Using Technology as a Learning Tool

Thursday, January 12, 2005Session #2

Class Overview

Unfinished business Article #1 Review of Internet Browsers Find it easy, find it fast! – Searching

strategies Getting the most out of technology Project Proposal Forms - due as an

attachment next week

Schooling and Technology in the Information Age

What is David Suzuki concerned about and what does he propose that school teachers should do to resolve it?

Explain the three types of social eras that humankind has experienced, and describe what a knowledge worker is.

Discuss the differences between how teachers use technology to facilitate teaching, and learning and as an essential part of a changing world (understanding technology itself)

Discuss Hathaway’s four implications of planning to integrate technology into schools.

What is David Suzuki concerned about and what does he propose that school teachers should do to resolve it?

Explain the three types of social eras that humankind has experienced, and describe what a knowledge worker is.

Discuss the differences between how teachers use technology to facilitate teaching, and learning and as an

essential part of a changing world (understanding technology itself)

Discuss Hathaway’s four implications of planning to integrate technology into schools.

Explore and experiment with new technologies and

ask for help when you need it

Eliminate as much of the uncertainty and

“mystification” of technology Observe what works well for others Offer support when you can

How can we learn more about educational technology?

What is Technology in the School Setting?

Technological Tools

Productivity tools (e.g., Microsoft Office, AppleWorks)

The Internet and email Videodisks CD ROM Video-conferencing Audio / visual equipment

Potential Uses of Technology

Allows teachers to potentially customize instruction – example: Web Quests

Can eliminate time constraints and local boundaries – use of web-based technologies

Provides schools with the opportunity to collaborate on projects

Potential links with post-secondary, public, private, and other K-12 systems

Has the potential to expand the learning process or academic success of all students

Addressing the Issue

Technology must respond to three questions:

1. Does it make learning more accessible?

2. Does it promote or improve learning?

3. Does it accomplish the above while containing, if not reducing the per unit costs of education?

Impact of Internet Technology

Free physical boundaries of classrooms and time restraints of class schedules

Demonstrations can become Web based multimedia learning experiences

Learning resources can be augmented by learning resources from the Web

Re-focus our institutions from teaching to learning, from teacher to student.

An Overview of Explorer

Title Bar / Menu Bar / Button Bar / URL / Viewing Area Status Line / Close / Restore / Minimize

Netscape

Title Bar / Menu Bar / Button Bar / URL / Viewing Area Status Line / Close / Restore / Minimize

Menu Bar

Features: Edit (Netscape and IE)

Click Edit, then Find in Page - lets you search for text in the current page

Key strokes – Ctrl - F Go (Netscape) or Tools (IE)

History - keeps track of pages you have visited

Topics

What is a search engine?

How does a search engine know about things on the Net?

How can I improve my use of search engines?

How do I narrow or broaden a search?

What’s a meta-search engine?

What are some effective search strategies?

What’s a search engine?

An Internet tool which will search for Internet sites containing the words you designate as your search terms.

Provides results back to you in the form of links to those sites which include the terms you are looking for.

Search engines search databases of information that have been collected by automated computer programs.

How does a search engine know about things on the Net?

If search engine finds it while its “spiders” are out collecting data from the Web servers. The information is put into a large database that the user searches.

If a publisher of a Web page registers the site with the search engine.

How can I improve my use of search engines?

Learn how to use wildcards and Boolean operators.

Wildcards allow you to search simultaneously for several words with the same stem.

Boolean operators allow you to combine terms to broaden or narrow a search.

How do I use a wildcard?

A wildcard is a special character that can be appended to the root of a word so you can search for all possible endings to that root.

Example :

Doing a search on whal* would return

whale, whales, whaling, whalers

How do I limit a search?

Using the Boolean operator “and” Example :

The search string heart and disease will only provide links to sites that have both of these terms.

Documents which have just one of the terms will be ignored.

You can narrow it more by using and more than once.

Website

Let’s visit this website to see Boolean operators in action:

Title: Boolean Searching on the Internet – updated - 2004

http://library.albany.edu/internet/boolean.html

What’s a meta-search engine?

A meta-search engine doesn’t create it’s own database of information.

A meta-search engine searches those of other engines and directories.

By using multiple databases, the results are more comprehensive, but slower to receive.

What are some effective search strategies?

When using a search engine, be a specific as possible.

Try different search engines. Read the “tips” and help files that

are included with most engines.

What are some effective search strategies?

When using a search engine, be a specific as possible.

Try different search engines. Read the “tips” and help files that are

included with most engines.

