Description: All
this Internet stuff is great – but you have only one computer in your
classroom. Learn management techniques and instructional strategies for making
the most of your single Net connection.
Objectives: In this session, participants will:
Session Outline:
I.
30 Students + 1 Computer =
Chaos!
II. Ideas for Using Technology in the One Computer Classroom
III. Projects and Strategies for the One Computer Classroom
IV. Quickly Locating Needles in the Haystack: WWW Search Strategies
V. Resources for Getting the Most Out of One Computer in the Classroom
·
The Ideal – A computer for every student would be great.
Wireless networks and increasingly smaller portable computers will revolutionize
classroom use of instructional technology. But the question remains: When will
this technology make it down to the classroom level?
·
The Reality – Some schools are fortunate enough to have
nearly every classroom equipped with a networked computer capable of accessing
the Internet.
Ø
How do we take advantage of this connection to enhance our
curriculum?
Ø
How do we help students comprehend the nature of the Internet and
teach them to become discerning 'consumers' of information?
Room Arrangement
· Easy student access
· Easy teacher access for presenting, modeling, and process writing etc.
· Away from direct sunlight, water, magnets, and chalk dust
· Easily supervised
· Provide enough space for small group interaction
Management / Scheduling
· Consider equity
· Sample methods are:
o Use 3 x 5 recipe card file with student names to identify computer users for each day. Have students cycle through to complete project. (Color coding Monday through Friday with student names many be helpful.)
o Take weekly schedule and assign open blocks to students.
· Consider the project when allowing computer time. Some projects many take more time.
· Be creative when seeking additional available computers.
· Provide opportunities for cooperative learning.
· Post computer rights and responsibilities, guidelines for help, and expected behavior near computer station.
· Display posters using computer terms and commands.
· Emphasize the importance of preplanning so that time on the computer is efficiently used.
· Create two folders, one for completed projects and one for work in progress. Have a checklist available so that, after each session, students can indicate whether project is complete or additional time is needed.
· Use peer partnership/mentors/volunteers
o Consider having students work in pairs or small groups.
o Consider computer skill and specific assignment when pairing students
o Change partnerships according to needs.
o Students need time away from the computer for brainstorming, planning, and revising project.
o Peer critiquing of computer projects is a key.
o The use of "trained experts" among class members is helpful.
o Consider the use of computer buddies to introduce new computer skills.
o Trained parent and community volunteers can provide assistance with more involved projects.
Classroom modeling
· Model computer project for the week.
· Provide a sample of the completed work for that session.
· Provide students with a step by step checklist. Have students sign and attach the checklist to completed project. Be sure to include a proofreading checklist.
· When teaching a computer skill, templates can be very valuable. When using a template, each student or team can rotate through the activity and the original will not be altered or lost. This allows for a more self-guided lesson.
These links offer practical ideas on using the
computer's Internet connection as a tool to accomplish curriculum objectives.
· Sources For Online Projects
Ø
Intercultural
E-Mail Classroom Connections
http://www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc/
Ø
Scholastic Online Activities
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/index.htm
Ø
The Global Schoolhouse - Alphabetical List
http://www.gsn.org/site/alpha.index.html
· Creating Online Projects For Your Classroom
Ø
How
to Design a Successful Project
http://www.gsn.org/teach/articles/design.project.html
Ø
Examples
of Classroom WWW Projects
http://www.gsn.org/project/index.html
Ø Another Online Project In Action!
http://www.gsn.org/roger/index.html
Sometimes we think the only way we can use the Internet in
school is for every student to be "plugged in" and "hands
on." While it is certainly convenient to have that option, there are
possibilities worth exploring in a single-computer classroom.
