening a second browser window and keeping Filamentality open at the same time. Copy the URL for the page into your list. Type in the title and a brief description for each site (This will be very helpful in the next step). To continue adding more links, click again on "Add More Links" at the bottom of the page. When you have all of your links, click on "Hunt" at the bottom of the page to save and move on. If you need to make changes in a link, click on "Edit Links" at the bottom of the page. When you have completed the list of links, click on "Hunt" at the bottom of the page to save your work and move on.
Write the questions. Filamentality will have each of your links listed with a question box below it. Type in a question for each site. Write questions that can be answered from the site with a sentence or two. Avoid questions that can be answered with one word such as "yes" or "no." Unless you think it would be helpful to your students to do so, do not check the "Shall We Scramble" option.
Customize your Treasure Hunt using the form on the same page. Type appropriate information in the "Title," "Introduction," and "Big Question," boxes on the page. Try to use language that will motivate your students to do the project. (This is the Anticipatory Set for the lesson.) The Big Question should take require students to use higher level thinking skills than the ten questions. It should make them tie together the information gathered in the search of your links. Click on "Hunt" to save your work and publish your Treasure Hunt to the Web.
Look over your site to be sure that it looks and does what you want it to do. Be sure that all spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct. You may complete the item in "What Next?" as you choose.
The URL for your Treasure Hunt appears on the next screen.
- Copy it to the "Treasure Hunt" page on your web site.
- Type the answers to the questions in your treasure hunt on the page. Save your work.