web literacy and advanced search strategies

Teaching Global Studies with Technology

Justin ReichTom Daccord

EdTechTeacher.org4/23/10

Friday Afternoon Goals• Ask “Why Teach with Technology?”• Review Backwards Planning• Introduce Shneiderman’s Collect-Create-

Relate-Donate Framework• Examine effective search strategies for social

studies teachers– Open Research vs. Guided Inquiry– Search Directories vs. Search Engines– Advanced Google search– Assessing Credibility

Why Teach with Technology?

1. Whoever is doing most of the talking, or most of the typing, is doing most of the learning (and the more people listening the better)

2. The more ways we put ideas in our head, the more likely they are to stay there

3. Learners need to be both independent and effective collaborators- technology can scaffold both

Two Helpful Theories• For designing courses, unit plans and

projects: Backwards Design

• For designing technology-based lessons: Collect-Relate-Create-Donate

Backwards Planning

See Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design

Develop lesson activitiesHow will you prepare students to master the goals and succeed on the

assessment task?

Design assessment tasksHow will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?

Select learning goalsWhat do you want students to learn by the end of the lesson or unit?

Collect-Relate-Create-Donate

Students Should…• Collect the information needed for the

performance of understanding

• Relate to one-another in collaborative learning groups

• Create meaningful, authentic performances of understanding

• Donate their work to a broader audience

Collecting information:Open Research vs. Guided

Inquiry• Students are free to

search broadly across Web and library resources

• Students are responsible for assessing credibility, bias, and effectiveness

• PRO: Students develop needed media literacy skills

• CON: Much more time-consuming, higher risk of failure

• Students focus on interpreting selected documents and resources

• Students are responsible for assessing bias and effectiveness

• PRO: Focus on interpretation over search; less time-consuming; lower failure risk

• CON: Well, it’s not research

Textbook and Lecture Selected

Resource “Packets”

Library Pathfinders

Online Search Directories

Teacher-Created

Custom Search Engines

Original Scholarly Research

Scaffolded Research Projects

Open Inquiry

Guided Inquiry

Search Engines vs. Search Directories

• Index the entire Web• Rank sources based

on popularity (incoming links = votes; popular sites have more votes)

• Provide no editorial filter

• Google.com

• Index selected sites• Rank or organize

sources based on editorial opinion

• Provide an editorial filter on content

• Besthistorysites.net

Best of History Web Sites

Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Google Custom Search

Video Tutorial

Advanced Google Searching

Video Tutorial Part I

Video Tutorial Part II

Key Words and Searching

Assessing Credibilitya. http://zapatopi.net/ treeoctopus/b. http://newdeal.feri.org/c. http://www.dhmo.org/d. http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate

A few things to do to prepare for tomorrow:

• Define your learning goals

• Explore besthistorysites.net

• Experiment with Advanced Google searching (create your own Google Custom Search Engine?)

• Identify content that could be central to your learning project