Inquiry Learning Through the Online Environment Debi Howarth Principal Project Officer

1. Q150 Inquiry Learning Through the Online Environment Debi Howarth Principal Project Officer Education Queensland, Brisbane deborah.howarth@deta.qld.gov.au 0430 366 118 (07) 3235 9966 Catholic Education Symposium Townsville April 20 2009

2. Q150 Celebrations 2009 • All schools / systems • encouraged to explore Queensland’s past, present and future through the Q150 themes of “Our people, our places, our stories”. • Education Queensland • series of inquiry based online student units • teacher guide materials • units work towards a culminating event students share with their community. • Learning Place • Student online materials available late April 2009 for all Queensland teachers who are members or affiliates of TLP • Teacher Guides available at Q150 Events Page http://www.learningplace.com.au/sc/events/Q150

3. Four inquiry based units - align with SOSE Yr 3, 5, 7, 9 Essential Learnings. Teacher guides & online student materials. Senior Legal Studies & Modern History independent study units. Local Area Guide. Assessment to align with the intent of the QCAR Framework Work within the Q150 project itself – sensitivities. Indigenous perspectives ICTs Research skills Literacy & Numeracy State Library of Queensland digital resources to be incorporated Had to be built into Bb through Learning place Had to build in links to learning objects/videos etc - LP not able to build new materials. Longevity – beyond 2009 Writers' Brief

4. Knowledge & Understandings Commenced at the conceptual • drawn from the ELs: • community (Yr3) • identity (Yr 5) • global citizenship(Yr7) • social change (Yr 9) • Moved to specific content through the ELs’ organisers for SOSE

5. Skills & Processes • Ways of Working – From ELs • Identified range of relevant strategies and skills to use/develop within units e.g. graphic organisers; Three Level Reading Guide; survey; photo analysis • Researched appropriate web links & learning objects to be incorporated. Some became the focus of unit phases e.g. Harvest of Endurance Scroll (Chinese Settlement); Journey of Understanding (Refugees).

6. When students are involved in inquiry they; Ask questions, Identify and investigate problems, Form their own hypotheses and/or conclusions. Reflect Inquiry • Arthur L. Costa,1 co-director of the institute for intelligent behavior in Berkeley, California

7. Questions • Core business for teachers - integral to inquiry. • Units incorporated some question banks into the teacher guides and question matrices for students. • Always room to develop further in the classroom context.

8. Scaffolding • Graphic organisers • Research tasks • Assessment tasks • Literacy activities

9. Four Resources Model

10. CODE BREAKER How do I crack this code? • What words are interesting, difficult or tricky? How did you work them out? • What words have unusual spelling? • What words have the same sound or letter pattern or number of syllables? • What words have the same base word or prefix or suffix? • What words mean the same (synonyms)? • What smaller word can you find in this word to help you work it out? • What words are tricky to pronounce? • How is this word used in this context? • What different reading strategies did you use to decode this text? • Are the pictures close ups, mid or long shots? • Are the pictures high angle or low angle? • Were there any word pictures, eg similes and metaphors? How did you work them out?

11. TEXT USER What do I do with this text? • What sort of text is this? (information, story/narrative) How do you know? • Is it fact or opinion? How do you know? • How can you find information in this text? • How did the author start this text? Did it suit its purpose? • Who would read a text like this? Why? • If you wrote a text like this what words and phrases would you use? • How is the language the same/ different from other similar texts you have read? • Could the text help solve a real life problem? • If you were going to put this text on a web page, how would it be different to the print version? • What is the purpose of this text? • Could you use these ideas in a poem, story, play, advertisement, report, brochure or poster? • How would the language and structure change?

12. MEANING MAKER What does this text mean to me? • Does the text remind you of something that has happened to you or to someone else you know? • What does the title/cover suggest that the text is about? • What might happen next? What words or phrases give you this idea? • What are the characters thinking and feeling? How do you know? • What message is the author presenting? • What are the main ideas presented? • What do the pictures (graphs, diagrams, tables, captions, illustrations) tell us? • Do they fit in with the text and do they provide more information? • What did you feel as you read this part? • Describe or draw a picture of a character, event or scene from the text.

