Preparing Internet Assignments
- Setting
up an assignment
- Plan
each step of the activity with a focus on what your students will learn
from it.
- Try
the activity yourself so that you can prepare for difficulties that may
arise. You may have to restructure
the assignment. If you are in the
lab with the students, your preparation will also help you to guide the
students who need more help and take advantage of the knowledge of those
who are better than you at using the Internet. You should walk around the room to keep
students on task and to share useful ideas or techniques.
- Unless
you are in the lab with the students to be sure that they are using
English search engines and that they are not just photocopying one
article, the focus of the activity should not be on the search itself but
what they have to do with the information that they find. Be sure to emphasize that the
information must be in English.
- Possible
assignments:
- Find
information to prepare a debate for speech class. Controversial topics such as freedom of
speech, censorship, or gun ownership work well.
Other topics:
____________________________________________________________________
- Find
information on a topic to discuss in a reading class as the basis for an
outside lecture or class trip. For
example, students could look up information about Tibet,
Buddhist temples, the development of fire departments in the United
States, Victorian houses, the Ballentine beer business, or small monkeys before a
visit to the Newark
museum.
Other places to visit:
___________________________________________________________________
- Find
information for a writing assignment to teach students how to incorporate
this information into their writing without plagiarizing. It is easiest to start with a topic
that yields factual information, such as obesity in the United
States. Students could also prepare a process
essay on a computer topic such as how to get an e-mail account with
Hotmail or Yahoo, or they might compare or contrast the services and
costs of different airlines.
Other writing assignments:
____________________________________________________________________
- Using
the find tool, which is usually under edit, have students search for
whole words, prefixes, or suffixes for examples of grammar, parts of
speech, or uses of vocabulary.
Students can print the article and mark it as they search on the
computer. It works best with
Newsweek or MSN news
Possible grammar or vocabulary to
search for: ____________________________________________________________________
- Journals
– give opinion of advice given on a Dear Abby or other site. Have each student copy and paste an
article into a document and type his or her opinion below it. http://www.uclick.com/client/jef/da/
Other sites to use:
_________________________________________________________________
- Assign
grammar, listening, or reading exercises with results that can be checked
or have students record their results.
Sites to use:
_________________________________________________________________
- Use
e-mail for extra credit or bonus work.
For example, give students feedback on their writing if they
e-mail it to you a few days before it is due. You may set up a private discussion
list on Yahoo. You get
advertisements, but it is free.
Other uses for e-mail:
_________________________________________________________________
- Try
a website such as Karin’s ESL PartyLand at http://www.eslpartyland.com/teachers/nov/internet.htm
on the Workshop page.
Sites I like:
_________________________________________________________________
- Searching
the Internet:
- Boolean
terms:
i.
OR – The results of Tibet OR temples will result in a
list of sites that contain either term or both terms.
ii.
AND – The results of Tibet AND temples will be only
sites with both terms.
iii.
NOT – Tibet NOT temples will include everything about
Tibet except the temples.
- Popular
search engines:
www.AltaVista.com
www.google.com
www.lycos.com
www.yahoo.com
www.AskJeeves.com
www.alltheweb.com
- Help
from search engines:
i.
AltaVista gives extra help by helping you build queries
and suggesting topics for narrowing your search. Go to http://www.altavista.com/help/search/default
and http://www.altavista.com/help/search/help_adv. Then try a search with one of your topics. Personally, I prefer AltaVista for academic
topics.
ii.
Google: Try your search again with Google. Notice the
similarities and differences from AltaVista.