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Webwise Articles For the Scholastic Magazine Classroom

 

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 1 Evaluating Websites

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 2 English Websites
Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 3 Health Education and Personal Development

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 4 Numeracy and Mathematics

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 5 Creative Arts

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise 6 Issue Studies of Society and Environment

Horsley, M ( 2000 ) Webwise Issue 7 Science Websites

WELCOME to WEBWISE 1 Evaluating Websites

 

Welcome to the first edition of WEBWISE. Webwise is designed to help teachers use

the Internet in todays' classrooms. February's first webwise edition is devoted to evaluating

and assessing educational websites. They will concentrate on great classroom sites

for each of the key learning areas in primary education.

 

Evaluating Sites: What are the steps?

 

The Internet is exapnding at an exponential rate. Everyday, thousands of new homepages ( websites )

are added to the existing 2 million sites that exist at the moment. A recent book called Cyber Educator,

published by McGraw Hill accesses almost ten thousand education sites for teachers. These sites,

using the information power of the internet, can be updated regularly and made to reflect current

information. This is the internets ultimate advantage: resources can be current, up to date and instantly

available. These internet characteristics are encouraging teachers to integrate the world wide web into

their classroom teaching and learning.

 

Increasingly teachers are being asked to develop skills in evaluating websites for educational use.One of the

most important ideas here is that thinking about how to use the internet in education is thinking about

education! Withthe huge number of sites available, how is this to be done? What are the steps in evaluating

websites for student use? There are four main steps in evaluating any web site

 

1. Assess whether the site meet the teachers and learners curriculum, lesson plans, programs and outcomes. Use of any resource in the classroom develops from the teachers and schools curriculum and pedagogy.How does the quality, breadth and depth of the content fit into the program of study?

 ( outcomes and pedagogy )

 

2. Analyse how can the students and teacher access the web in the school/classroom. Find out how easy is it for the students to navigate the site and make sense of its structure and design. ( access )

 

3. Examine how are the learners to be engaged in the site. What are they supposed to do when browsing and reading.Identify the outcomes that can be achieved from the site. ( engagement)

 

4. Assess the links the site has to other resources and sources. This is one of the main attributes of the

internet and an important aspect of site design. In some sites it is important that links are provided back to the learners so that they can get feedback on their efforts. ( links )

 

Though these are the most general steps in evaluating websites for use in the classroom, a number of very detailed evaluation sites have
been developed to help teachers assess potential sites.

 

 

Probably the most comprehensive of these is Kathy Schrock's guide to Evaluating sites ( on the

internet at http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/eval.html ). The site has an online

evaluation form which can be used by teachers to evaluate sites and share their

evaluations. Students also can be asked to evaluate sites they are using. Finally, Kathy's site provides

the most extensive links to a wide range of other evaluation sites, and provides sites which have been

rated highly.

 

Another evaluation site is EDsOasis. This guide identifies many features of good

websites and provides sites which illustrate sound pedagogical principles. It also has an excellent

downloadable evaluation form. Sofweb, from the State Department of Education ( Victoria ), also provides

a set of evaluation criteria online for teachers to use in examining websites. Yet another evaluation site

can be found through John's Hopkins Milton Eisenhower Library. It has a site devoted to evaluating the

content of sites, their authorship, currency and accuracy and bias. Its useful advice is caveat lector -

let the reader beware!

 

As information doubles, knowledge halves and wisdom quarters! 

 

Back to the webwise menu

One way to approach the Information Superhighway is to think of it as having many lanes. For English teachers, one of the most important lanes is communication. Electronic communication through e-mail and chat can be organised so that students have a genuine reason for writing, reading and investigating. Groups like CPAW (Computer Pals Across the World ), EdNA ( Education Network Australia ) and PETA (Primary English Teachers Association) provide projects and activities based on communication projects such as the 'global novel'. These projects links students and schools globally and provide themes, topics, issues and events to motivate students to achieve primary English outcomes. Teachers and students involved in communication have developed a sequence of writing and genre activities that work successfully in many communication activities. Online agreements help teachers structure communication and assist students to develop 'teleliteracy' - the ability to read and write for a global audience. The webwise website includes sample online agreements and projects from PETA, EdNA and CPAW.

