Web pages for high school science teaching - the teacher's role - the GEO. Earth & Planetary Science web site at Hamrahlíð College, Iceland
[1838 Words, estimated reading time: 13 minutes, Posted 9 October
1997]
Georg R Douglas
Hamrahlíð College Reykjavík, Iceland
Having used the WWW to some extent in most earth science courses at
Hamrahlíð College for the past two years, the many opportunities it offers
science teaching have become obvious. But the many problems involved
in making it work satisfactorily had also produced more than one
frustrating classroom session. There is a natural tendency to blame low
bandwidth and slow hardware and these certainly put some restrictions on
what it is possible to get out of the Web in practical terms. A far greater
problem encountered, however, was the student's lack of knowledge of the
scientific infrastructure. At high school level students do not yet know how
or where to search for information resources. Most are taking their first
serious steps in the world of libraries, books and scientific journals and for
them, struggling through a meta index can be a daunting and time
consuming task. Another problem seldom mentioned in discussions of the
Internet revolution in teaching, is that the grass roots teacher doesn't
really have an on-line presence. If, as everything suggests, the classroom
really is moving on to the Net, then the teacher should surely move with it.
Looking over the student's shoulder during computer sessions just isn't
sufficient participation.
These are major problems, but they can be greatly alleviated and even
satisfactorily solved through careful departmentally-based web page
design, where the teacher is himself the web author. The web pages thus
become the teacher's own expanding virtual classroom where resources
can be selected and filtered and the student steered and instructed. The
teacher is highly visible through the customised nature of the pages, the
annotations which accompany resource links and provision of local
information resources of various kinds. A web site of this type has been
under construction by the author for about a year and first experiences of
using it are starting to emerge.
From the outset, the GEO. earth science web site was intended to be a
gateway to the Internet specifically built for the student. Through its basic
organisational design it not only greatly speeds up the student's resource
searching, but also provides instruction and guidance on how to use the
resources. The site also functions as a student web publishing outlet and
as a teaching platform which it is hoped will constantly develop to provide
a complete and flexible teaching environment for all the earth science
courses in the College.
Basic design
The student can enter the web site in one of several ways depending on
what he or she intends to do and on how much time is available. The
points of entry include WWW resources which leads to highly organised,
classified and annotated links and Icelandic links which catalogues all
Icelandic earth science resources in a similar way. The latter pages are
also intended as an introduction and enticement to visitors to the site, who
may be seeking peer contact. All the links are classified by the Dewey
Decimal Classification System while the annotations are aimed directly at
the student and sometimes include a suggestion as to how the resource
may be applied. Another entry point is via a Dynamic Earth and news
button which leads directly to classified sections with a high news content
as well as realtime data pertaining to earth science. Use of this makes it
possible for the student to easily extract useful information on topics such
as seismic activity and space probe discoveries within a 40 minute class
period. A final entry point is via Hamrahlið College Earth Science which
leads to pages organised by course, assignments and projects, as well as
providing local resources such as image collections and virtual field trips.
There are strong internal cross links between all the pages. This ensures
that the student can move around easily without getting lost. Equally
important is that such internal links provide an instructional role on using
the pages themselves. As an example, under a particular course
assignment in the College curriculum pages, a link may be provided say
to a particular NASA server. Initial selection of the link will however first
take the student to the appropriate listing in the classified resources
section of the GEO. pages. There a descriptive annotation from the
teacher can be read before the decision is actually made to select the
link. Since the internal links are fast, the overall result is to greatly reduce
unecessary browsing by the student.
Classifying information resources using a reworked 100 year old
system
Melvil Dewey certainly didn't have the Internet in mind when he published
his well known library classification scheme in 1876. Nevertheless his
scheme seems to suit it admirably and it is a widely used and familiar
system to most high school students. From a pedagogic point of view it
has the advantage of encouraging cross curricular learning, for topics can
appear in several different classes depending on their context. From the
web site author's point of view it enables very easy maintenance, little
effort being required to insert new resources in their appropriate class.
