Collaborative Learning in The Digital Age

Storybirds are a great way to get teachers and students involved interacting with each other. It also helps the teacher get to understand their students in a different way than they can when they are teaching in a classroom setting. Teachers could also assign class projects through Storybird. It is a very good way to get your students involved with more fun and creative learning ways.

Students that are in collaborative learning and who use technology are way more prepared for 21st century jobs. Jobs in the 21st century are changing everyday, there are jobs that we are not as students even being prepared because we are trying to get jobs that are around now instead of what will be around. This quote can be found under the Benefits and Disadvantages of Collaboration "technology can add flexibility of time and space" because it allows people know to hold meetings and other things without having to go meet them somewhere. The world is changing more and more each day with cell phones, computers, and the work place. In like 10 years from now probably just about every college will have a campus along with a virtual campus so if you want you can stay at home and do your school work from your house. Also the use of Skype is essential for businesses today so they can hold conferences with other parts of their company from across the world. There is just so many new things that can help us 21st century learners we just have to find ways to use them. 

WebQuest Rubric

World War II WebQuest

Overall Visual Appeal - There was not many different graphic designs.

Navigation & Flow - There are plenty of hyperlinks and the student wouldn't get confused or lost when doing this. 

Mechanical Aspects - All of the links given in this WebQuest work and they take you where they need to take you.

Motivational Effectiveness of Introduction - The introduction was weak and all it did was just give you an idea of what the teacher would be looking for. 

Cognitive Effectiveness of the Introduction - It helps you but it doesn't reference you to what you might of learned earlier. 

Connection of Task to Standards - The task is rather clear in what it wants the students to do.

Cognitive Level of the Task - It is a good task but it doesn't have the students relate it to their every day lives now. Score 3

Clarity of Process - It has every step stated out to what the student is suppose to do. There just needs to be some fixes to how it is labeled.

Scaffolding of Process - They are basically assuming that the student already knows how to use the tools that you need to do this WebQuest so there is no real directions.

Richness of Process - There is all these different processes that as a group they have to do to get this project together. 

Relevance & Quantity of Resources - All the information connects everything to the WebQuest.


Quality of Resources - The information thats given is information that you cant find in a normal text book.


Clarity of Evaluation Criteria - The evaluation was detailed and it told the students what they needed to do to get the most max points possible. 

