Rubric for Grading of Melanie Springers WebQuest

Criteria	Accomplished (3)	Developing (2)	Beginning (1)	Score & Comments
Introduction	Engagingly describes a compelling question or problem.	A question or problem is described.	The purpose of the WebQuest is unclear.	2 – question is implied, but no direct address of the question
Task	Task is doable and engaging, and is connected to learning in the real world. It elicits thinking that goes beyond rote comprehension.	The task is doable and elicits higher order thinking but is not relevant to students lives.	Task requires simply comprehending or retelling of information found on web pages and answering factual questions.	3 – very well laid out, the thinking involved in writing will get students ready for other courses with different writing styles
Process Checklist	Every step is clearly stated. Most students would know exactly where they are at each step of the process and know what to do next.	Some directions are given, but there is missing information. Students might be confused.	Every step is clearly stated. Most students would know exactly where they are at each step of the process and know what to do next.	3 – very well done, each step is explicit and organized
Resources	There is a clear and meaningful connection between all the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task.	There is some connection between the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task. Some resources don't add anything new.	Resources provided are not sufficient for students to accomplish the task.	3 – resources are all available, with only the FOOD link being broken
Formative Assessment	Webquest begins with a formative assessment that assess student understanding of content outlined in CSO.	Formative assessment comes close in assessing student understanding of content outlined in CSO.	Formative assessment does not directly assess student understanding of content outlined in CSO.	3 – Students know exactly what they will be doing with the CSO’s outlined.  The WebQuest follows the CSO very well.
Evaluation	Criteria for success are clearly stated in the form of a rubric. Criteria include qualitative as well as quantitative descriptors.	Criteria for success are clearly stated in the form of a rubric. Criteria include qualitative as well as quantitative descriptors.	Criteria for success are not described.	3 – Students know exactly how they will be graded on the project.
Visual Appeal	Appropriate and thematic graphic elements are used to make visual connections that contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships.	Graphic elements sometimes, but not always, contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships.	Color is garish and/or typographic variations are overused and legibility suffers. Background interferes with the readability.	3 – the images selected contribute greatly to the content of the WebQuest
Navigation	Navigation is seamless. It is always clear to the learner what all the pieces are and how to get to them.	There are a few places where the learner can get lost and not know where to go next.	There are more than 5 broken links, misplaced or missing images, badly sized tables, misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	2 – One of the links are broken, the FOOD link is broken

Classroom Methods

This activity differs greatly in means than anything I did before high school.  We had no practicle internet usage until I was in high school.  We never did the ranking, a class project we had in middle school was to research animals, but that was as far as it went.  Yes, my learning style is addressed in the project because I have multimodal, and it deals with kinesthetic, visual, and auditory.  The class debates deal with the auditory, the presentations deal with visual, and the practical use of the knowledge deals with kinesthetic.  I am not surprised that the project was done without textbooks, textbooks give only one side of the bias.  The internet has many more points of view than one textbook does.  I would like to teach in a similar style, but the biggest obstacle would be the technology, not everyone has the technology to pursue this kind of project.

Best and Worst

The two best WebQuests in my opinion are Waves and Sound and Earthquakes.  They both provide a great in depth study of the topics.  The Waves and Sound project is very lengthy, but a great deal is learned.  Earthquakes has many different aspects including research and study, and then application of what was learned.
The worst was the Gorillas.  There was not much substance to the topic, just research and talk about your research.
The more that the students learn dictates which projects are the best.  Also, how much time is spent.  Waves and sound is a very lengthy project, but a great deal is taught.

WebQuest Analyzation

Efficiency Expert

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	Broad topic range.  Multiple skills taught.	Takes too long.  Too much time to cover thoroughly.
Shakespeare	Short sturdy intro into a study of Shakespeare.  Good if all students do thorough research.	Students will only learn as far as their research takes them.  If they are disinterested they will do only enough to get by.
Earthquake	Thorough lesson beginning with the research and students have the added incentive of bragging rights through competition.	Can be compressed into less class periods by letting research be done on student’s own time.
Foreign Country	Good concise lesson covers not only the computer aspect, but also cultural aspects.  Incentive is provided to do well.	Students’ participation will vary, some students will give it everything they can, and some will only do enough to get by.
Waves & Sound	Very in-depth lesson teaching many different concepts of waves.	Extremely long lesson.  Given time for students to understand and grasp all the concepts.

