Instructional Problem Description

At St. John's, a student is expected to be technologically adept --- in fact , this is one of the school's expected schoolwide learning results. For the most part, a good majority of our student population ARE tech-savvy. Most have their own laptops (only the latest model!) or handhelds. They use the computer in school and surf the Internet with ease. Almost all of the students have Internet access at home enabling them to be connected to the vast resource that the Internet provides.

This year, the middle school (grades 6-8) teachers initiated a Study Skills course that allows each student the opportunity to learn a skill --- conflict-resolution, logic, creative writing, proper eating habits, to name a few. My course was called Internet Research. Each course was to run for 4 days (out of 5 days in a week; the 5th day was reserved for chapel services) every quarter, with the student switching from one Study Skills to another every week. In other words, if I was a 7th grader, I would have Logic Class this week, Conflict Resolution next week, and Internet Research the week after that. This would repeat every quarter, which means that a student would have a total of 4 days x 4 quarters = 16 days in the whole school year to learn one course. Of course, this is in reality actually just 10 days or so (with holidays and some events that take precedence over Study Skills).

In the short time that I have taught Internet Research, I can see the need make the class a full-time subject, something that could be taught in a semester instead of just 10-16 days. The students, although capable of surfing the Internet, do not really understand that doing research on the Internet does not mean believing every website that comes up on Google, for example. Or that Google is not the only search engine available to them. They should know what keywords to put in the search box of a search engine to optimize the results that they want. They do not yet know how to tell a good website from a bogus one. They need to be taught this skill before being let loose on the Internet. They need to create their own websites so that they know how easy it is to make people believe that one can pretend to be an authority on a certain subject. They also need to be made aware about NETtiquette.

This course will be designed with middle school students in mind. It will run for at least a semester or at most a school year. This will be taught for the specific purpose of teaching the students on HOW to do research on the Internet.