Here are some:
Information
Need |
Characteristics of the Search Engine |
I want an overview of my topic. I have an idea for a broad topic. I need to narrow my topic. |
Subject Directories such as Yahoo and LookSmart organize information as “subject trees” from general to specific topics. |
I want a small number of relevant hits and an idea of what’s in each document before I go to each page. |
Excite hits have excellent summaries. When you find a relevant hit, you can submit a “query by example” to locate similar pages. |
What’s available on the Internet for my topic? |
Meta search engines such as MetaCrawler, Dogpile, and FindSpot searches and integrates major engines. |
I want quality, evaluated sites that have reviews and ratings because I have limited time. |
Magellan’s smaller database containing descriptive reviews of sites. Lycos TOP 5% Home reviews and rates the “Top 5%” WebCrawler is a smaller database with relevancy ranking |
I need to do a pinpoint search because my terms are narrow. |
AltaVista is a massive and fast indexer of full text, good for very specific searches. |
Is there an encyclopedia of information on the Internet? |
Information Please searches Information Please Almanac, Entertainment Almanac and Sports Almanac, the Columbia Encyclopedia, and the Random House College Dictionary. |
I have common keywords that probably appear in many documents and should make my search specific. |
HotBot is a fast, powerful search engine with ranked results and many options for defining a search. |
I have common keywords in a phrase like New in New Orleans or A in Vitamin A that cannot be ignored. |
Ultraseek includes words in a phrase
that other engines ignore. |
I know the date of an event and am looking for more information. |
HotBot limits by date. |
I need programming language (e.g. JavaScript, ShockWave) web pages or information. |
HotBot Super Search limits by
programming language. |
I need scientific information to back up the research for my science fair project. |
AltaVista rated best for finding scientific information on the Internet. |
I need mathematics or statistics information |
MathSearch located material concerned with research-level and university mathematics. |
I can describe my topic in a sentence (natural language). |
Infoseek and Ask Jeeves! allow natural language searches. |
I need information on a proper name (a place, person, or object). |
AltaVista and Infoseek use capital letters to force an exact case match on the entire word. HotBot person search will retrieve the name in both reversed and normal order (Picasso, Pablo and Pablo Picasso) |
I wan web pages from a geographic region. |
MetaCrawler can search by continent. |
I want web pages from an Internet domain (e.g. schools) |
HotBot can search by Internet domain (e.g. edu, com) |
I want to search for images and sounds (photos, art, designs, logos, videos, music, noises), media types (Java, VRML) or file extensions (.gif). |
Lycos Media, HotBot Super Search, The Amazing Picture Machine, Yahoo! Computers and Internet Multimedia can all conduct searches in this way. |
I need a quotation |
The
Quotations Page |
I need the lyrics to Rock, Pop, Oldies, Folk, or other songs. |
International Lyrics Server |
I want to get advice and opinions from others. |
Reference.COM and DejaNews search archives of Usenet posts (Usenet is especially strong in computers, the Internet, science, recreational activities, sociology, psychology, and k-12 education. You can also join a discussion group on a topic at Liszt. |
I want to browse. |
Lycos and Yahoo are subject directories with short descriptions of sites. |
The
Internet has tens of millions of sites at this point; growth is exponential and
bibliographic control does not exist. To find the proverbial needle in this
immense haystack, you may use two basic approaches: a search engine or a subject
directory such as Yahoo, A2Z and Magellan. Subject directories are fine for
browsing general topics, but for specific information, use a search engine.
All
search engines do keyword searches against a database, but various factors
influence the results from each. Size of the database, frequency of update,
search capability and design, and speed may lead to amazingly different results.
There
are also metasearch sites or metacrawlers that send searches to several search
engines at the same time. Since
metasearch engines do not allow for input of many search variables, their best
use is to find hits on obscure items or to see if something is on the Internet.
Some of the best-known ones are Dogpile, Inference Find, WebCrawler, and
Metacrawler.
Here's
a set of FAQs on how to use Internet Search Engines and Subject Directories for
those of you wanting to find information on the Internet but not sure how to go
about doing that.
FAQ#1: What's an Internet search engine?
One way of finding information on the Internet is to use a "search engine". This is an Internet tool that will search for Internet sites containing the words that you designate as a search term. It provides results back to you in the form of links to those sites that have the term(s) you're looking for.
For example, if you wanted to see if there were any math lesson plans on the Internet that you could borrow, you might enter "math and lessons and plans" as your search term. After a brief wait, you would receive a web page with dozens of links to sites that had those particular words somewhere in the site.
It's important to understand that search engines DO NOT
search the Internet itself. They DO search databases of information ABOUT the
Internet which the company hosting the search engine has developed. Each search
engine looks through a different database and that's why they each will reach
different results from exactly the same terms. The degree of detail recorded by
search engines varies greatly. For instance, some may enter the entire text of
the document into a searchable field and others may only enter a short
description. This is only one way in which search engines differ. Another
difference is in the level of sophistication employed by the search engine when
it looks through its database.
FAQ#2: How does a search engine know about the millions of documents on the Internet?
Search engines do not search the Internet itself, but
instead search a database of information about the Internet. Thus, when a
document is placed on the Internet, it will only be found by a search engine if
information about that document has been recorded in the search engine's
database. There are at least two ways a search engine finds out about a
document. One way is for the publisher of the document to register it with the
engine. If a document publisher wants to ensure that a document is
"found" by search engines, then the publisher will usually register
with as many engines as possible. The second way that documents get registered
is if the search engine company finds it as part of its research routines. Some
search engines use "spiders" or search robots to search the Internet
and gather information which is subsequently recorded in the engine's database.
