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What are the
formats?
Filamentality lets you create five
different formats (hotlist, treasure hunt,
sampler, scrapbook, and webquest). It's
easy to create one or all of the formats.
You can choose the order of your
activities. For example, you might want to
begin by striking a positive attitude with
a Subject Sampler.
Then you might provide learners with
factual information through a Treasure
Hunt. Finally, you might want to
engage them in a long term project using a
WebQuest. Then
again, maybe you want to start with a
WebQuest which
thrusts students immediately into a
compelling or controversial aspect of a
topic. This way, from the beginning,
students gain a broader perspective and a
better sense of why this topic is
important to study (i.e. it's challenging
and doesn't offer a simple black and white
answer).
- Hotlist: a list of internet
sites
- Multimedia Scrapbook:
students explore your collection of
multimedia links (photographs, maps,
stories, facts, quotations, sound
clips, videos...), decide which
resources they prefer, and create
something new
- Treasure Hunt: like a
hotlist; but includes questions based
on content from the sites
- Subject Sampler: learners
explore your collection of multimedia
links, includes questions based on
content from the sites AND how they
feel or react to it; more complex than
a treasure hunt
- WebQuest: uses the sites you
select as the starting point for a
complex activity that involves multiple
perspectives, possible group
collaboration, and a final project of
your choosing.
Suggestions
Start with a subject of particular interest. For
teachers and librarians, it might be a
subject in which you specialize. Another
idea is for both teachers and students is
to look at existing curriculum units and
see if there are any missing pieces which
might be augmented by creating a web
activity. You could begin with a specific
goal. Maybe you or a team of students or
teachers are developing a unit and need
some activities to enhance your
instructional goals. For
students, a hobby or something they've
heard about or always wanted to learn
about could be the catalyst.
Assemble
Resources
On the web, you will find the most current
events, the passion of many special
interest causes, and a diversity of
perspectives. Add to this the ability to
communicate with people around the world,
access to a wealth of multimedia
resources, and an increasing variety of
interactive learning experiences and
you've got a bunch of good reasons to add
web resources to the learning environment!
Even if you don't create a
Hunt, a Sampler,
or a WebQuest,
it's still helpful to create a Hotlist
or a Scrapbook.
This way you're adding web-based resources
to traditional resources. If you do want
to create a Hunt, a
Sampler, or a
WebQuest; the best
way is to create a thorough Hotlist
first which can then be used to build the
other formats. Below are examples of both
professionally created pages that vary
from the standard Filamentality format and
plain Filamentality pages created by real
users.
Hotlists:
A
recommended first step is to simply
compile a list of web-based resources -
i.e. a good "hotlist" of sites you know
are appropriate for your users. These
pages might not be standards-based or
geared toward a specific learning outcome,
but it will be like wheeling a bunch of
good books from the library into the
classroom. Providing a Hotlist will save
your learners hours of aimless searching.
With Filamentality, you fill in the URL,
Title, and Description and we spin the
Hotlist for you. Filamentality will let
you divide them into different categories.
You might choose to have learners create
their own sites or have groups studying
different aspects of a larger topic create
a Hotlist on each aspect. You can take a
look at a very basic
hotlist example or a more extensive
one such as Web2.0
for the Classroom Teacher.
Scrapbook:
If you want to expose learners to a variety
of media on a specific topic, you might
want their first web-based activity to be
the exploration of a Multimedia Scrapbook.
A Scrapbook lets learners dig through a
collection of sites you've selected and
categorized. Links can include
photographs, maps, stories, facts,
quotations, sound clips, videos, virtual
reality tours, whatever! Learners use the
Scrapbook to find aspects of the topic
that's important to them. They then
download or copy and paste these scraps
into a newsletter, desktop slide show,
collage, bulletin board, new web page,
digital story, etc.. The Multimedia
Scrapbook offers an open, student-centered
approach based on what appeals to them.
Take a look at a sample: A
Scrapbook on Domestic Violence.
Promote
Learning
Filamentality helps you integrate
the Internet into your handouts, research,
lessons, and activities. Students and
other teachers can access your pages from
any Internet connected computer (or from
your network if you choose to download and
save your pages there). Below you will
find examples of professionally created
pages that vary from the standard
Filamentality format and plain
Filamentality pages created by real users.
Treasure
Hunt: Teachers
(and students) can create Treasure Hunts
to facilitate learning factual knowledge
on a subject. The basic strategy is to
find sites that hold information that you
feel is essential to the given topic.
After you've gathered these links, you are
then prompted by Filamentality to pose a
question for each site. At the end of the
Hunt, you add a culminating "Big
Question." I f learners are already
emotionally connected to the topic, then
ask the question, "Are they learning
enough background information on the
subject?" If the answer is no or if the
best information on the subject is "hot
off the press," that's another reason to
try a Treasure Hunt.
You can take a look at a very basic
treasure hunt, or view a more
extensive one: Treasure
Hunt for Types of Animals.
Subject
Sampler: Use a
Subject Sampler when you want students to
feel connected to the topic and to feel
that the subject matters. Subject Samplers
connect students emotionally to the chosen
topic. Learners are presented with a small
number of intriguing websites on a
specific topic. Samplers are fun because
you've chosen websites that offer
something interesting to do, read, or see.
It's emotional because students are asked
to respond to questions from a personal
perspective. Rather than uncover hard
facts (as they do in a Treasure Hunt),
students are asked about their
perspectives on topics, comparisons to
their experiences, and their
interpretations of artworks or data, etc.
Thus, more important than the right answer
is that students see that their views are
valued. If learners have factual knowledge
about a subject, then ask yourself, "Do
they come out of the unit affectively
engaged?" If they don't seem to care about
the subject as you think they should, try
creating a sampler. You can take a look at
a very basic
sampler, or view one of our own
professionally designed samplers:
My
China*
WebQuest
Example: If
they learn facts, but don't pursue
higher-level thinking; why not make a
WebQuest? When you want to go beyond
learning facts and want to get into
grayer, more challenging aspects of the
topic -- you are talking about a webquest.
A webquest presents student groups with a
challenging task, scenario, or problem to
solve. It's best to choose aspects of a
topic that are under dispute or that at
least offer a couple different
perspectives. Current events,
controversial social and environmental
topics work well.
Logistically, all students
begin by learning some common background
knowledge. Then they divide into groups.
In the groups, each student or pair of
students have a particular role, task, or
perspective to master. They effectively
become experts on one aspect of a topic.
When the roles come together, students
must synthesize their learning by
completing a summarizing act such as
e-mailing congressional representatives or
presenting their interpretation to real
world experts on the topic. Here is a
WebQuest,
Lord of the Flies: Beyond the Novel,
created with the help of a tool called the
QuestGarden.
WebQuests take time to
develop and require careful consideration
in order to be effective. You can find out
more about WebQuests at the WebQuest
site.
*
A professionally created site that varies
somewhat from the standard page you create
when using Filamentalilty
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