Eastern Mediterranean University

ITEC106

Lecture VII
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Using the Internet for Inquiry and
Discovery

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 Inquiry Learning
• Inquiry-based learning challenges and motivates students to
investigate and learn, using real-world or relevant questions and
focusing attention on creating solutions.

• For inquiry to work, investigative questions must be based on

something that students really care about or that stimulates their
curiosity or interest so that they become engaged in the learning
process.

• The teacher should not only propose topics for investigation and
ensure that time and resources are used productively, but also
should be involved as a coinquirer with the students.
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 Inquiry Learning...
• Inquiry-based learning experiences must be open-ended
and flexible enough to allow for alternative paths of
investigation.

• The advantage of inquiry learning is that it permits

students to investigate engaging and authentic topics
and generate new knowledge and understandings.

• It moves students toward deeper understanding of a

topic by allowing them to organize, analyze, synthesize,
and assimilate information using higher order thinking
skills.
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 Discovery Learning
• Discovery learning is an inquiry-based learning method
that encourages students to discover for themselves
the rules, relations, or concepts about something.

• The premise is that students are more likely to

remember concepts they discover on their own.

• Although discovery is one of the oldest and most

common methods of learning, it is not widely used in
classrooms today.
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 Discovery Learning...
• With conventional classroom resources discovery
learning is not efficient or productive.

• When it is used in the classroom, teachers are more

successful if students have prerequisite knowledge
accompanied by structured learning experiences.

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 USING THE WEB FOR INQUIRY
• Using Internet technologies to promote inquiry-based
learning encourages the development of independent
learners capable of processing and developing solutions
to problems in an information-centered society.

• A Web-enhanced inquiry approach maximizes

information seeking, evaluating, and applying.

• Jakes, Pennington, and Knodle (2003) suggest an eight-

step process for inquiry-based learning using the World
Wide Web: (figure in next slide)
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An Inquiry-based Learning
Process

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 CASE-BASED LEARNING
• Cases are narratives, situations, data samplings, or
statements that present unresolved and provocative
issues or questions in a form that is intended to
educate.

• Cases can be brief for classroom discussions or

comprehensive for extended projects.

• To be effective, they must relate to curriculum

objectives.
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 CASE-BASED LEARNING...
• Cases can be worked independently but are typically
worked in teams so that students can brainstorm
solutions and share the workload.

• Case-based learning is widely used in medical, law, and

business schools, where entire courses often use a case-
study format.

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 CASE-BASED LEARNING...
• Case-based and problem-based learning are similar
learning methods.

• With problem based learning, students are presented

with an unstructured problem that mirrors a real world
problem.

• With case-based learning, students analyze a problem

in the form of a case study, share views and
perspectives with their peers, propose problem
solutions, and develop a plan of action for case
resolution. 11
 CASE-BASED LEARNING...
• Cases are designed to confront students with a specific
problem that does not have a simple solution.
• They provide a context to focus discussion and help
students learn to define and recognize appropriate
criteria for solving problems.
• Cases are openended, requiring students to analyze
data as well as choose appropriate analytic techniques
in order to reach a conclusion.
• The case method is characterized by real-world
situations, actual or imagined.
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 Types of Case Studies
• Case studies can be of several varieties.

• Finished cases indicate a solution(s) and are presented

for analysis to help students develop appropriate
inquiry skills.

• No one type of case study is best for all situations.

– Role play
– Background
– Diagnose the problem
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 Types of Case Studies...
– Jigsaw
– Live
– Pause the action
– Create a case

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 Instructional Strategies
• Case studies are usually designed for small groups to
promote discussion, which should be structured by the
teacher.

• Case studies can be supported in the classroom with

several commonly used teaching and learning
strategies.

• Case-based learning is a powerful educational approach

that permits students to apply higher order learning
processes.
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 DEVELOPING SCENARIOS
• Scenarios are the most important aspect of the case
study; they set the stage for student learning by making
connections between the classroom subject and the
real world.

• Scenarios should describe a real-world problem, which

may be open-ended, complex, and unstructured and
may have multiple solutions.

• The problem can be actual or imagined, but it must be

realistic and believable.
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 DEVELOPING SCENARIOS...
• The following suggestions will help you create effective
case study scenarios:
– Connection to the curriculum
– Use of narrative
– Elicit student response
– Appropriate in length
– Supporting data, documents, and resources
– Designing case study questions

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 USING ONLINE SIMULATIONS TO
EXPLORE REAL-LIFE PROBLEMS
• An attempt to model a real-life problem or situation in
an educational context is called a simulation.

• Simulations are based on the premise that certain

interesting aspects of the real world can be copied or
duplicated and virtually experienced on computers.

