6c+Debbie

Debbie

__ Assessing Educational Websites __

The thirteen.org article in this week’s reading pulled together the inquiry based learning concepts in a way that made particular sense to me as a groupworker and provides some guidelines through which we might evaluate the helpfulness of websites to our students. Creating a list of desirable learning outcomes, Joe Exline in the Concept2Class section of the website cites: · Content of subjects · Content in a larger conceptual framework · Information processing skills · Nurtured habits of mind

Any website that we select as a platform for student inquiry needs to have one of those goals in mind. It’s also important that we balance the kinds of sites offered, so that, for instance, we don’t just refer students to sites that fill in the blanks for content exploration, but also find ones that attend to the process of the exploration.

This balance of content and process has always been at the core of the philosophy of informal education and experiential groupwork, which is the educational realm in which I’ve spent the most time. Without sometimes calling attention to the very process of the group’s “work” to keep itself strong, it is difficult to maintain a vibrant platform to examine any content. Professor Nagler’s reference in her lecture to the metacognition and “ thinking about thinking” inherent in nurturing habits of mind reminded me of the kinds of learning that happen in those group moments.

It seems to me that it’s a lot easier to find websites that simply deliver content than those that attend to that kind of process learning. Perhaps I’ll feel differently after learning more about webquests this week.