How do Volcanoes Work?

An inquiry plan to investigate how

students search and apply information from

the internet.

Michelle KoczanCEP 806

September 24, 2011

•With the growing use of technology for student research, educators need to ensure the students are well equipped with the tools that they need in order to conduct a meaningful internet search.

• Working as a substitute teacher, I have had the opportunity to work with students of many different age groups. My most recent long term position was in second grade, and I observed that students did not understand how the internet could be used to find information. They most associated it with playing games.

Motivation

Motivation• I currently do not have a classroom of my own, so I conducted my research on my niece who is in 8th grade, and my nephew who is 5th grade.

• Both students have used the internet to conduct research for school projects many times. I was interested to see what kind of research skills that they possessed, having had this experience.

Inquiry Questions• Do the students know how to conduct a concise Internet search?

a) When asked to search the Internet for particular topic, do they use specific information, or broad terms?

• Do the students know how to evaluate a web page for useful information?

a) Do they understand what credibility is?b) Can they determine whether it is a good source of

information or a bad source of information?

• Do the students know how to determine whether or not the information that they find is useful to them?

a) While the information might apply to the broad topic they are searching for, does it specifically help to answer their research question?

Prediction #1• Students will use Google to conduct their research, and will choose the results that are listed first, and will view each page in order of how it is listed.

Google is the most advertised search engine, and many students are not even aware that other search engines exist.

Many students view their search results from the first one that is listed and go on down the list. The common misconception is that the top listed sites are the most relevant.

Prediction #2• The students will find sites about volcanoes that will be interactive, possibly with videos or animations, and a variety of photos and/or graphics.

This prediction is based on the fact that I know both students enjoy video games and things that are “visual”. This grasps their attention easily.

Students tend do enjoy websites that offer games to enhance learning.

Volcanoes are unique, and students will concentrate on the eruption of the volcano by searching for photos.

Inquiry Plan• Using only internet resources, students are to find valuable websites to help them answer the question: How do Volcanoes work?

• The students will present their information on their own “Glog” that they create on Glogster.com. This is an excellent, visually appealing way for students to exhibit their work and reveals their creative side.

• Students will focus on key vocabulary terms: magma, lava, volcano, volcanic dust, vent, and volcanic ash to include in their research project.

• I approached my niece who is in 8th grade and described to her what my assignment was. She told me that she enjoys using the internet for projects at school.

•I stated that I wanted her to use the internet to look for information on how volcanoes work. I told her that I wanted her to use key vocabulary words that I presented to her, and that she was to present her findings on her own Glog.

•She was not familiar with Glogster.com, but once I introduced it to her and showed her examples of others’ work, she was ready to explore it.

Observation Niece- 8th Grade

Observation Niece- 8th Grade (Continued)

• I let her begin her research while I sat near by and observed. She opened up Internet Explorer and went straight to Google.

• The first thing that she searched was “volcanoes” which presented almost twenty million results. The first search that was listed was Wikipedia, and I was happy to see that she did not click on it. I asked her why she had skipped it, and she told me that they were not allowed to use Wikipedia at school.

Observation Niece- 8th grade (Continued)

• After viewing a few more websites she decided to turn to the vocabulary list that I gave her, and continued her research.

• When the results showed up on Google, she did not view them in order from the first listed. She read the brief descriptions below to try and get a feel for what type of site it was.

•She told me that she knew that sites that were scientific such as National Geographic and Discovery would be good sites to use because they were educational. These were sites that she had used before at school.

Observation Niece- 8th Grade (Continued)

• Finally, she typed into Google, ‘How to volcanoes work?’ She was directed to a website with various diagrams and maps. She told me that diagrams are good sources because they are something that is true and can not be altered like photographs can be.

• After observing her for about a half hour, I finally asked her what type of sites she thought are the best for this project. She told me that scientific sites and websites that have .gov or .org because they are “more reliable”.

• I found that it was evident that basic internet research skills are being taught in my niece’s middle school. I was pleasantly surprised with her responses to my questions, and she really seemed to know what she was doing.

http://mkoczan.edu.glogster.com/how-do-volcanoes-work/

My niece’s finished Glog

Observation Nephew- 5th Grade

• My nephew was much more nervous taking on this assignment than my niece was. He told me that he really like to play games and talk with his friends on the internet, and that he used the internet “sometimes” at school.