• Thus, a simulation is a computer program that is based

on an underlying computational model that recreates a
somewhat simplified version of a complex henomenon,
environment, or experience.
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 Implications for Teaching and
Learning
• Because a simulation is interactive and is usually
grounded in some objective reality, it can provide
students with a new level of understanding and can be
highly motivating, providing a learning experience
unavailable in real life.
• Simulations are rich in feedback and can be used in the
classroom in several ways:
– To demonstrate or explain a concept(s)
– To practice a skill(s)
– To help students visualize models or theories
– To assess or examine student understanding or skills
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Using the Internet for Online
Collaborations

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 UNDERSTANDING
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
• When students work in groups, they can encourage
each other, ask questions of one another, require each
other to justify opinions and reasoning, and reflect on
the group’s collective knowledge.

• When students work in groups, they bring different

abilities and expertise to bear on the task.

• Research in education has demonstrated that

collaborative and cooperative learning can promote
academic achievement.
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 UNDERSTANDING
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING...
• Learning as a Social Process
– Collaborative learning encompasses a variety of educational
approaches that involve shared intellectual effort by two or
more peers or by peers and experts.
– Such activities can range from classroom discussions that might
include short lectures to participation on research teams and
can involve subject matter at varying levels.
• Forming Effective Groups
• Creating Communities of Learning
– A learning community is a group of people who share a
common interest in a topic or a subject and who employ a
shared set of practices to build their collective knowledge. 22
 SUPPORTING COLLABORATIVE
LEARNING WITH THE INTERNET
• Using Online Projects
– Online collaborative projects can utilize the
publishing features of the Internet as well as the
communication features.
– A collaborative Web publishing tool similar to a Web
log is a Wiki, which actually permits editing of
original posts. Wikis can be used for collaborative
publication of Web projects.
• Planning an Online Project

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 Multiuser virtual environments
(MUVEs)
• Multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) are two- or
three-dimensional text-based or graphic environments
that allow people to meet and communicate in a virtual
space.

• MUVEs refer to a whole genre of interactive,

synchronous communication services on the Internet,
which provide a great deal of flexibility and creativity in
expression and interaction that is not available with
other forms of Internet communication.
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 MUVE...
• MUVEs are immersive online environments that permit
multiple participants to log in simultaneously to a
central database through a computer connected to the
Internet.
• The design of most MUVEs is based on a room
metaphor; rooms are places within the virtual space
depicting physical locations.
• Participants issue simple commands through the client
application on their computer (often a Web browser) to
navigate through the rooms and to interact with other
characters and objects in the space. 25
 MUVE...
• MUVEs offer relatively simple and inexpensive ways to
support both synchronous and asynchronous forms of
interaction among geographically distributed
participants accessing shared resources.

• Virtual environments can trace their roots to the game

Dungeons and Dragons, in which players pose as
different characters and perform various tasks.

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 MUDs
• Today, a MUD is a text-based chat based on a virtual
world, or defined environment, in which users, or
chatters, interact with one another.

• A MUD is no longer considered simply a game, and the

MUD acronym is now used to mean multiuser
dimension or domain.

• All subsequent implementations of the game on the

Internet were called MUDs, for multiuser dungeons.
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 MUDs...
• MUDs have multiple locations, much like an adventure game,
and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic, a simple
economic system, and the capability for characters to build more
structure onto the database, which represents the existing world.

• Users can typically define their personal two- or three-

dimensional graphic representations, called avatars, through
which users interact and communicate with each other.

• Each user takes control of a virtual persona, or avatar, and

explores the virtual world, chats with other characters, explores
dangerous monster-infested areas, solves puzzles, and even
creates personal rooms, descriptions, and items. 28
 MOOs
• In 1989 a student at Carnegie Mellon University, James
Aspnes, modified the MUD program by removing all the
game aspects.

• He called the program TinyMUD because this new version

consisted mainly of clearing out the unwanted functions
of the original program.

• The result of his efforts was a publicly available, compact

program that could be modified to serve many purposes.
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 MOOs...
• In the mid-1990s graphic MUDs came to be known as
MOOs—that is, MUDs object oriented.

• A MOO has become a popular learning environment,

providing a richer communication environment than a
chat room and a culture populated by teachers and
learners.

• Some examples of educational MOOs include

schMOOze University, Diversity University, and MOOse
Crossing.
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 MUVES IN EDUCATION
Benefits for Teachers and Students
• MUVEs can form the basis for sophisticated and
sustainable communities of learning on the Internet.

• In a MUVE, teachers from many different schools and

classrooms can share experiences and tools and
resources.

• Currently, there are educational MUVEs organized

around many themes—for example, teacher
collaboration, foreign language, ESL, science, English,
and college courses. 31
 MUVES IN EDUCATION
Benefits for Teachers and Students...

• Although asynchronous communication tools, such as

electronic mail and bulletin boards, permit teachers
some degree of interactivity with their professional
communities and access to a variety of online
information sources, those tools do not support the
rich, real-time conversations available through MUVEs.

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 MUVES IN EDUCATION
Benefits for Teachers and Students...

• MUVEs can also be used by teachers to support

classroom instruction.

• Teachers can easily organize a meeting in the MUVE to

discuss a topic or issue, and MUVEs can provide
students with relevant study materials and links.

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