FAQ#3: What's an Internet subject directory?
Subject directories organize Internet sites by subject, allowing users to choose a subject of interest and then browse the list of resources in that category. Users conduct their searches by selecting a series of progressively narrower search terms from a number of lists of descriptors provided in the directory. In this fashion, users "tunnel" their way through progressively more specific layers of descriptors until they reach a list of resources which meet all of the descriptors they had chosen.
For example, if you were using the Yahoo subject directory to find math lesson plans, you would start at the top level of the directory where there are approximately 15 general categories, including "arts and humanities", "government" and "education." Selecting "education" would lead to a list of about 35 descriptors, including "higher education", "magazines", and "teaching." Selecting "teaching" would lead to another page of resources all about teaching - including "English", "K-12", and "Math." This last choice would reveal a number of actual resources for the math teacher.
It's important to understand that a subject directory
will not have links to every piece of information on the Internet. Since they
are built by humans (rather than by computer programs), they are much smaller
than search engine databases. Moreover, every directory is different and their
value will depend on how widely the company searches for information, their
method of categorizing the resources, how well information is kept current, etc.
FAQ#4: What's better - a search engine or a subject directory?
There is no hard and fast answer to that question. A lot depends on the personal preferences of the user. Some people like directories because the user can control the search pattern, varying the path through the descriptors if another descriptor looks promising. Directories allow users to browse and to be more vague or general in their search term. Search engines leave the searching pattern to the computer program and can be used to find more specific resources.
A weakness of directories is that you must depend on the descriptors provided by the company. If these are not specific enough for you, then your search may be unsuccessful. As a result, directories can be good for finding general information, but not too successful in locating specifics. Also, the number of resources that you can find in a directory is generally far less than through a search engine.
A weakness of the search engines is the very extensive amount of hits that they can produce. A general search term could produce thousands of hits - far too many to be of much value. Knowing how to conduct searches is a skill and there is a learning curve. The next several FAQs provide information on how to develop search skills.
FAQ#5: How can I improve my use of search engines?
You can get better results from an Internet search engine if you know how to use wildcards and "Boolean operators." Wildcards allow you to search simultaneously for several words with the same stem. For example, entering the single term "educat*" will allow you to conduct a search for "educator", "educators", "education" and "educational" all at the same time.
Boolean operators were named after George Boole (1815-1864) who combined the study of logic with that of algebra. Using the boolean operator "and", it is possible to narrow a search so that you get quite a limited set of results. Another common operator is "not" which acts to limit a search as well. The boolean operator "or" has the opposite effect of expanding a search. Using boolean terms, you can have the search engine look for more than one word at a time. Here are three examples of such search terms.
endangered and species |
insecticides not ddt |
university or college |
FAQ#6: What's a wild card and how do I use it?
A wild card is a special character which can be appended to the root of a word so that you can search for all possible endings to that root. For instance, you may be looking for information on the harmful effects of smoking. Documents which contain the following words may all be useful to your search: smoke, smoking, smokers, smoked, and smokes. If your search engine allowed wild cards, you would enter "smok*". In this case, the asterisk is the wild card and documents which contained words that started with "smok" would be returned.
FAQ#7: How do I narrow a search?
The boolean operator "and" is the most common way to narrow a search to a manageable number of hits. For example, with "heart and disease" as the search term, an engine will provide links to sites which have both of these words present in a document. It will ignore documents which have just the word "heart" in it (e.g., heart transplant) and it will ignore documents which have just the word "disease" in it (e.g., lung disease, disease prevention). It will only make a link if both of the words are present - although these do not necessarily have to be located beside each other in the document.
For even more narrow searches, you can use "and" more than once. For example, "heart and disease and prevention" would limit your search even more since all three terms would have to be present before a link would be made to the document.
The boolean operator "not" narrows the search by telling the engine to exclude certain words. For example, the search term "insecticides not DDT" would give you links to information on insecticides but not if the term "DDT" was present.
It is possible to combine two different operators. For example, the term "endangered and species not owl" would give you information on various kinds of endangered species - both of the words "endangered" and "species" would have to be present for there to be a hit. However, you would not get information on any owls that are endangered since the "not" term specifically excludes that word.
FAQ#8: How do I widen a search?
The boolean operator "or" will broaden your search. You might use "or" if there were several words that could be used interchangeably. For example, if you were looking for information on drama resources, using just that one search term might not give you all that you wanted. However, by entering "drama or theater", the search engine would provide a link to any site that had either of those words present.
For even wider searches, you can use "or" more than once. For example, "drama or theater or acting or stage" would provide a very broad search indeed.