Blogging

I like the concept of blogging because it is an easy and convienient way of sharing our thoughts and opinions.  Keeping a blog can make you a more successful teacher in that you can share what has and hasn't worked for you in the classroom.  After this class I am unsure whether or not I'll continue my blog.  With my current work load, the blogging could end up becoming more of a nucience than anything.  Keeping this blog has helped my with my appropriation.  The remixing with the voki and other projects has helped me understand this concept better than I did.

Wikipedia: Friend or Foe?

The in class activity affected my belief in wikipedia.  I use the site a great deal as a place to get basic information.  It can be used as an educational tool, but it's value as a cited source is not that good.  For my future students, I would instruct them that they can use wikipedia, but not to cite it in their papers.  Use it as a starting point or a stepping stone to find valuable sources.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia published in many different languages.  A source that anyone can edit can be a decent sourse because of the many people watching each article, someone with some expertise on the topic should have some input.  Wikipedia uses the collective knowledge of the public to weed out bad information.  Larry Sanger left wikipedia because he thought it should give more of the authority to experts rather than just anyone.  Abuse of a wikipedia page would show up as misleading or wrong information.  The statistic on the number of languages and pages show how widely used the site is.  Wikipedia is so successful because it has a broad knowledge base and is easy to navigate.  Wikipedia does not accept advertising because, in my opinion, the advertising would try to control what the site says.  Wikiscanner help ensure reliability because it shows who posted what in an article.

Favorite Subject Results

Web Site Validation

The web site's domain is zapatopi.net meaning that anyone could have put the site up, therefore some caution should used when obtaining information from this site.  The author is listed, but when a search was performed, the name seemed fabricated.  There was an e-mail contact provided, but the e-mail address was not checked for validity.  The intent of the web site was clearly to persuade people to protect the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.  The audience targeted seemed to be the general public.  The language was written at about the same as a newspaper.  The web page is very current, last updated March 28, 2011.  There is no clear peer review for the paper; I couldn't find a comments section for review.  In conclusion, the web site is probably not a reliable source because there is no way to validate the author or information.

Favorite Subject

Social Networking

I have used social networking sites for about two years now.  I am an avid 4-H'er, and I have attended State 4-H Camp for four or five year.  I first made my Facebook page to keep in touch with some of my friends from around West Virginia.  I live in Preston County, and the only way for me to keep in touch with some of my friends from the southern end of West Virginia is to use social networking.

School Creativity

According to Sir Ken Robinson, schools kill creativity by not putting as much emphasis on the arts as on other subjects.  He quoted Picasso "Every child is born an artist."  We do not say that that child has succeeded only because he/she is a very good artist, they must excel in the core subjects to say that they succeeded.  The educational system is built to provide workers for the industrial age; that age has passed and we need to adjust.  Schools can help promote creativity by getting students more interested in the arts and increasing the portion of the schedule dedicated to the arts.  I wish that teachers knew that I don't learn very well by writing; I can learn by reading fairly well.  My most useful learning style is kinesthetic.  I usually combine my visual/auditory with my kinesthetic style.  If I see or hear something, I try it to see if it works.

Learning Styles

I have many different learning styles at my disposal.  The survey that I took only confirmed my belief.  I have a multimodal learning style encompassing, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  My most efficient method of learning is kinesthetic, followed by visual, and then auditory.  I wish teachers would use more diversity in their teaching methods to help me learn.  Some things I learn very well visually, while some thing I need to hear to learn.  More diversity in teaching style will also help many kids to learn because you encompass all the styles with the teaching.

Philosophy of Education

Edmodo, and What We Did

I think that the students like using Edmodo, because they had other people to bounce ideas off of.  They also had someone to pushe them in a direction for their writing.  Their writing is still their own, because they had the choice of which prompt to take.  Many of the students like the collaborative writing because it was a new way to look at writing methods.  I enjoyed the Edmodo project, because it exposed me to an atmosphere that I may not have seen otherwise.  I also enjoyed reading the other students' stories and seeing what level that they wrote on.  In future classes, I may use a tool similar to this to give a class a challenge problem.  That way, they can work together to get the problem finished.