13. TEXT ANALYST What does this text do to me? • Is the text fair? • What would the text be like if the main characters were girls rather than boys and vice versa? Consider different race and cultural backgrounds too. • How would the text be different if told from another point of view? • How would the text be different if told in another time or place, eg 1900 or 2100? • Why do you think the author chose this title? • Think about why the author chose particular words and phrases. • Are there stereotypes in the text? • Who does the text favour or represent? • Who does the text reject or silence? • How does this text claim authority? (consider language, structure and content) • Who is allowed to speak? Who is quoted

14. Journal responses Reading Circles Hot seating PMI Higher Order Thinking (Bloom’s) reflection cards Critical analysis based on bias Stereotypes point of view Compare different sources Top Level Structure (cause/effect) Poetic analysis Debate Author intent discussions Reflective Questions What kind of person with what interest and values wrote this text? What is the text trying to make me believe and do? In whose interest is this? What beliefs and positions are dominant in the text? What beliefs and positions are silenced or absent? What do I think about this and what alternatives are there? Using the Model Text Analyst

15. Metalinguistics activities Alphabet Phonics Sight Word/ Word sort/ Word family activities Onsets, Rhymes, Word analogy Cloze Spelling activities/ Latin/ Greek roots, dictionary Meanings, Thesaurus, Homonyms, Antonyms, Synonyms Transformations Generic features of the text based activities Grammar activities Book Feature focus Key Words/Note making Reflective Questions How do I crack this text? How does this text work? What are its codes and conventions? How do the parts relate singly and in combinations? Code Breaker

16. Metalinguistics activities Alphabet Phonics Sight Word/ Word sort/ Word family activities Onsets, Rhymes, Word analogy Cloze Spelling activities/ Latin/ Greek roots, dictionary Meanings, Thesaurus, Homonyms, Antonyms, Synonyms Transformations Generic features of the text based activities Grammar activities Book Feature focus Key Words/Note making Reflective Questions What is the purpose of this text and what is my purpose in using it? How have the uses of this text shaped its composition? What should I so with this text in this context? What will others do with this text? Text User

17. Readers need to know how to: Infer Evaluate Generalise Make predictions Sequence Compare Classify Recount Summarise information Activities: KWL, Concept maps, Graphic outline, Story Maps, Plot Profile, Character Web Reflections, Innovation Reader’s Theatre Independent reading, Shared reading Think Pair Share, Top Level Structure Reflective Questions How do the ideas in this text connect to one another? What do I know that can help make meaning of it? What are the possible meanings and readings of this text? Meaning maker resources are all our previous social, cultural and reading experiences. Meaning Maker

18. Issues in Development • Time • Sequential nature of social and environmental inquiry • Integrity of the inquiry • Writing with other purposes in mind • Development process was sometimes frustrated by the system security issues in EQ itself.

19. Web 2.0 Some Web 2.0 evident in units • Wikis • Discussion boards • Photostories • Survey tools • Learning objects/videos/interactive tools • Digital resources - State Library of Qld.

20. Inquiry and Web 2.0 Collaboration and participation • social networking sites/collaborative authorship e.g. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium • Writeboard http://www.writeboard.com/ • Digital storytelling • http://www.mangolanguages.com/ - Language immersion – conversations with native speakers • Dimdim – video conferencing; whiteboard http://www.dimdim.com/

21. Inquiry and Web 2.0 Access to current content/knowledge – the web itself • Kids Newsroom http://www.kidsnewsroom.org/climatechange/ • Children’s University of Manchester http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/ • Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ • Questionaut http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/games/questionaut/ • News for kids http://www.headlinespot.com/international/asiapacific/

22. Inquiry and Web 2.0 • Productivity/portability/sharing of info/ideas • Googledocs • Docstock http://www.docstoc.com/ • Field trips – virtual ones!! • Google maps • Immersive media - http://www.immersivemedia.com/#demo8 • Geocaching – high tech treasure hunt game. http://www.geocaching.com/ • Mapwing – build, share, and explore virtual tours-turn photos into virtual tours http://www.mapwing.com/

23. Problem Solving • Create and share 3D Models http://sketchup.google.com/ • Webspiration http://www.mywebspiration.com/ • Mindmeister – mind mapping tool http://www.mindmeister.com/

24. Skills of SOSE • Survey, Data Collection, Inventories • Zoho Creator http://creator.zoho.com/ • SurveyMonkey http://www.surveymonkey.com/ • Timespace – uses timelineshttp://specials.washingtonpost.com/timespace/world/121/

25. Conclusion Web 2.0 will bring greater meaning to the process of social and environmental inquiry.

26. Models of Contemporary Learning Critique units against MCL for relevance, useability, applicability.

27. Web 2.0 Enhancement of Resources What Web 2.0 tools could be incorporated into the units to boost engagement and richness? Where? What scaffolding might be required to use the technologies?