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Home Introduction Mini Lecture Water Cycle Oceans Clouds Quiz Lesson Plan References

Students, have your teachers read this essay about the website construction.

This water cycle website is based on authentic questions that fifth graders might pose as a more interesting approach to learning the water cycle. Answering real-life questions makes the acquisition of knowledge more interesting and engaging and allows students to explore and uncover answers through inquiry rather than through the direct means of providing information and facts. The lesson is based on the necessary tenets of the constructivist theory of learning, including the role of experience and prior understandings, learning as an adaptive activity, knowledge as constructed by the learner, learning as situated, and social interaction. Along with a constructivist approach, the site incorporates strong website design components, it supports the multiple intelligences, it allows acquisition of 21st century skills and practice in different literacies, it follows the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it provides easy navigation, and it permits interaction with multimedia in various ways.

To start, this website supports constructivism because the students learn how to construct their own knowledge through questions, exploring, and assessing what they know based on prior knowledge (Workshop, 2004). The students and teacher reverse roles whereby the students become the dispensers of knowledge while the teacher serves as a facilitator. The main benefit of constructivism is that students learn how to learn because they are not passive recipients of information but rather are active participants (2004). During constructivist activities, the students utilize critical thinking skills while solving authentic, real-world problems through collaborative efforts. The students might find that the new information aligns with their previous knowledge (consonant), does not match their previous knowledge (dissonant), or does not align with their previous knowledge and is rejected (ignored) (2004). Learning is more enjoyable because the students are taking ownership of what they learn, and they are using Gardner's Multiple Intelligences to create products that showcase their learning (2004). Teachers continually encourage the students to reflect and, "...assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become 'expert learners'" (2004).

Boethel and Dimock (n.d.) note several tenets that accompany constructivist learning. The first, the role of experience and prior understandings, has been taken into consideration in the water cycle website. Every part of the lesson affords students opportunities to form hypotheses regarding the focus questions before they actually search for the answers in the website. Since the students have been given three questions in the form of problems to be solved, the website supports the second tenet, learning as an adaptive activity. The students must answer the following questions: How do puddles appear and disappear?, How do oceans play a part in forming puddles?, and How do clouds play a part in forming puddles? As these answers are not immediately visible through the facts, students must interpret the information in order to formulate solutions. The third tenet, knowledge as constructed by the learner, is evident as the students hunt for solutions and become the dispensers or transmitters of knowledge, while the teachers serve as facilitators in their learning. While the lesson divides the learning into three questions in order to scaffold the students' learning, it does follow the fourth tenet, learning as situated, because the ideas are connected holistically rather than as isolated facts. Each question is related and must be answered using information from the entire body of knowledge on the website. Since lots of social interaction has been incorporated into the lesson, the fifth tenet, the role of social interaction, has definitely been supported. Students are allowed to work in groups of three to locate answers and to demonstrate knowledge through the creation of cooperative projects, Glogs. On the last day of the unit, students share their Glog poster productions with a meteorologist and then offer comments about the productions to other groups on the class wiki. While Boethel and Dimock (n.d.) remark that teachers must extinguish the sixth tenet, resistance to change, the water cycle website provides an engaging and fun site that is written from the perspective of a puddle. Consequently, the site does not look like a typical, boring exercise that is loaded with facts. Instead, since it is eye-catching through colors, illustrations, and catchy titles, it will elicit less resistance to learning through the constructivist approach.

In order to permit interaction with multimedia in different ways, Glogster has been chosen for the final product because it is similar to a web magazine and supports the multiple intelligences in that students can participate by using intelligences in which they excel to create portions of their poster. In a study by Eagleton (2002), seven seventh graders volunteered to create a web magazine called an e-zeen. During this process, students developed different sections of the magazine, including people, writing, sports, inner self, and issues. The students could use a favored intelligence in order to contribute to one of the sections. For example, one girl in the study, Larissalynn, loved to write poetry and contributed many poems to the writing section (Eagleton, 2002). In the Glogster assignment, students will have the opportunity to answer the focus questions through any methods that support their favored intelligences. The Glogster assignment also gives students practice in many different literacies, including oral, print, visual, music, media, and computer (Eagleton, 2002). Additionally, the Glogster project supports creativity and critical thinking. As Egbert (2009) notes, "...researchers have found that teachers do tend to stifle creativity and focus more on solving close-ended problems that have only one correct answer" (p. 130). Since the water cycle Glogster assignment allows students to collaboratively express their answers in different ways, no two groups will have the same answer. Also, since this is a constructivist-type assignment, where the students gather their own knowledge, they will be interpreting information differently and thus, answers will vary. Another benefit to the Glogster is the fact that it is a production, something that Egbert (2009) recommends and supports because, "Production offers all students opportunities to communicate in a variety of modes (e.g., speaking, drawing, gesturing), to receive language and content input in a variety of modes (e.g., graphics, video, listening), and to use different learning styles (e.g., hands-on, visual, aural) during the production process" (p. 185). This helps all students, including ELLs and less motivated students, because they have a role in the product despite their language ability, and it is more engaging (cited in Egbert, 2009, p. 185). Also, since the product will be reviewed by other student groups and a meteorologist who will be visiting the classroom on the final day of the unit, this audience will encourage the students to take more pride and ownership in their assignments (Johnson-Taylor, 2006). In sum, the lesson supports the 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, communication, and production, as well as encourages the use of various intelligences.