President Obama: Cool under Pressure?

In these pictures, President Obama is portrayed after the Gulf Oil Disaster.  Each picture tells something different about his personality and his composure.
In this picture, Mr. Obama seems concerned, but still collective of his abilities.  His facial expression visualizes his concern.  The tense upper lip, and the lowered eyebrows are the best visualization of concern.  The camera also helps with the visualization of concern, the camera being above his eyeline emphasizes the facial expression with particular emphasis on his forehead and eyebrows.

In this picture, Mr. Obama seems more relaxed than in the other picture.  The relaxed look comes from his facial expression.  He is smiling, and his posture also looks relaxed.  He appears to be having a conversation with some friends in this photo.  The surrounding people in the foreground help the relaxed look, because many of them are smiling as well.  The background portrays a different picture, however, the people in the background have binoculars and one person in on the phone.  The background gives more of a concerning look.
The top picture shows that Mr. Obama has true concern, and the bottom shows that he can keep himself calm and collected under pressure.

Media Literacy?

In this day and age, too many people rely solely on the internet, and electronics.  The problem is not relying on such media, the problem lies in being able to interpret the messages being sent.  In the article, a study showed that two thirds of American adults didn't know the difference between paid and unpaid search results.  If we cannot tell what a reliable source is we will not find credible information.  If we don't have accurate information, we will not be able to make informed decisions.  A study at my high school a few years ago found that over half of the students didn't know what the suffix on the web address meant.  For example, sites ending with .edu or .gov are the best place to look for new scientific discoveries.  .edu is and educational institute and .gov is the government.  All the information at our fingertips is great, but we need to be able to determine the credibility of the information presented.

Teacher of the Year

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

Henry Brooks Adams

Teacher's Influence on World History

New Media; Cool, or not?

I believe that using new technology is not the same learning as writing a report.  In some ways it's better, and in some it's not.  One way that it is better is it engages the students more than a report does.  The research done is the same either way, but the effort in the final project will vary depending on the student.  One reason that using new technology is bad is that it provides the students with a crutch.  A quote from the reading, "As the technology becomes stronger, the story becomes weaker," sums up my opinion.  Too many students will focus on the technology, rather than the message.  All in all, it is up to the particular teacher whether or not this is worth incorporating into the classroom.

Cool Textbooks?

In the article A Textbook Example of What's Wrong with Education, Tamim Ansary makes a case against the textbook industry.  The case was made that Ansary worked for a textbook publishing company, and problems came from the lack of originality in textbooks.  Textbooks have so many censors that it must pass before it can even be thought of for adoption that it effectively nullifies the messages being brought.  For example, a textbook won't pass censorship if it has an african american playing sports, an asian at a computer, or a woman taking care of a baby.  Another problem that Ansary brings up is money.  Textbook companies only have concern for three states, because that is where the money is.  Even of those three, Texas is the only one that they tailor needs too.  Many companies know the Texas curriculum, but the other states must follow what Texas does because the textbooks are made for them.

I agree that the problems listed by Ansary are the downfall of today's education.  Public education has become focused on money, more that the well-being and future of our nation.  One person commented on the page that he could remember his textbook from the 1950's because it was a grammar book that used the analogy of an alien evesdropping to learn our language.  None of today's textbooks will have that impact on students, unless we change our way of thinking.

About Me

My name is Ryan Cool.  I am from Lenox, a small town in Preston County.  My hometown has a population of roughly 40 people.  I am currently majoring in chemistry education.  I also hope to obtain a chemistry degree and a physics education degree.  I believe that children need to work together in groups for real world purposes, but they also need the individual ability to reason through problems.  Chemistry and physics are used to teach complex problem solving skills, which are necessary for everyday life.  In the classroom, students should expect all the individual activities such as lecturing and testing.  Students should also expect to be grouped together during lab instructions.  Therefore, they will learn individual and group problem solving skills.