KidPub and the Kids.com are also communication sites. They publish student poetry, stories and prose, and allow children from all over the world to submit and read each others work. These sites can be fun. TheKids.com also contains discussion rooms and " the best of the net". Publishing on the net encourages students to write - many have their own websites. Recent research in Australia has shown that children have computer skills far in advance of their teachers.

The resource lane of the superhighway provides millions of global information sites for research activities and projects in English. PETA has an excellent website ( http://www.peta.edu.au/ ) with resources, projects and links. Its resources section includes the Oz Kids Literature site ( http://www.ozkidz.gil.com.au/OzLit/ozlit.html )

which is the largest site for Australian children, and books for young adults with games, teaching ideas and lesson materials. The PETA site also reports on teacher projects. One such project, funded by DEET, reports on a group of 16 Year 3 teachers identifying assessment tools related to Literacy, and examining the how the information gathered informs their planning and programming, classroom actions and strategies.

A favourite site is Magickey's books ( http://www.magickeys.com/books/index.html#books ). Many of the online books read top to bottom and click down to the next page. The stories are exciting and interesting and are suitable for the shared book approach. The webwise website has a generic set of activities for Magickeys. Harper Collins Wacky Words (games) often interests children by allowing them to think up words to create weird and wonderful stories.

Of course the resource lane of the internet puts us all in contact with English education everywhere. England has recently introduced a compulsory literacy hour in all classrooms. Let's face it, many English policies, find their way into NSW classrooms with little change. The new Literacy hour mandates that everday all primary teachers teach a literacy hour in 4 x 15 minute sessions. The website contains a description of the mandated sessions and reports from Australian teachers working in England, who comment on the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

All over Australia primary teachers and students are working on Health Education and Physical Education ( In New South Wales Personal Development is added ) topics like " Healthy Living and Eating" , " Being Safe ", " Saying No ", " Coming to terms with Loss" and " Basic First Aid ". Luckily, Health Education and Physical Education, is a Key Learning Area where there are many community organisations dedicated to providing information on these topics that are studied in the primary classroom.

Often the sites and resources developed can be a real asset to schools because they have been designed with students in mind. Many Health Education and Physical Education sites provide games, simulations and activities to enhance learning and use the power of the web in real contexts - for decision making that is at the skills core of teaching and learning about Personal Health and Development.

For example the Life Education Network ( http://www.lec.org/) contains many resources that can help achieve outcomes in units like " Keeping Myself Safe Around Drugs". The site allows for different modes of internet use in the classroom. Harold the singing giraffe can be e-mailed. Harold sends students positive messages about themselves, using the communication lane of the Super Highway. The World Drugs menu will help students to find out " the countries illegal drugs come from " ( achieving Studies of Society and Its Environment outcomes in an integrated curriculum approach). Teachers have access to the drug site so that they can download information easily for planning lessons or for student research purposes.

One of my favourite sites in this Key Learning Area is McGruff and Scruff, an excellent US site providing student activities and games. McGruff' and his nephew, Scruff, provide resources on positive ways to deal with conflicts, bullies, drugs and other troubling situations with teaching ideas for planning units of work . Students games include identifying " the silly and dangerous things picture" ( http://www.ncpc.org/10act4.htm. ) Comic Book style activity allows students to achieve outcomes in topics like " Safe Living " and " Recognising and Responding to Unsafe Situations ", " Seeking Assistance " and " Establishing and Maintaining Relationships ".

In using the Internet in planning and resourcing Units and lessons in topics " Loneliness" or " Loss and Grief " the Kids Help Line ( KHL ) Infosheets ( http://203.37.145.243/info/ are helpful. The KHL infosheets provide both general and specific information on problems that kids ring the help line about - information useful in planning to achieve outcomes in this topic area.

PE Central, the US Physical Educators site, contains a massive of lesson plnas, resources, networks for PE Educators.

