RE 503 Internet for Teachers © 1996, I. Borrás
Schedule Bennington College

ASSIGNMENTS / FINAL PROJECT

Assignments will be posted on a weekly basis. You will have seven days to complete your assignment and to send it to the instructor via e-mail.




Assignment 1 (3/6/96)
Read Chapters 1, 2 & 3 of Textbook
Browse Visit these sites:

AskERIC Home Page

A personalized Internet-based service providing education
information to teachers, librarians, students, counselors, administrators,
parents, and others.

Internet use in the K-12 Classroom
A valuable and very useful site, according to ERIC clearinghouse
clients.

U.S. Department of Education
An award-winner web site. It provides links to Department-funded or
affiliated sites and services.

Yahoo-Education: K-12: Resources
A search engine. Contains about one hundred links to sites plenty of
ideas for K-12 teaching.

Web 66: A K-12 World Wide Web Project
A comprehensive World Wide Web resource for educators offered by the
University of Minnesota.

Write E-mail to the instructor the following information :

  1. A brief biodata.
  2. A paragraph describing your teaching philosophy.
  3. A paragraph explaining how do you think the Internet may enhance learning.
(The information will, with your permission, be included in the "People" section of our web page).

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Assignment 2 (3/13/96)
Read Chapters 4 & 5 of Textbook
Browse Visit these sites:

Librarian's Ready Reference Guide to the Internet

An updated database of varied information which can be useful for
librarians, teachers, and students.

International Student NewsWire
A news service for students and teachers around the world. Anyone
may use stories form the service, and anyone may submit stories;
comments and discussion of the news gathering, teaching, and
computer-related issues is welcome.

Classroom Connect
This home page links you to Wentworth's Internet Newsletter, K-12
Resources on the Net, Lesson Plans, and Pointers. This megapage is
updated twice a week.

Write Please complete the following exercises:

  1. Ask one of your fellow students to e-mail a message to you. Reply to the message, and then forward or redirect it to another student.

  2. Send an e-mail to three different people, using the Nicknames window.

  3. Visit the Schoolhouse Project that you will find on the Classroom Connect site. Choose a lesson for the discipline you teach, or would, and save it as a 'text' file. Attach the file to an e-mail message, and send it to the instructor.

  4. Create two mailboxes for this course: one for the messages you will send, and the other for the ones you will receive.

  5. Subscribe to one of the mailing lists found on your textbook (pp. 18-26). For about a week, keep track of the e-mail you receive from the list; then leave the list.

  6. Write a paragraph describing the type of mail that came from the list you subscribed and mail it to the instructor.


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Assignment 3 (3/20/96)
Read Chapters 6 & 7 of Textbook
Browse Visit these sites:

TERC Science and Math Education

A link to a growing collection of educational resources and services
for Mathematics, Science, and Technology educators. The Hub
houses articles, curriculum, newsletters, projects, reports, and
software. Hub services can help you join or start a networked
community, publish on the Internet, or conduct custom information
searches.

Teachers Helping Teachers
A website created by teachers, for teachers.

Global SchoolNet's Internet Projects Registry
This home page links you to Wentworth's Internet Newsletter, K-12
A monthly calendar of on-line school projects.

Write Please complete the following exercises:

  1. Look at the articles listed in news.announce.newusers (in the course home page section: Usenet/Newsgroups). Read one of the articles that would give some guidance to a new user and print it.

  2. Based on your pedagogical experience and the information found in the course home page and textbook, prepare a draft for your final project. (Don't be scared! You'll get lots of help).

    Your draft should include the following:

    • Goals(s)
    • Objectives
    • Rationale
    • Procedure:
      • Working configuration (individual, paired, small group work)
      • Implementation time
      • Integration of Internet tools (e-mail, Gopher, FTP, other)
      • Activities
      • Testing (multiple choice and/or fill-in-the blank questions, written summaries, other)
    • Assessment (naturalistic observations, questionnaires, other)
    E-mail your draft to the instructor.