•Once I told him that I was going to research volcanoes, he became more motivated. This was a topic that he was interested in, and thought was “really cool.”

• My nephew was not familiar with Glogster either, and I presented the site to him in the same way that I had to my niece.

Observation Nephew- 5th Grade Continued

• He opened up Internet Explorer and the homepage is set to yahoo.com. He typed in the word “volcano” directly into the search bar. This site presented over 62 million hits.

• The very first listing was an article from the Boston Globe about activity that was currently in the news. It was about a volcano in Alaska that was about to erupt. This was very different from Google.

• He skimmed the article quite quickly and left the site. I asked him if he read the information, and he said that “there was too much writing and no pictures. I like pictures.”

Observation Nephew- 5th Grade Continued

• He also checked out Wikipedia. He had used this site before at school, and said that encyclopedias are where you are supposed to look up information.

• He viewed several more websites that were listed, including some sites that we clearly unrelated. After about ten minutes, he seemed lost.

• I told him that maybe he should use a word or words that were more specific. I reminded him of the vocabulary terms that I had given him. He then typed “How volcanoes work” into the search bar. After reviewing the list of sites, he went back to the search bar and selected “How volcanoes work for kids”.

Observation Nephew- 5th Grade Continued

• He went directly to the listing for Discovery for Kids which had the “Volcano Explorer”, and interactive tool with animations and diagrams.

• He also discovered National Geographic for kids which explained and defined each of the vocabulary words that I had assigned.

• My nephew finished the project with much more guidance from me than my niece required. He told me that “good science sites needed lots of pictures to help describe the information and to help people understand it better.”

http://mkoczan.edu.glogster.com/volcanoes/My nephew’s Glog

(not quite finished)

Post-Inquiry

• One of the trends that I noticed when observing my niece that she was looking for “scientific sites” that were well-known scientific sites, or sites that ended in .org or .gov.

• One of the trends that I noticed with both students was that they looked for diagrams to help explain the information.

• My first prediction before beginning my research was that the students would both use Google as their search engine. My niece did use Google, but my nephew used Yahoo, which was set to his homepage.

• In my first prediction, I stated that I thought the students would view the websites in the order that they showed up on the search engine. The 8th grade student read the brief description and evaluated whether or not she felt that it would be a good site. The fifth grade student on the other hand, did exactly as I had predicted.

•After the students were finished with the project, I went over with them what I thought they did well, and gave some suggestions on things that I felt would help them in the future.

Post-Inquiry Continued

Paraphrasing and summarizing the

information

Reading comprehension of the content that is

found

Further Ideas to Explore

Evaluating “kid” scientific websites and compare to “adult” scientific

websites

Effectiveness of using diagrams

In scientific research projects

• I noticed that my nephew was instantly drawn in to sites that had animations, videos, or interactive components. He enjoys playing video games on the computer and on a gaming system at home. Could these types of sites be more appealing to boys who thrive on hands-on activities to learn new concepts?

• Is internet based learning an effective way for students to master a concept?

Emergent Questions

• I was surprised at how knowledgeable my niece was with internet research. Not only did she know where and how to look for the information, but she knew what type of sites she should not use.

• The observation of my nephew was very close to the what I had expected. I think that with some of the information that I gave him on how to look for information may lower his anxiety in research projects in the future.

Conclusion

• The predictions that I made initially turned out to be true for my students. However, I found it very helpful to observe the process in which my students went through to get to the end result. It had allowed for me to reflect upon the assignment, and revise how I would use this in the future in a classroom.

Conclusion Continued

As an introduction to a project of this type in my classroom I would conduct two mini-lessons.

• First I would provide a short list of websites for students to view, explore and evaluate. I think that it is important for students to be able to narrow down the information that they are looking for. I found this with both of my subjects. Both students began their search by simply typing in “volcanoes” and the search engine found millions of hits.

• The second mini-lesson that I would use would be to have the class search a topic together on the over head, and I would model how using key words can narrow down search results.

Conclusion Continued