Inquiry Project:

A Look at Student Internet Use

Katie Todd
CEP 806
Fall 2008
Ideas for Inquiry
 What is the best way for my
students to use the internet
as a resource tool?
 How effectively do students
use the internet to find
information on a given
topic?
 Do students know how to
evaluate a web site as
useful or not?
 Do students understand how
large the web is? As B.C.
Bruce mentions in Twenty-
First Century Literacy, the
web is “a gigantic book” the
“docuverse” or the “universe
of knowledge”.
Predictions on Student Internet Use

 In past experiences, I have

observed students use the
internet as a quick way to
find information.
 Students tended to find all
their information from the
first site that came up on a
search. Students did not
visit multiple sites.
 Students do not evaluate if a
site is a good resource or
not.
Explanations for my Predictions

 Students want to finish their work quickly and

may not complete tasks in an efficient
manner.
 Students may not be aware of the way
search results appear on a search engine.
 Students may believe everything on the
internet is a good resource to them.
How is this Inquiry Significant to my
Teaching?

 The internet can be a valuable tool to the many tasks

students do in Spanish class as well as other subject
areas.
 I want my students to be effective internet users and
searchers.
 As B.C. Bruce mentions in the Credibility of the Web,
there are many online resources, “real-time video,
radio stations, reference tools, encyclopedias,
dictionaries, thesauri, quotes, poetry, short stories,
images, music, current evens, data, interactive
software”. Students should be aware of how to utilize
these resources.
Class Background Information

I teach elementary Spanish to grades 1-5.

 I meet with each class for 25 minutes
everyday.
 I do not directly teach science, however we
cover some science related topics.
 My inquiry project will be conducted with my
4th grade students.
Inquiry Plan Description
 4th grade Spanish students complete a unit on South
America. We will be discussing the Amazon
Rainforest and the many animals that live there.
 Students will be given a sheet of questions to answer
about animals in the rainforest.
 Students are given 4 websites to visit and evaluate if
they will be helpful to find the required information.
Each website will be slightly different in content,
amount of text and pictures.
 Students will record their answers and which site
they used.
Example Questions for Students

1. What mammals are found in the Amazon

Rainforest?
2. What reptiles live in the Amazon Rainforest?
3. What kind of animal is a capybara?
4. What birds live in the Amazon Rainforest?
5. Which website did you feel was most helpful to find
information? Why?
6. Which website did you feel was not very helpful to
find information? Why?
Inquiry Plan Description

 I will be observing students in the computer lab,

listening to what they say about each site and notice
which site they spend the most time at.
 On the following day, we will revisit the sites as a
class. We will discuss which websites were helpful
and which ones were not. Students will also express
which sites they liked the best. We will discuss what
to look for when evaluation a website with ideas from
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Ev
Predictions and Explanations

 Students will most likely spend a lot of time

looking at the captivating pictures of the
rainforest animals. Many of the students are
visual learners.
 Students will stay away from the site with all
text. It is too difficult for them to skim through
the page and find the answers to the
questions.
Data Patterns

 After looking at the student answer sheets, the most

popular site used was
http://www.rainforestanimals.net/ . This site was fun
to look at visually and had an easy to find menu of
animal categories at the top of the page. Students
could answer all of the questions from this page. It
had enough text and pictures. Students shared that
they liked this site because “it shows the animals and
where they were located” and “there was not too
much reading.”
Data Patterns

 The sites that were least helpful to students

were:
http://www.kidskonnect.com/content/view/96/27/
and http://www2.lhric.org/kat/3rain.htm .
Students explained that they “could not find
anything” on the sites. These sites contained
a long list of topics with no pictures. Many of
the links on the second site were not
working.
 Students realized that all web sites were not
“good sites”.
Data Patterns - Surprises

 I was surprised that many students did not spend a

lot of time at http://kids.mongabay.com/ . I felt this
site had a lot of pictures and an easy to view layout
that would attract the students. Only 3 students out
of 28, used this site to answer one question.
 Of the 4 questions that students had to research, 25
out of 28 papers recorded the same website for all
questions answered.
Data Patterns - Surprises

 One student did her own search of sites, other than

the ones I had given. She typed in “capybara” on
Google and found many sites. However on her
paper she did not even write the answer.
 In the class discussion, students agreed that it was
important to be able to learn to use the internet.
Many students were only comfortable with using one
website or source of information.
Inquiry Plan Reflection

 My prediction was true in regards to students being

attracted to the website with colorful pictures.
However, I did not see too many students off task
and spending too much time looking at unnecessary
pictures.
 Having questions to answer helped keep the
students focused on their assignment. If they were
just given one animal to research without a list of
questions to think about, students may have
struggled more.
Inquiry Plan Reflection

I was surprised that most students only used

one site to answer all the questions. I
thought that with the 4 different sites,
students would want to see what was on
each one.
 It would be interesting to see how student
would do without the given websites. Would
students still find their information as easily?
Would students still stay on one site?
Inquiry Plan Reflection
 From this inquiry plan, it is evident that students at
the 4th grade level still need some instruction of how
to search online, how to evaluate websites and to
use multiple sources of information.
 There is still a lot that I as a teacher need to learn
about the internet and technology to better prepare
my students for the future. As Michael P. Freedman
mentions in A Tale of Plagiarism and A New
Paradigm, “It is time to create a new paradigm, one
that is in concert with the technologies and the
teachers, students, and classrooms of today.”