e-Help Seminar 2 'Information is not learning' - Using the
Internet as an effective teaching tool.
Toulouse 17-19 February 2005
The World Wide Web has given teachers and students
of history access to an ‘information superhighway’
previously unparalleled. However, whilst there are
obvious advantages in terms of the resources now
available on the Internet, this has not necessarily
been translated into the effective teaching and
learning of history. This paper will look at the
advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a
teaching tool. It will highlight the benefits of
using webquests as a method for ensuring the use of
higher order thinking skills when using the
Internet. The paper will conclude with a case study
looking at a webquest that I have written about the
contribution of black and asian soldiers in the
First World War (www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm).
This was taught to year 9 students in January 2005.
There are a number of advantages of using
the Internet as a teaching tool. The most obvious concerns the amount of
material that is available to both teacher and pupil and the speed of
access that has been facilitated. As an illustrative example, when I was
preparing the ww1 webquest I was able to find fascinating and inspiring
material about the soldiers that fought in the British Army as members
of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). This included interviews
with some of the surviving veterans, Eugene Clark and George Blackman as
well as details of the Taranto Mutiny when soldiers from the BWIR
demonstrated their anger against the racial discrimination that they
faced at end of the war. In the absence of access to the Internet this
would have involved extensive and time consuming research. The fact was
that I was able to sit at my desk and spend a few hours searching via
Google and poring over extracts from Jamaican and British newspapers
amongst other websites. Some of the other advantages of the Internet
include the improvement in ICT skills that it provides. A research study
(http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/TIPS/gilmour.html)
carried out by Nick Gilmour, a teacher in Cambridgeshire found that
‘(the Internet group) produced some excellent project work and
demonstrated high levels of ICT skill.’ and that the use of the Internet
‘often stimulates and raises the levels of motivation. The quality of
project work is greatly improved with the use of computers.’ Gillian
Mead from Chesterton Community College argues that the effective use of
the Internet ‘enable(s) students to develop as independent, effective,
efficient and discerning electronic information gatherers rather (than)
remain as serendipitous and credulous surferbrowsers’ (http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/TIPS/mead.html).
However, there are undoubtedly a number of concerns about the use of the
Internet as an effective teaching tool. The most striking observation is
that ‘information access alone, without a means for learning the
information ‘effectively’, or, a means for turning information into
knowledge, results in numerous design faults, namely information
overload and navigation problems.’ (Jones and Scully
http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/1998/issue2/jones2.html). Another problem
is that the use of the internet can be a frustrating learning experience
with the pupils lost in a web of irrelevant and inappropriate material.
The vast majority of material on the Internet is not designed for pupils
of a school age and unless pupils are taught the skills necessary to
search the internet effectively they often become frustrated as they
search in vain. There is also the misconception that the answer to
everything can be found at the end of a Google search. Some pupils also
find themselves far too easily distracted by the pop ups, banners and
games, cars, music, football etc sites that are only a URL away when the
teacher isn’t looking. However the most pressing concern is the
passivity of many pupils involved in Internet research. The temptation
to cut and paste chunks of unread text is seemingly too hard to resist
for many pupils resulting in the acquisition of knowledge without the
processing that is so vital for a deeper understanding. The Internet is
not a substitute for the good teacher; whilst it can deliver a wide
amount of resource material it can not adapt to the needs of the
individual student.
There are a variety of ways that these disadvantages can be overcome to
enable the Internet to become an effective teaching resource. The
problems of passivity can be solved by creating teaching material that
forces pupils towards information processing rather than research
gathering. The most obvious example of this is the use of webquests to
which I will turn to shortly. The problems of pupils getting ‘lost’ can
be overcome by a number of strategies: pupils can be trained to use
search engines more effectively, particularly by honing down the
searches with the use of keywords. Alternatively the use of a ‘portal’
which guides the pupils towards pre-selected websites can allow the
teacher to direct the pupils to the most appropriate resources. Finally
there needs to be an increase in the number of teacher created websites,
with differentiated material and tasks that encourage higher order
thinking skills and are adapted to the needs of the pupil.
A webquest is an online lesson or series of lessons using the Internet
as a resource bank. A successful webquest engages the student with an
enticing ‘hook’ and requires students to complete a task, often using
other ICT applications, that encourages the development of higher order
thinking skills. The structure of a webquest follows a particular
format;
Introduction – This is the initial stimulus material that acts as a
‘hook’ for the student and engages them with the task. This could be
either a real life situation, for example the Amistad slave ship case or
a fantasy scenario, for example a time machine has been invented to take
the students to a place or event in history.
Task – This is the opportunity for the teacher to be as creative as
possible. The task must have a realistic and achievable outcome but
could take any variety of formats ranging from a whole class debate to a
multimedia presentation to a simple written description.
Process– As a tool for enhancing independent learning the Webquest
guides the student through a series of step-by-step processes to enable
the task to be completed. This may involve working individually or as
part of a larger group with individually assigned roles. The student
should also be given guidance in how to complete the task. This may take
the form of ‘scaffolding’ whereby the student is able to build up
knowledge through a series of smaller task, or may involve the use of
directed questions, concept mapping, tables and worksheets.