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Assignment 4 (3/27/96)
Read Chapters 8 & 9 Textbook
Search
&
Write 		Please complete the following exercises:

  1. Practice Using Gopher

    • Point your Gopher at the University of Minnesota. In other words, start a Gopher session with gopher.tc.umn.edu.
    • Select "Another Gopher" from the "Gopher" menu and type marvel.loc.gov into the Domain Name box. Click on the OK button, and you'll be in the Library of Congress Gopher.
    • Select the folder titled "Global Electronic Library (by subject)."
    • Select the subject area and the document of your choice.
    • View the document. Save it to your computer desktop.
    • E-mail the document, as an attachment to yourself.

  2. Practice Using Archie

    • Using any of the sites included in the course page with information about FTP, do the following:
      • Contact three servers, each on a different continent, and request an Archie search with an exact match, using any of these three strings: elementary education, secondary education, higher education.
      • Which server gave the most results?
      • Which server gave the results that would be most useful to you?
    • Write a paragraph with your answers to the above questions, and mail it to the instructor.

  3. Project's Storyboard

    • Start thinking about the screen layout of your project. Using pencil-and paper, sketch the way you would like to see the various elements of your project (title, introduction, activities, etc.) distributed in three or four computer screens.



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Assignment 5 (4/3/96)
Read Chapter 10 Textbook
Search
&
Write 		Please complete the following exercises:

  1. Telnet and e-mail

    • Telnet to the server of Bennington College. Based on the instructions found in the Telnet page and the printout distributed in class, do the following:
      • check your "new mail" (if any);
      • check your "mailbox" and open one of your messages;
      • send a message to one of your classmates and its copy to another one.

  2. Telnet and Internet Resources

    • Using the word "guest" to login, telnet to UMassK12 at the University of Massachusetts (k12.ucs.umass.edu) and do the following:
      • explore the contents of three of the sections of the "Guest Menu."
      • summarize in one paragraph the information you found in the sections and mail it to the instructor.

  3. Telnet and Library Catalogs

    • Visit the Hytelnet on the World Wide Web site and select the University whose library you would like to explore. Then:
      • conduct four searches (by author, title, subject and keyword) to find information on a topic related to your teaching.
      • report to the instructor the title, author, and call number of eight items (two per search) you found.

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Assignment 6 (4/10/96)
Read Chapters 11 & 12 of Textbook
Search
&
Write 		Please complete the following exercises:

  1. Using the Site Evaluation criteria found in our Web page, evaluate two of the schools listed in Colleges and Universities Home Pages. Share the results of your evaluation with your classmates.

    (The maximun number of points to be assigned to each criterium is as follows: Sources: 5 points; Content: 10 points; Design: 10 points; and Access: 5 points.)

  2. Evaluate two of the sites found in Armadillo's K-12 WWW Resources, using the OII Feedback Form for Educational Sites. Submit your evaluations to the address found in the form.

  3. Design an evaluation form that your students could use to evaluate Web sites. The form should ask users to rate between 5 and 10 features of a site (using a Likert-type scale). It should provide space for comments and suggestions. Check the form for clarity with your students, and mail it to the instructor.

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Assignment 7 (4/17/96)
Read Chapter 18 of Textbook
Browse
Internet: Ethical, Social, and Political Issues
Do your own Lycos search, or browse through a number of sites dealing with the ethical, social, or political implications of the Internet.

Write
Please write a one-page summary of your experiences using the Internet tools you have practiced in the previous assignments. E-mail your summary to the instructor


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Final Project (4/17/96 - 5/22/96)

You have five weeks to develop/refine the content of your final project, and to put your project's files in HTML format.

A project has to include at least three files: one for the project's documentation, another for the project itself, and the third one for the project's evaluation form.

Here is a possible work schedule that may help you meet the deadline of May 22:
  • Week 1: Read one of the suggested HTML tutorials. Put your project's documentation in HTML format, using the provided template.

  • Weeks 2 to 4: Work on the content of your project and put it in HTML format, using the provided information and templates. Your project may include various sections such as: "home," "subject information," "activities," and "selected links."

  • Week 5: Put your project's evaluation form in HTML format, using the provided template. Edit, if needed, the different components of your project.
Arrangements will be made so that you can field-test your project during the last week of May.

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I. Borrás