The website imparts knowledge through the use of a podcast, and the students have the choice of using them to demonstrate their answers to the focus questions. This gives students another opportunity to interact with multimedia. Podcasts are excellent learning vehicles for the linguistic and musical learners. Since music components can be incorporated into this tool, the musical learners will enjoy and excel at selecting appropriate songs and instrumentals for their presentations. The linguistic learners will benefit from organizing the script and narration portions of the productions, since these types of learners enjoy speaking and expressing themselves through creative writing (Educause, 2007). Fryer's article highlights many benefits to podcasting. First, Fryer notes that podcasting motivates students to write scripts because they enjoy writing for and speaking to audiences outside the school setting. Next, this tool allows students to practice the communication skills of intonation, pacing, and clarity of voice. Students can also focus more on the content, since podcasts do not promote all the bells and whistles of presentation software, such as digital stories and PowerPoint. They do not become obsessed with creating backgrounds, characters, and animations because they simply need to focus on speaking and presenting the content in a clear and appealing manner. Podcasting keeps the anonymity of students because there is no need to show the faces of the learners (Fryer). Podcasts also allow students who are shy or dislike writing to voice their thoughts and ideas. Additionally, podcasting is an activity that aligns with the everyday lifestyles of today's tech savvy students, and podcasts promote an excitement to learn (Fryer). Consequently, by allowing students to create Glogster posters, they will have the choice to incorporate a tool that readily supports content learning. Similar to podcasts, digital storytelling is another excellent learning vehicle that has been used in the website to support the the linguistic, musical,and spatial learners. It incorporates all the elements of podcasts, yet for the spatial learners, digital stories allow them to draw or select diagrams, images, and graphs that provide visuals to explain and represent the text.

Videos support learning throughout this website and allow students to interact with yet another type of multimedia. Watching videos caters to the basic learning styles, including visual-spatial, audio-sequential, and tactile-kinesthetic. The visual learners gather information through images while the auditory learners process material through words, and the tactile learners enjoy learning through demonstration (Cruse, n.d.). In the article by Cruse, it states, "Learners remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, and 50% of what they hear and see" (cited in Cruse). Since video is beneficial to all types of learners, my hope is that the use of short videos will spark curiosity and entice students to readily and eagerly research the water cycle topic. The Glogster product also affords students the opportunity to produce their own videos if they wish. According to the PROJECT LIVE video, student-created videos are beneficial to all types of learners because they cater to the multiple intelligences and the different learning styles. For example, one girl in the video mentioned that she got to be the producer, script writer, and editor for their class video (n.d.). Since students take turns participating in different roles, they experience working in intelligences where they excel and in ones where they are less comfortable. Many of the students in the PROJECT LIVE video mentioned that they became better writers and speakers, that they became more motivated to learn and finish the product, and that they became better at resolving differences and working cooperatively as a team (n.d.). All of the benefits that students noted are the 21st century skills that are needed to survive in this technological age.

This website complies with the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and supports easy navigation (Williams & Tollett, 2006, p. 142). The site offers alternative text for all images and provides text to accompany all audio presentations (p. 196). There are also web page equivalents for all down-loadable documents. Additionally, the font sizes are between 8 and 18 point, contrasting colors provide an easy-to-read site, backgrounds do not interfere with the text, and all the pages demonstrate alignment with everything centered in the middle (Williams & Tollett, 2006, pp. 246, 126, 56-57, 114-115). Arial text is used as a sans-serif font to improve readability and legibility, and because it is a cross-platform font, it will display the same on all computers (pp. 246, 252). The site also illustrates repetition, since the theme revolves around a focal point, Miss Puddle, and how the water cycle affects her (pp. 122, 126). "The more you focus your site on its goals and the more precisely defined your target audience is, the more efficiently and effectively you can present the information" (p. 88). Since I knew my site would be for fifth graders, I believe that I developed an effective learning environment for them. Navigation is easy because there are links at the top and bottom of each page (p. 142). For those learners with short attention spans, videos are no longer than 15 minutes. In order to prevent cognitive overload, each page of the site is limited to only essential information and is free of an overwhelming abundance of colors, animations, and non-relevant illustrations (2010). To eliminate frustration, all links have been tested to ensure that they work properly and are not broken (Williams & Tollett, 2006, p. 151). All images have been saved in either a JPEG or GIF format, they have small file sizes, and they load quickly (p. 202). All in all, the website is visually appealing, the video and audio files relate to the topic, and the intonation is engaging and appealing.

The website follows the teacher-provided worksheet from the lesson plan. On day one, students must visit the mini lecture and water cycle page in order to answer the first question, How do puddles appear and disappear? The worksheet directs students to the oceans page for day two where they find answers to the question, How do oceans play a part in forming puddles? On this page, students obtain information through a Glog poster that serves as a sample for their own Glogs. On day three, students visit the cloud page of the website to answer the last question on the worksheet, How do clouds play a part in forming puddles? Students go to the quiz page of the website, on day four, and test their knowledge from the preceding three days.

According to Boethel and Dimock (n.d.), teachers may be reluctant to switch to the constructivist theory of learning in their classrooms because, "They must learn new skills for facilitating learning in a technology-rich constructivist learning environment that may run counter to traditional practices that direct and manage learning" (p. 27). This is unfortunate because a constructivist approach to learning, like my tutorial website, can support the multiple intelligences, allow acquisition of 21st century skills, practice different literacies, be sensitive to the needs of the disabled, and provide interaction with multimedia in ways that make learning more engaging and authentic. This website lesson presents the proof that constructivism enhances learning and deeper understanding.

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