Journal Post 6

Focus question:  What are WebQuests and virtual fieldtrips?

            Webquests are online inquiries created by students and guided by teachers. Teachers preselect websites, which students can tour to gather information about the assigned topic. This information may be gathered from pictures, videos, digital text, or audio. With this information, instead of writing the typical research paper, the students might prepare individual or group presentations to share with their classmates. Virtual Fieldtrips allow students and teachers to take field trips to different places in the world without ever leaving the classroom. I believe that both of these are a great alternative or addition to how lessons are normally taught, they are both engaging the students to learn more, and exciting them about learning. Virtual tours could be especially helpful in a class such as geography, world history, and social studies, this way students can feel more connected and get a real picture of the place their studying about.

Tech Tool: Backflip- www.backflip.com

            Backflip is a free bookmarking tool. This tool is especially useful for students to keep track of the sources where they get their information. One of the benefits of using backflip is that it enables you to retrace the steps taken on the web. It can also serve as a web surfing tool that will organize and collect history of the websites you’ve visited. I would consider using such a site, especially because there is nothing more frustrating than finishing a very long research paper, ready to list your resources, and not being able to find your source. All students could really benefit and should be using a site like backflip as a tool to stay organized.

Summary: Chapter 6

            Chapter 6 introduces websites for maintaining organization while working with online resources. Some of these include bookmarking, social bookmarking, and information alerts. Bookmark techniques are especially helpful when researching a topic, they can aid you in staying organize and not losing your sites without having to keep all the tabs opens. Webquests and virtual fieldtrips are also introduced, which are great ways for teachers to capture the student’s attention and keeping things new and exciting, while following the curriculum and learning standards. In order for teachers to stay organized in following the curriculum and standards, they can use electronic resources such as building a standards connector web.

Photo credit to Robin Ashford