Resources - One of the fundamentals of the Webquest is the use of the
World Wide Web as a resource bank. A crucial aspect is that the student
is guided to the most appropriate resources and not left to drift
aimlessly in ‘hyperspace’. This may involve differentiated resource
pages with a page devoted to the key websites and a second page for
additional resources. Students are not necessarily limited to using the
Internet. There is a wide range of (electronic) resources available
including e-mail, videoconferencing, using databases and forums.
Students could also use material from their school and local libraries
or from their teacher.
Evaluation – This provides the student with the marking criteria and
allows them to understand how they will be assessed as an individual and
part of the team. This insight encourages the student to become
self-evaluative and provides the ‘critical steps’ that are needed to
make further progress.
Conclusion – This allows the student to evaluate the progress that they
have made and provides an opportunity for further exploration. This may
be achieved through the addition of further questions or stimuli that
may arise from the original task.
There are many advantages to the use of Webquests;
q The creation of the Webquest is straightforward for any teacher that
has a basic competency in ICT – there are various templates that can be
used such as this one from the Webquest website:
[]http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html]
q The teacher can adapt a task to the appropriate needs of their classes
and to individual students. This can be done by varying the complexity
of the task and by allocating different roles within the Webquest.
q The use of Webquest is an excellent motivational tool. Students can
engage in real-life enquiry based activities and have the opportunity to
create a valuable end product.
q Webquests can encourage team building skills in order to achieve a
collective task as well as enhancing individual skills in a wide variety
of ways; literacy, ICT, numeracy, communication, problem solving.
q Webquests often depend on the use of higher order thinking skills.
Students will need to synthesise material from a wide range of sources
and the task may require the evaluation of a particular interpretation
or event.
I wrote this webquest over a period of three days in the Christmas
holidays 2004 and subsequently spent a few hours tightening up different
sections after receiving feedback from colleagues and members of the
History Teacher’s Discussion Forum. I tried it for the first time in
January with two classes of year nine pupils in the top and middle
ability sets having previously studied the causes of WW1 and Trench
Warfare. The students were in the computer suite for three lessons.
The black and asian soldiers in the First World War webquest asks
students to imagine that they had been commisioned to write a booklet
for primary school children about the contributions that soldiers from
Africa, Asia and the Caribbean made to the war. This task meant that
pupils had to use higher order thinking skills to synthesise the
appropriate material and produce an outcome that was different from the
original material they had used. They were guided to the best resources
via this page (resources page) which was differentiated to allow access
to the key resources as well as being hyperlinked to further resources
if needed (extended resources page). I also included a self assessment
sheet that can be looked at here (assessment page) which required the
pupils to grade themselves on different criteria ranging from how many
websites they used (this was deliberately scored to encourage them not
to use too many), how appropriate their language was (I was hoping to
cut out as much cutting and pasting as possible) and their effort. I now
realise that I should have also included a section about their ICT
skills.
I was fairly disappointed by the majority of the results, but I will add
the proviso that this was the first time that any of the students had
used a webquest before:
- too many of the students had simply lifted chunks straight from the
various websites that they used.
- those who had 'strayed' from the websites that I recommended often
went completely off the track - one student ended up writing about Franz
Ferdinand!
- There was little thought put into the presentation of the booklets -
they were good at making it look colourful, but the layouts were
cluttered and (a personal bugbear) the text was not justified and
hyphenated as it stretched across two lines. Some didn't even bother
with any colour at all and wrote it in Word - v dull.
- some of the lower ability students found the webquest too daunting and
in their words 'too long'! This was despite my attempts to really narrow
the resources to a bare minimum with a differentiated page for those who
wanted further research
However, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. One of the best
booklets was produced by a dyslexic pupil who really thought carefully
about what to include, kept the text to an appropriate amount and in
accessible language, clearly presented the work and made good use of
images. The best booklet was produced by a student who managed to cover
a range of contributions and presented his work effectively:
http://www.comptonhistory.com/ww1%20webque...%20soldiers.pdf
So, my overall thoughts about this series of lessons. Well, like
everything I will not be put off because it didn't work first time, I
shall continue to give the classes experience of webquests and I am
confident that they shall get better at working with them. I also think
that our pupils are now so much more ICT savvy that we can really focus
on the historical content and allow that to engage and drive the pupils
further in their ICT work. One other positive that I can take out of
this is that the vast majority of the pupils genuinely were interested
in the topic and learned a lot - probably, no certainly a lot more than
they would have learned from a worksheet.
Whilst there are obvious advantages to using the Internet in the
classroom, such as the speed of access to a wide range of sources, it is
imperative that students are encouraged to process the material they
find rather than passively accepting it at face value. One of the most
effective ways to do this is to use webquests as a vehicle for
developing higher order thinking skills and using the Internet as a
resource for guided research. Information is not learning, it’s what you
do with it that counts.