It is possible to combine boolean operators in a complex set of instructions through the use of parentheses, however that topic is beyond the scope of these FAQs. Look for information on advanced search strategies if your want to learn more.
FAQ#9: How do search engines deal with boolean operators?
The short answer to that question is - "not consistently". Some engines allow the use of just a few operators while others provide access to a wide range. Some require you to enter the operator yourself while others have you select the operator from a pop-up box. Some allow you to do any kind of search from the main search page while others require you to go to an "advanced" page to conduct boolean searches.
Some engines allow you to enter several words into the search term WITHOUT a boolean operator. However, some search engine will assume that there is an "or" operator between the words while others assume the desired operator is "and". Check what the engine's default operator is before you elect not to enter boolean operators.
Most search engines are pretty easy to use if you read their help information.
FAQ#10: What's a "meta" search engine?
A meta search engine is a search tool that doesn't create its own database of information, but instead searches those of other engines. "Metacrawler", for instance, searches the databases of each of the following engines: Lycos, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, and Yahoo. Using multiple databases will mean that the search results are more comprehensive, but slower to obtain.
FAQ#11: What are some effective search strategies?
Decide whether a search engine or a subject directory will be the best vehicle. The more specific the information you need, the more likely you will want to use a search engine.
When using a search engine, be as specific as possible. The amount of information now on the Internet can be overwhelming. To narrow down your search results to manageable numbers, use a search engine that allows the use of boolean operators and enter as many keywords as possible.
Get used to more than one search engines. You will develop a preference for a certain engine and it may work well for you but don't forget the other search engines and, from time to time, try another engine or a meta engine to ensure that you have achieved good coverage of the Internet.
Read the "tips" files provided by most engines. You'll be surprised to find out little things that make life easier. For instance, AltaVista allows you to use the "+" symbol instead of writing out the word "AND" when you use boolean operators.
Site Location: http://www.chtree.com/per/frank/edt610/henderson/wq/onecomputer.html
Wonderful! This is a webquest
designed to help teachers incorporate their computers into their curriculum. It
has tips, lesson plans, and much, much more.
2. Using
Technology in the Classroom: The One Computer Classroom
Site Location: http://www.edsoasis.org/Strategy/OneComputer.html
This site gives practical and workable solutions to using the Internet with only one computer. They include: introducing a unit, enriching a unit, whole class problem solving, online adventures, and publishing. An excellent site.
3. Spotlight
on Success: Elementary Internet in a One-Computer Classroom
Site Location: http://www.edsoasis.org/Spotlight/Ahlness/Ahlness.html
This interview describes one teacher's journey from one computer with a modem to a LAN of four computers. It describes the projects he tried, the methods he used, and how well it worked.
Site Location: http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/bcisd/classres/onecomp.htm
Another web site containing strategies and ideas for one computer classrooms. Two important sections: Offline Browsers and Internet Projects.
5. Keep
it simple: A Reality Check for Computers in Early Childhood Classrooms
Site Location: http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/charette.htm
This is a good site for Early
Childhood teachers. It gives several ideas and strategies for using the computer
as a tool in the classroom.
Site Location: http://www.teachnet.com/how-to/organization/onecompclass040799.html
This site was originally a mailing
list. There are some really good suggestions (like the red cups at the bottom),
including a few for Internet work.
Site Location: http://www.4teachers.org/techalong/roberts/
This is a good web site for
explaining computer usage categories: Computer-Assisted Instruction,
Remediation, and Extension. Also mentioned are: software for developing writing
skills, word processing software, and graphics software.
8. Strategies
for the One-Computer Classroom
Site Location: http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/verity_archives/banasz1.htm
This site contains information for using the computer as a tool. Though the
Internet is not mentioned, several of the ideas are viable.
9. One
Computer, One Teacher, and Twenty First Graders
Site Location: http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/lawhon.htm
This is a good article on how to
introduce a class of first graders to basic computer skills. The ideas are sound
and can definitely be transcribed up for older students.
Site Location: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/comatt/nwsgrps.html
This page is a list of educational
listservs and newsgroups. There is a heading for Technology-related Education
with seven subcategories. The newsgroup k12.ed.tech is particularly good for
educators.
11. The
One Computer Classroom
Site Location: http://www.indep.k12.mo.us/THS/lesley/mcclelland/one%20computer.html
This is a fairly basic site with
the same information. But at the bottom, it does have some general tips for
using the computer in a whole class lesson which are very helpful.
Site Location: http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=k12resource&list
This is mostly a resource webring for education, however this particular site has a great deal of information on the Internet.