Audience

The learners for this Webquest are middle school students, particularly seventh graders in a Language Arts/Reading class. The Webquest would be assigned after the class has finished reading the novel Holes as an extension to themes presented in the novel.

Need and Goals

It seems like in today’s world of education, the main need of teachers is to make sure their teaching is following the state standards. The Webquest does include a Teacher’s Page with instructions for teachers and some helpful hints. To meet those needs and to ensure the standards are indeed being taught, this project meets the following Indiana State Standards for 7th Grade:

Language Arts:

Standard 2: READING: Comprehension and Analysis of Nonfiction and Informational Text

Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. The selections in the Indiana Reading List ( illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. At Grade 7, in addition to regular classroom reading, students read a variety of nonfiction, such as biographies, autobiographies, books in many different subject areas, magazines, newspapers, reference and technical materials, and online information.

Standard 4: WRITING: Process
Students discuss, list, and graphically organize writing ideas. They write clear, coherent, and focused essays. Students progress through the stages of the writing process and proofread, edit, and revise writing.
Standard 5: WRITING: Applications
At Grade 7, students continue to write narrative, expository (informational), persuasive, and descriptive texts (research reports of 500 to 800 words or more). Students are introduced to biographical and autobiographical narratives and to writing summaries of grade-level appropriate reading materials.
Standard 6: WRITING: English Language Conventions
Students write using Standard English conventions appropriate to the grade level.

Mathematics:

Standard 2: Computation

Fluency in computation is essential. Students add, subtract, multiply, and divide integers, fractions, and decimals. They solve problems using percentages, including calculating discounts, markups, and commissions. They use mental arithmetic to compute with simple fractions, decimals, and powers

Standard 6: Data Analysis and Probability

Data are all around us — in newspapers and magazines, in television news and commercials, in quality control for manufacturing — and students need to learn how to understand data. At this level, they learn how to display data in bar, line, and circle graphs and in stem-and-leaf plots. They analyze data displays to find whether they are misleading and analyze the wording of survey questions to tell whether these could influence the results. They find the probability of disjoint events. They also find the number of arrangements of objects using a tree diagram.

Not only do teachers have needs, but so do students. Students need to be actively engaged in learning if they are to learn. The goals of this Webquest are to engage students in the learning process. The focus is on the process of learning, not just the products. Students will be working with a partner to foster their skills in cooperative learning. Through the process of completing the Webquest, students will engage in self-discovery finding out their own strengths and weaknesses. This activity allows them to work at their own pace and provides an opportunity for students to explore topics in depth. This Webquest is designed to have students engage in the following thinking skills:

  • Comparing
  • Classifying
  • Inducing
  • Deducing
  • Analyzing errors
  • Constructing support
  • Abstraction
  • Analyzing perspectives

Students will create several products with this project. First they will create pages in a wikispace about various issues of homelessness. Next, they will conduct a survey about racism in their school and report the results. Then, they will create a word web using Inspiration software to organize their ideas for a letter to a representative from the state of Indiana on the issue of juvenile correction. Lastly, the reflection part of the project has students answering questions on a PowerPoint sidekick template. The products for each task will demonstrate their learning and ability to work together to complete an assignment.

Technology Effectiveness

Another goal of this Webquest is to engage students with technology, particularly ones they many not be familiar with. The Webquest itself is one form of technology that is used. Webquests are, “Directly relevant to the curriculum and interesting and motivating to both teachers and students, they add spice to a lesson and direct a more responsible use of the Internet” (Yoder, 1999). Webquests force students to go beyond just fact-finding. They are asked to analyze a variety of resources and use critical-thinking skills to derive a solution to a problem. Often the problems are real world problems. This project has students researching homelessness, racism, and juvenile correction, all issues students see and deal with.

A wikispace was also included in this project for Hole #1. Many students are familiar with blogging spaces or chat spaces, but not wikispaces. A wiki will allow them to create work and also contribute to the work of others. This format has them produce work online rather than doing pencil and paper work. Wikis provide a unique learning situation where there is a group contributing to the information. This supports the idea that the knowledge of the group is greater than that of the individual. Wikis in education facilitate “a group writing process where a group takes responsibility for creating their own content, learning from and collaborating with one another and building upon each others’ contributions” (Grant, 2006). The set up of the Wiki allows teachers to create a set of users so that public interference is not a problem. They are also able track who is making edits and comments which will help identify the authors of any abusive or offensive posts.

Another plus to wikis is the availability of students to post discussions or comments. This feature can be used by students to provide feedback or suggestions to others about their work. The discussion area could also be used as a collaboration area with other pairs to ask for help in completing tasks or performing functions on the wikispace site.

The Reflection part of the project includes a PowerPoint sidekick where students will answer some questions about their Webquest experience. “Whether introducing new concepts, practicing essential skills, or transferring knowledge to new situations, technology-based starters provide an effective, efficient, and appealing learning space where students can share their understandings through writing, illustration, and sound communications” (Lamb, 2006). Students will share their opinions about their research experience in a written format. This type of activity allows students to really think about what they have learned. It also gives them a voice and some ownership in their learning process.

Technology Issues

Wikis are a good tool for a collaborative learning experience. However, there may be some concerns or problems associated with this type of learning environment.

One concern is that anyone can change anything or that they might not change anything at all. In a case study in Gloucestershire, England, of the use of wikis in the classroom an interesting finding was discovered. “While students grasped the opportunity to publish their own work on the Internet, very few edited material on others’ pages. Once they had decided who was responsible for a particular page, the individual or pair’s ownership of that page was strongly asserted” (Grant, 2006) When one student did try to add content to a page, his edit was met with hostility, and the page’s owners used the revert function to return the page to its original form. One student even commented after the project that, “There should be locks on it. Because they could write rubbish stuff and then you’d get told off for it.” (Mary) This indeed is a legitimate concern for the students, but the teacher could reinforce that he/she is able to see who is making edits to pages and can track the sites activity. If suspect information was posted or added to a page, he/she would have a way of tracking down any suspects.

A way to overcome this hostility of ownership of the wikispace would be to “perhaps introduce students to an existing wiki as new members could enable them to learn from the practices of an existing community to appreciate the affordances of the wiki as a tool for collaborative practice in written content as well as in the negotiation of technical and design aspects.” (Grant, 2006) The teacher might also think about playing a role by modeling the collaborative process by participating in the students’ wikis as and equal, yet more experienced, group member.

Resources

Gee, James Paul. 2003. High score education: Games, not school, are teaching kids to

think. Wired 11 (May).

Grant, Lyndsay. 2006. Using wikis in schools: A case study. On-line. Available from

Internet, accessed 3 December 2006.

Indiana Department of Education

Lamb, Annette. 2006. Learning Spaces: Desktop Learning Spaces. On-line. Available

from Internet,

accessed 4 December 2006.

Yoder, Maureen. 1999. The Student webquest: A productive and thought-provoking use

of the Internet. Learning and Leading With Technology 26 (April): 6-9, 52-53.