In NSW the Department of Education and Training( DET ) Hotlinks facility searches for PDHPE sites by stage level. It usually turns up useful sites. Currently the stage 2 hot links includes

Dole 5 a day ( http://www.dole5aday.com ) a US commercial site that provides colourful Quizes and simple, nutrition information on a range of fruit and vegetables.

KidsHealth - Children's health and parenting information. (http://kidshealth.org)

Kids food cyberclub ( http://www.kidsfood.org//kf_cyber.html) featuring nutrition slueths

It is always useful to look at the EDNA " What is New " menu bar ( http://www.edna.edu.au ) In January a great Health Education /Science site "Neuroscience and the Brain" site with activities and information directed at primary students for information, activities and reseach has been identified. ( http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html )

One approach in Maths education is to regard maths as the exploration of patterns and relationships. Many outstanding maths websites support this view of mathematics learning. Aunty Maths (http://www.dcmrats.org/auntymath.html) presents maths in this way. The site supports best practice in mathematics education. It presents puzzles and problems - often with multiple solutions ( Not the one answer!) that students are encouraged to email in so they can be shared. The puzzles focus on process skills and mathematical thinking - and the site includes information for parents. A similar approach is taken by ( http://www.nrich.maths.org.uk/primary/index.html ) a primary enrichment site from the UK. ( Thanks to Sharne Aldridge and Janette Bobis from Sydney
University's Primary mathematics team for identifying these sites)

Its hard to be a more prestigious Mathematics institution than the Los Alamos National Laboratory. They are not only interested in mathematical discovery but have an outstanding website crammed with resources and activities for children and teachers. ( http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/welcome.html ). In resourcing a maths or numeracy unit then the chapters in the MegaMaths workbook contains topics such as Games on graphs, Untangling Knots, Colourful Maths and Algorithms and Ice Cream. Each chapter comes with teacher ideas, vocabulary and activities, links and the place of the concepts in the national Council of Mathematics standards. ( for the US of course ).

For a comprehensive listing of primary maths websites, Sofweb from the Victorian Department of Education ( http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/students/kids/vclass/maths.htm ) lists an amazing variety of Maths sites for teachers and students. Using Sofweb
I looked up How many seconds have you been alive ( you follow the instructions and enter the data and work out how many seconds you have been alive http://www.spiders.com/cgi-bin/countdown) and Daisy Maths. Daisy Maths follows the exercises and answer approach to maths education. It allows students at all levels to practice their tables, addition, subtraction - a useful site for drill and practice ( http://www.openuniversity.com/ ) Sofweb also links to Berits best. This is another list of useful sites with guidance for teachers ( http://www.cochran.com/theodore/beritsbest/SeriousStuff/Math/index.html )

US publisher Houghton and Mifflin have created a Mathematics Education Project Centre which collates myriad mathematics projects and displays them for use by teachers. Many projects (http://www.eduplace.com/projects/mathproj.html ) include topic headings and grade levels so that teachers can easily incorporate them into their teaching Programs. One of the projects I followed was http://schools.wcpss.net/Wilburn/tooth00.html The tooth tally project that was designed for grade 1 students to share and collect mathematical data about missing teeth. The tooth tally project was designed to integrate numeracy, teleliteracy ( email )and language skills.

The Mathematics Activities Guides for the National Council on Mathematical Teaching United States
(http://cesme.utm.edu/resources/math/MAG/MAG.html ) are all available and downloadable from their site. The guides present lessons and programming ideas for teaching many mathematical topics. Other mathematics sites containing excellent resources include the euclid site
( http://euclid.math.fsu.edu/Science/Education.html ) and Puzzle Corner from AIM ( http://www.aimsedu.org/puzzle/puzzlelist.html ). AIMS was commenced by the National Science Foundation at Fresno Pacific College. It concentrates on providing integrated math/science web resources and materials for K-9.