Search Review

Subject Catalogues Recognizing Search Engines Special Search Engines More Special Tools Strategies for Better Results Specialty Engines Overview of Results

Subject Catalogues

Collection of sites organized into broad categories or topics

Sub-categories lead to sites or further categories

Some are evaluated collections

Classic example is Yahoo: www.yahoo.com

Special Search Engines

Natural Language Engines

www.askjeeves.com

Fuzzy Logic Enginesguidebeam.com/

www.fuzzycrawler.com

Filtered Engineswww.altavista.com

Fuzzy Logic Engines

the engine tries to comprehend the user's search query and respond intelligently with the most relevant categories.

Guidebeam doesn't pretend to "know what you mean". reduces information overload by presenting a

structured summary of the search result (a "hyperindex")

user can browse in order to clarify his or her information need.

This engine is particularly suited for non-technical users (who typically issue imprecise queries)

... searching of the type "I don't know what I want, but I'll know when I find it".

More Special ToolsThere are all kinds of special tools for locating people, places,

maps, words, postal codes – you name it. The key is knowing where to find them! Many of these materials are located in what is now called “The Invisible Web”

Dictionaries, Thesauri, encyclopedias, Translators…http://www.itools.com/

The Invisible Webhttp://www.executivelibrary.comhttp://dir.lycos.com/Reference/

Blogshttp://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/Cliques/

Finding Search Tools

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/http://www.allsearchengines.comhttp://www.sfu.ca/igs/CASIS/links/internet_search.html

Strategies for better results

Putting together a search strategy before you go searching will produce better results and get them faster

Strategies involve selecting the rights terms, combining them together in a way the engines can use them more efficiently, and using any additional techniques that may be available to narrow down the results

Selecting the right terms

Decide exactly what your question is Pick out a primary category the

information might fall under (education, history, mathematics…) and the main keywords of the question

Think of synonyms or other terms for the keywords (plurals, alternate spellings)

Build a Concept Block of your terms

Specialty Engines

Joe Expert: www.joeexpert.com Audio Find: www.audiofind.com Citeline: www.citeline.com Canadian News Index:

www.altavistacanada.com CraftSearch: www.craftsearch.com Artcyclopedia: www.arcyclopedia.com MosterBoard: www.monster.com

Getting a Quick Overview of Results

Try a Metasearch Engine• IxQuick www.ixquick.com• Dogpile www.dogpile.com• Metacrawler www.metacrawler.com• Cjnet Search www.search.com

Watch out for:• Sites that provide ratings – how do they evaluate and

who is doing the evaluations?• Sites that generate results with paid listings

(overture.com)

Combining Tools & Techniques

Deciding what you want to find out Gathering the right terms and phrases Selecting the type of tool most suitable Building a good search strategy Building limitations into your search Refining your search in the selected tool Trying a Metasearch for an overview

Successful searching on the Web will result from:

How can we get the most out of the technology?

Teachers and students have to be adept users

Using the computer as a cognitive tool requires that the teacher employ effective teaching strategies that are student-centred

Use the technology because it does things we could not do otherwise

Teachers Make the Difference not Computers!

Gains in achievement depend on the teacher and the strategies used by that teacher to engage children in meaningful learning

The computer can assist the teacher by creating learning environments that are not otherwise possible and by providing the student with a tool to represent knowledge in different ways.

Technologies Impact on Methods of Instruction

Teachers need training and ongoing support to help them use technology effectively and integrate it into their classroom teaching.

The use of the Internet in education multiplies limited resources and helps teachers reach all students. Bracey (1996)

Hubbard, (1995) sounds a negative note when he suggests that one of the greatest hurdles to the adoption of electronic methods of instruction is human inertia: that is a resistance to change

New Roles

teachers help students to pursue their own inquiries (“navigators and drivers”)

students need to make use of the new technologies to find, organize and interpret information

we all need to become reflective and critical about information quality and sources.

Why Do Teachers Use The Internet?

Citing Internet Material

Remember… “garbage in - garbage out”, no one has checked the value of the materials

Work with your students to decide what is and what is not credible material

Learn the Net… on the Net!

We will be visiting http://www.welcometotheweb.org.uk/

What are Plug-ins?

Add-on applications that work inside the browsers

Give the WWW its punch, pizzaz and its bells and whistles

Stay in the background - pop-up when needed

They run audio, video and animation sequences in Web pages

““richer virtual world”richer virtual world”

“In the story of the Trojan horse, it wasn't the horse that was effective, it was the soldiers inside. Technology is only going to be effective in changing education if you put an army inside it.”

- Seymour Papert