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About this Kit | Using the Resources in this Kit | Creating Units

How to integrate Resource Kit activities into exisiting lessons

About this Kit

The most efficient way to search involves entering keywords into a search engine. There are times, however, when browsing can produce results even faster. And almost every search ends by browsing. So it's important to develop solid browsing skills. This involves a lot more than clicking on hyperlinks and can be more difficult than using a search engine.

There are numerous ways to browse and they all have their merits. Most of what this Kit emphasizes is speculative or deliberate browsing. However, even random browsing has its place and turns up surprising results. What all types of browsing have in common is scanning and clicking. Hypertext, links in a directory and tags in Web 2.0 applications are all instances of text that may be clicked. Photos and other graphic objects may also come into play in browsing. It takes a lot of skill to be a good browser, and a good deal of patience and persistence as well.

This Kit contains resources to strengthen skills in browsing. Topics include:

Subject Directories

Hyperlinks

Tags

Using the Resources in this Kit

Resources suited for stand-alone applications

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• Timed Search Challenges

  • • Soccer Directory Challenge (Self-guided) -- Tests ability to find information by browsing a Subject Directory.

  • • Zeus Bunnycam (Self-guided) -- Tests ability to find information by browsing a Subject Directory.

 

• Tutorials

  • • QuickPick: Strategic Choices (Teacher-facilitated) -- A guide that helps in selecting which type of browsing to use: exploratory, deliberate or random browsing.

  • • Help with Hypertext (Teacher-facilitated) -- Reading hypertext skillfully is compared to navigating hyperlinks.

  • • Popular MicroModules related to browsing: (Self-guided) -- Sitemaps: What are they and how do they work? and Subject Indexes.

  
  

• Action Zone Games

  • • Tag Searching (Self-guided) -- The goal of these three challenges is to use tags to find matching photos on flickr.

  • • Lost in the Hyperlinks (Self-guided) -- Interactive video aimed at improving navigation through hyperlinks.

Resources suited for sequences

Becoming a skilled browser takes lots of practice. We recommend the following sequence to get started:

The Internet Challenge Model I (Challenge - Tutorial - Challenge)

1. Start with the Soccer Directory Challenge to encourage awareness of the difficulty of finding information by browsing.	2. Follow this with presentations of either (or both) Lost in the Hyperlinks or Help with Hypertext.	3. Conclude with the Zeus Bunnycam Challenge to allow students to apply browsing techniques. Compare timed search challenge experiences.

Creating Units

For information on creating larger units in which materials from this Kit are embedded, see Creating Units.