Postscript

The New South Wales Board of Studies has developed a Primary Linkages Site featuring integrated units of study
across the Key Learning Areas. The address is ( http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/k6_linkages/menu.html )

One approach to classifying and cataloguing websites has been developed by Mark Treadwell in his excellent Hawker Brownlow book ( Searching The Worldwide Web ). Mark classifies educational sites by their source, for example some sites basically provide news and events, others student activities, still others collaborative projects or curriculum support. Mark's classification system also gives teachers a good guide to the potential effectiveness and use of websites in their classroom. Units of work type sites allow teachers to inspect and build on the planning of other teachers ( like the Primary Linkages site from the Board of Studies NSW - http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/k6_linkages/menu.html), whereas professional development sites help teachers upgrade their knowledge and skills.

This classification system is invaluable in exploring the multitude of sites for a Key learning area which incorporates music, drama and visual arts! There are many link sites for music and visual and performing arts which provide access to a host of other sites and resources that can be used in lesson and unit planning. The ABC's site http://www.abc.net.au/learn/resources/coll.htm provides a gateway to links in music and arts developed by the ABC's sophisticated educational support staff. Sites providing thematic access to a range of sites include Kinder Art ( http://www.kinderart.com ) and Art Link ( http://www.wwar.com ) in art, Marston Sullivans Theatre Arts education site in Drama (http://www.angelfire.com/nm/marston6/ ) and Geocities for Music Education Online (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2405/ ). Edna's browse section by subject area ( http://www.edna.edu.au ) also provides a useful set of links for most subjects in this Key learning area. Another useful linking site that acts as a gateway site is the new Australian Cultural Network site from the Federal Department of the Communication, Information technology and the Arts ( http://www.acn.net.au ).

Arts student activities, student tutorial and student interactive sites feature prominently on the world wide web. Inside Art ( http://www.eduweb.com/insideart/, Art activities ( http://www.cartooncorner.com/artspage.html ) and Eyes on Art ( http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/art2/) provide activities for students. The Children's Opera Project ( http://www.kidsop.com )and Music Education online also provide student activity and interactive material.

Webwise has referred to Edna on a number of occasions because it has a gateway function for Australian Education, and the What's New menu often features excellent new sites. A New Zealand site operated by Mark Treadwell performs a similar function, check it out at http://teachers.work.co.nz. Internationally there is excitement about the development of the " Dublin core " a system to allow easier searching and finding of educational sites. The Dublin core is described on http://sunrise.eng.monash.edu.au/dc-ed/goals.html, interested individuals and schools are invited to join.

A key learning that incorporates diverse disciplines such as geography, history, social sciences and environmental studies has a wealth of web material to support students and teachers. EDNA (http://www.edna.com.au ) and the New Zealand site discussed last issue (http://teachers.work.co.nz. ) are excellent gateway sites to SOSE sites. The prominent aspect of the web in the area of Studies of Society and Environment has been the development of sites to support national curriculum initiatives in this key learning area.

The curriculum corporation has developed a range of sites for integrating Asia into the SOSE curriculum and teaching about Asia. These can be accesssed through the access asia site ( http://www.curriculum.edu.au/accessasia/index.htm ) which has a cornucopia of useful links, lesson ideas and activities.

Of special interest here is the Virtual China Tour ( http://www.curriculum.edu.au/accessasia.china/index.htm ) with its well developed lesson plan material and original content in studying China. The indonesia site from the same menu ( http://www.curriculum.edu.au/accessasia/indonesia/index.htm ) is easy to navigate and has some excellent activity sheets designed for upper primary students. The links are well chosen and the questions are designed to engage the students.

Similarly in accessing Civics and Citizenship the Discovering Democracy material provides a huge range of resources for teaching civics and citizenship. The primary lesson plans are particularly useful in providing support for busy teachers (http://www.curriculum.edu.au/download/lesspln/lesson.htm ) These lesson plans can be downloaded easily. The ABC's civics material (http://abc.net.au/civics ) and the Australian War memorial's education site (http://www.awm.gov.au ) also contain useful material and a range of interesting activities.