In keeping with current trends in teaching, a task-oriented classification
scheme for resources has also been employed in the GEO. pages,
superimposed on the basic Dewey scheme. The student is thus provided
with a very direct route to specific types of information. Catered for at
present are images-only links, news, software, realtime, direct contact
links, global links and virtual reality, the Dewey system being used within
each group as a common thread. Grouping resources in this way not only
saves the student time, but also encourages him or her to decide early on,
how they will be used. The teacher also has the opportunity here to
develop personal themes and add new groups in the future.
Of course it is essential to provide the option of free browsing when time is
available. After all, one of the great attractions of the Internet is the facility
of learning in several directions while following a single general theme.
While the use of the Dewey system allows the inclusion of web pages on
quite specific topics, it can equally well cater for the large meta-type of
resource index. However these are normally restricted to one or two, such
as the World Wide Virtual Library or the BUBL indices which ultimately
provide a gateway to most of the better known reliable information
resources. Special search pages are provided for a varity of key word
search engines and on-line data bases which also give the student the
chance of turning up further information and new resources. Again,
classroom time is saved by mounting links to specific science sections of
search engines rather than to the front page. An attempt is also being
made to build up collections of search pages which specialise in images,
news goups, news agencies and in other specific fields.
The GEO. pages don't restrict the teacher to just on-line resources. One
choice is a library and book resources section which provides links to
on-line libraries via the WWW and Telnet as well as to book sources and
to the college's own library and journal resources, thus integrating the two
worlds in which we work today. From the classified College book pages
the student can jump directly to the corresponding Dewey class in the
on-line resource pages to see if related material is available.
Other activities on the GEO. pages
On-line teaching is not only about resource searching of course. The
curriculum section in particular provides plenty of opportunity for other
activities. These include the provision of virtual field trips which are often
on-line versions of real field trips conducted by students and staff. They
are a useful means for the student to recall important features of the trip in
a more permanent way, while for the teacher they provide a useful step-off
point for further teaching or for assessment purposes through on-line
assignments. As part of the Netd@ys project an account is being provided
of such a virtual field trip in the making. A joint option course of the Earth
science and History departments at the College concerns the effects
volcanic eruptions have had on life and settlement in Iceland. A central
part of the course involves three major field trips to important eruption sites
in the country - Laki (1783), Vestmannaeyjar (1973) and Hekla (many
historic eruptions). The intention is to provide an interactive on-line route
log and visual account of the trips, which will remain as a source of
information to the students, as well as enabling the students themselves
to express their feelings and impressions. Since we have on the course at
the moment some European exchange students it is also hoped to
introduce a small cross-European element and even some further contact
outside Iceland once the pages are up and running. Peer contact of this
kind is not only of cultural value, but is one of the essential features of
basic science.
Where do we go from here?
Luckily, there is no more chance of producing a final version web site for
teaching, than there ever was of producing the perfect classroom
environment. The very nature of the Internet demands constant change
and development, both of which need to be incorporated into the web page
design. In the GEO. pages this has been partly provided for by small
active I buttons which lead to help pages where needed. This is very much
on a need to know basis, for experience has shown that most students do
not want to spend much time wading through technical descriptions. An
attempt is also made to prepare the student for what is around the corner,
whether it be a new browser type or a new way of presenting the
information resources. Increasingly the successful teacher will surely have
to keep up with developments on resource organisation and handling, as
well as with the computing aspects of teaching.
The intention is to use the GEO. pages increasingly in all earth science
courses at the College, as far as financial constraints and College policy
will allow, eventually making them the central point. That stage should
hopefully be accompanied by a reduction in the amount of stand-up
teaching and a corresponding increase in more useful student-teacher
activities. Initial reaction to using the GEO. pages suggests that students
are no less conservative than many of their teachers as regards the
introduction of such ideas. However, they are quick to learn and grasp the
technology and and there is every encouragement to continue at full
speed. The Internet offers for the first time, the oppportunity of really
properly introducing students to many of the fundamental principles of
science and the sooner we get involved the better for all of us.
References
GEO. Earth and Planetary Science for high school
http://www.ismennt.is/vefir/earth/
Douglas G R., Designing a web site for high school geoscience teaching
in Iceland. Computers & Geosciences, special issue on teaching, to be
published. Accepted for publication.
