CAETI Project Abstract
Title: Supporting the Authoring of Network-based
Curriculum for Focused Exploration
Performer(s):
Frank Shipman
Computer Science Department
Texas A&M University
|
Cluster: SNAIR
Contact Information:
Phone: 409-862-3216
Fax: 409-847-8578
email: shipman@cs.tamu.edu
|
1. Instructional Focus:
Content areas/topics: Applicable to any content area
Process skills: Focused exploration of WWW material
2. Target Population: 4-12. With additional effort or resources could cover K-12
3. Summary Description: As extensive and encyclopedic as Internet and WWW-based materials are and promise to become, they still must be tailored for use in a classroom setting. The bulk of the material available today is not aimed at the needs of K-12 students, although many elements--collections of images, simulations, segments of digital video, audio, etc.--have the potential to play a strong supporting role in the curriculum of tomorrow.
This project supports the organization and contextualization of existing WWW information. The initial metaphor in implementing an environment to support focused network exploration is the directed path. A directed path provides the means for guiding a readerŐs traversal along a path of components extracted from a set of documents. Since the new ordering is independent from the structure of the source documents, the teacher can combine information from a variety of WWW sources into a single rhetorical structure, complete with the teacherŐs own annotations to contextualize the content and focus the studentŐs attention. Students may still browse the existing WWW structure but they always have an easy method to get back on the path.
The visible products of this research effort will be the Path Authoring Tool and the Path Server.
- The Path Authoring Tool enables the teacher to create, modify, validate, and reuse paths over existing material on the World-Wide-Web.
- The Path Server is the implementation means through which students use the paths.
4. Training and Staff Development:
- Teacher prerequisite skills/knowledge needed: Some knowledge of computers; some basic understanding of the WWW.
- Student prerequisite skills needed: Reading skill 4-12 grade level; introduced to browsing on the WWW or similar source.
- Training needed/provided: Two days to a week to learn about the path authoring tool.
- Technical support needed/provided: To be determined during the course of the project.
5. Technological/Resources Needed: Computer with Internet and WWW capability.
6. Intended Outcomes:
Students: Focused exploration of WWW material related to educational goals.
Teachers: Teachers will be able to develop paths over existing WWW information as additional resources for curriculum.
7. Instructional Time Required: Depends on individual teacher and curricular goals.
8. Role of the Pilot Teacher(s): Learn and use Path Authoring Tools; provide feedback to aid in refining the Path Server and Path Authoring Tool.
9. Example(s) of the Use of this Product (Scenario):
A teacher is preparing material on the topic of ancient Greece. Using existing WWW search engines through an interface provided by the Path Authoring Tool, the teacher locates a number of possibly useful WWW sites. After browsing these sites with a commercial WWW browser, the teacher decides which information is useful to help explain the events of this time in history. The material chosen varies greatly and includes images of artifacts from museums, maps of the Mediterranean at different periods of history, and texts ranging from tourist information to academic articles about open issues concerning the history of the region.
To contextualize this information, the teacher determines the order students should view this variety of information and contextualizes it by adding annotations which will appear with the existing on-line information. These annotations become the rhetorical structure binding the WWW information together, explaining the relationship between information scattered over the various sites and focusing the studentsŐ attention on particular aspects of the information provided. Finally, the teacher saves the path just authored and uses the commercial browser to view the path as it will be seen by the students.
Using the commercial browser to view the authored path, students have the framework of the path to guide their traversal of the WWW, but may also make Ňside tripsÓ off the path to investigate their own interests in more detail. Thus, one student may become intrigued by a collections of images of artifacts from the time while another may read more on Alexander the GreatŐs campaign through Persia.