	Beginning	Developing	Accomplished	Score
Overall Aesthetics (This refers to the WebQuest page itself, not the external resources linked to it.)
Overall Visual Appeal	0 points There are few or no graphic elements. No variation in layout or typography. OR Color is garish and/or typographic variations are overused and legibility suffers. Background interferes with the readability.	2 points Graphic elements sometimes, but not always, contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships. There is some variation in type size, color, and layout.	4 points Appropriate and thematic graphic elements are used to make visual connections that contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships. Differences in type size and/or color are used well and consistently.  See Fine Points Checklist.	2
Navigation & Flow	0 points Getting through the lesson is confusing and unconventional. Pages can't be found easily and/or the way back isn't clear.	2 points There are a few places where the learner can get lost and not know where to go next.	4 points Navigation is seamless. It is always clear to the learner what all the pieces are and how to get to them.	4
Mechanical Aspects	0 points There are more than 5 broken links, misplaced or missing images, badly sized tables, misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	1 point There are some broken links, misplaced or missing images, badly sized tables, misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	2 points No mechanical problems noted.  See Fine Points Checklist.	2
Introduction
Motivational Effectiveness of Introduction	0 points The introduction is purely factual, with no appeal to relevance or social importance OR The scenario posed is transparently bogus and doesn't respect the media literacy of today's learners.	1 point The introduction relates somewhat to the learner's interests and/or describes a compelling question or problem.	2 points The introduction draws the reader into the lesson by relating to the learner's interests or goals and/or engagingly describing a compelling question or problem.	1
Cognitive Effectiveness of the Introduction	0 points The introduction doesn't prepare the reader for what is to come, or build on what the learner already knows.	1 point The introduction makes some reference to learner's prior knowledge and previews to some extent what the lesson is about.	2 points The introduction builds on learner's prior knowledge and effectively prepares the learner by foreshadowing what the lesson is about.	1
Task (The task is the end result of student efforts... not the steps involved in getting there.)
Connection of Task to Standards	0 points The task is not related to standards.	2 point The task is referenced to standards but is not clearly connected to what students must know and be able to do to achieve proficiency of those standards.	4 points The task is referenced to standards and is clearly connected to what students must know and be able to do to achieve proficiency of those standards.	4
Cognitive Level of the Task	0 points Task requires simply comprehending or retelling of information found on web pages and answering factual questions.	3 points Task is doable but is limited in its significance to students' lives. The task requires analysis of information and/or putting together information from several sources.	6 points Task is doable and engaging, and elicits thinking that goes beyond rote comprehension. The task requires synthesis of multiple sources of information, and/or taking a position, and/or going beyond the data given and making a generalization or creative product. See WebQuest Taskonomy.
Process (The process is the step-by-step description of how students will accomplish the task.)
Clarity of Process	0 points Process is not clearly stated. Students would not know exactly what they were supposed to do just from reading this.	2 points Some directions are given, but there is missing information. Students might be confused.	4 points 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.	4
Scaffolding of Process	0 points The process lacks strategies and organizational tools needed for students to gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Activities are of little significance to one another and/or to the accomplishment of the task.	3 points Strategies and organizational tools embedded in the process are insufficient to ensure that all students will gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Some of the activities do not relate specifically to the accomplishment of the task.	6 points The process provides students coming in at different entry levels with strategies and organizational tools to access and gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Activities are clearly related and designed to take the students from basic knowledge to higher level thinking. Checks for understanding are built in to assess whether students are getting it. See: Process Guides A Taxonomy of Information Patterns Language Arts Standards and Technology WebQuest Enhancement Tools Reception, Transformation & Production Scaffolds	3
Richness of Process	0 points Few steps, no separate roles assigned.	1 points Some separate tasks or roles assigned. More complex activities required.	2 points Different roles are assigned to help students understand different perspectives and/or share responsibility in accomplishing the task.	2
Resources (Note: you should evaluate all resources linked to the page, even if they are in sections other than the Process block. Also note that books, video and other off-line resources can and should be used where appropriate.)
Relevance & Quantity of Resources	0 points Resources provided are not sufficient for students to accomplish the task. OR There are too many resources for learners to look at in a reasonable time.	2 point There is some connection between the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task. Some resources don't add anything new.	4 points There is a clear and meaningful connection between all the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task. Every resource carries its weight.	4
Quality of Resources	0 points Links are mundane. They lead to information that could be found in a classroom encyclopedia.	2 points Some links carry information not ordinarily found in a classroom.	4 points Links make excellent use of the Web's timeliness and colorfulness. Varied resources provide enough meaningful information for students to think deeply.	4
Evaluation
Clarity of Evaluation Criteria	0 points Criteria for success are not described.	3 points Criteria for success are at least partially described.	6 points Criteria for success are clearly stated in the form of a rubric. Criteria include qualitative as well as quantitative descriptors. The evaluation instrument clearly measures what students must know and be able to do to accomplish the task. See Creating a Rubric.	6
Total Score				40/50

WebQuest

___Efficiency Expert

X Affiliator

___Altitudinist

___Technophile

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	IT has a good meaning and purpose behind it and groups would do great in it.	One person could probably do this one by themselves so it makes it almost too easy
Shakespeare	This is a very good group project it has many different steps that people can do and a group would do great with this one	Some of the things people would have to do is rather easy and they would get done before everyone else in their group would.
Earthquake	This one requires a lot of people working together as a team to get the job done.	It could be too time consuming and you need to have a good time management skills.
Foreign Country	This one will take time to do research on a country.	One person alone could actually do this one so it not very group friendly.
Waves & Sound	This is a great group one to do.	The math and physics in it would make it hard for some students to understand what they are doing.

1.) The two best WebQuests would be Earthquake and Shakespeare because they are the ones that require a more involved group.

2.) The two worst would be Foreign Country and Waves & Sound because of how easy the country one is and the waves one is to complicated for some people to understand.

3.) Best and Worst mean to me is that they are the ones that get a group the most involved and ones that where a person doing it by themselves could do the work. 

Group:

As a group we decided on the Earthquake one as being the best one overall because it got everyone involved and it would be a fun project to do because who doesn't want to see something fall down and crushed.

The worst one we decided on was the Waves & Sound one. It was the worst because of how difficult and confusing it could of been for some students.