Purpose: To practice using the Internet for professional purposes
Teachers have three basic purposes for professional use of the World Wide Web:
- To locate lesson plans and learning activities to use in teaching
- To locate interactive online activities to be used by students in learning
- To locate sites that will provide information for students doing research
- To locate research on pedagogy and policy in education
Assignment
The
World Wide Web is an excellent information site for educators. While anyone can
enter a word in a search engine and get something back, it takes a little more
effort to find good information. In this assignment you and a partner will practice using what
you have learned in class to find information about an educational topic of your
choice.
Procedures
Step
1
Choose an educational topic
of your choice. You will use the same topic every time you search. Choose
something interesting to you, such as math projects, ADHD, whole language,
cooperative learning, etc. Open
a Word document, name it "search.htm"
(don't use quotes), and save all items in the assignment to this document.
Step
2
Conduct a search on your topic. Be sure to include the name of the search engine
that you used. Use the sources that we examined in class to develop a good
search strategy. Don't just enter
one keyword and then quit. You will be assessed on the quality of your
search. Visit several of the sites that your search found. Keep a record of your searching techniques on a chart (below).
Search
Topic:
Search Terms:
Type
of Search:
Search Engine:
|
Attempt
|
Search terms and
operators used |
# of hits |
Quality of Hits |
|
1. |
|
|
|
|
2. |
You would extend
the chart until you developed a good search |
||
SAVE
to search.htm
Visit
several of the sites that your search found. Choose one of the sites that you
found that you think was particularly good. Use the evaluation sheet that
your team chose to evaluate this site (from links given). Be sure to include the
URL for the site.
Step
3
Conduct a search on your topic using a different search engine. Be sure to include the name
of the search engine that you used. Create
another chart describing how you searched and the results that you got.
Evaluate one of the sites.
SAVE
Step
4
SAVE
Step
5
By this time you should have used three different search engines. For
each search engine you should have a chart describing your search and a
description and evaluation of one good site that you found with each search
engine. Now you will go back and look at your searches. Compare
your results from the different searches. Write
a paragraph describing what you found. Some things that you could
write about include the number of sites you found, the quality of the sites, or
any sites that you found on different search engines.
SAVE
AND UPLOAD TO YOUR WEB SITE
Scoring
Rubric
|
|
Always
|
Sometimes
|
None
|
Description of the searches conducted complete and demonstrates effective use
of the search engines.
|
(3)
|
|
|
Description and evaluation of the site located by each
search engine complete and demonstrates a
careful evaluation of the site
|
(3)
|
|
|
Paragraph
description of the three searches is a good comparison of the searches that were conducted
on the different search engines and provides conclusion about most
effective search.
|
(3)
|
|
|
URLs included and accessible for all three sites
|
(1)
|
|
|
Total Points: (10 possible)
|
|
|
|
Adapted
from Karen Milligan
Last Updated Spring Semester, 2001