Recent editions of the newspapers for all the states have highlighted websites resourcing reconciliation and the corroboree 2000 movement. A gateway site for reconciliation is Corroboree 2000 at ( http://www.reconciliation.org.au ) for other first nations peoples the Austlii site is useful ( http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/2505.html ). A really useful site for considering Aboriginal issues is Lore of the Land ( http://www.loreoftheland.com.au ) which also contains teaching activities for students wishing to learn about aboriginal issues.

A site dealing with environemntal issues for students is the new Trees For Survival which backs upa booklet used in schools for education about forests, conservation and trees. Browsers should open the trees menu from the rotarnet site (Trees For Survival http://www.rotarnet.com.au )

Postscript

Indigenous maths task centre kit is at http://www.mav.vic.edu.au/PSTC/index.html
New Shakespeare on the Web : ask shakespeare a question http://www.learnfree.co.uk

So far in this series of webwise we haven't really featured Departments and Ministries of Education. But each state Department in Australia maintain their own well developed website and provide various online resources for their teachers. In NSW, for example, the Department of Education and Training ( the DET ) maintains an effective on line resource review system found at http://www.dse.nsw.edu.au/stand.cgi/staff/F1.0/F1.3/online/index.htm

The resource review site allows searching by KLA ( subjects ) stage level ( grades ) and topics. The sites listed have been reviewed by teachers from SCAN in the curriculum support unit. The review gives information that help teachers to plan to use the site in their programming and teaching. A search for science in July for stage 2 reveals the following reviews and sites in a format that provides useful information for potential use in the classroom

URL: http://www.webmedia.com.au/whales/

Title: Whale information network.

Review: Australian in orientation, this is primarily an information sharing operation for whale-related matters. It gives the latest lighting in Australian waters and points to help whale identification. It provides information on: Whales through history; Whale facts; Southern right whales; Killer whales; and the South Australian Whale Centre. It is attractively presented and clearly set out with sub-headings, easy-to-read information and illustrations. J. Anderson, R. Roughley

Evaluation: Highly recommended

Level: Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

Subjects: Endangered species; Whales; Wildlife conservation

Keywords: Whale

Publisher: South Australian Whale Centre

Other sites currently reviewed include Questacon, (The National Science & Technology Centre, Canberra) found at http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/Questacon/ which contains many hands-on, practical science activities for students from dot to dot dinosaur colouring to instructions for making a comet. The reviews also feature a Views of the Solar System site at http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/solarsystem/homepage.htm and the famous Volcano site at http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/ - all reviewed by teachers.

Education Victoria's sofweb site has developed an ideas bank located at http://ww2.sofweb.vic.edu.au/cgi-win/search.exe/KLA2
that produces lesson plans and units about using technology in the classroom also written by teachers. Searching for stage 1 science revealed lesson plans and programs for The Interactive Plant ( using the site KidPix ), caterpillars and butterflies and the four seasons.

Sofweb has a very useful online resourcescentre at http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/resource/index.htm. . The Currculum Corporation has downloadable lesson plans at http://www.curriculum.edu.au/download/lesspln/heating.htm but at this stage there is only one for science. Searching the Education Queensland site for middle primary Science reveals over 80 useful parimary sceience sites which can be viewed at http://education.qld.gov.au/apps/owa/search.actionquery

Keeping up with current science events can be achieved by accessing the magazine New Scientist. Needless to say the current topic dominating science is the Human Genome project. A report is available at http://www.nsplus.com/news/genome.jsp?id=ns224534.

The New Scientist also allows access to the web science section of this magazine - which contains a cornucopia of useful resources. Of special interest currently featurd are the insight series which present topics of interest to students and teachers ( found at http://www.nsplus.com/nsplus/insight/insight.html )

The Master of teaching Home page at the University of Sydney also has a science site listing with a very long list of useful sites available at http://alex.edfac.usyd.edu.au/Methods/Science/ScienceWWW.html
From here access is provided to the Murder Under the Mircrsocope simulation at http://www.microscope.aone.net.au/ a really useful science resource. Another useful science simulation can be found at http://met.open.ac.uk/vms/vms.html.