Teacher's Product Guide



 
 
 

    Introduction     About Homestead
    Process     Evaluation
    Resources     Lesson Instructions

 
 
 
 
Introduction
     Distance Education has flourished through the use of the World Wide Web and continues to become an increasingly popular method of delievering instruction and supplemental materials.  The sucess of these online educational opportunities rests solely on the production of effective materials that are designed, developed, and delivered via electronic communication systems. To insure success, new resources and strategies must be employed in the development of Web-based teaching and learning materials.  Four different types of materials and course delivery methods are listed below.
  1. 1.  Materials that supplement face-to-face instruction.
  2. 2.  Self directed materials for independent learning
  3. 3.  Entirely Web-based courses
  4. 4.  Corporate informational delivery.
     This lesson entitled "Unit 6: The Beatle's Web Page"  is designed to promote independent learning and contains many self directed activities.  It will be added to an entirely Web-based course called "The Beatles: Across the Curriculum".  Students will be invited to try out the activities in that course after their completion of Unit 6. 
     This new way of learning is a fresh approach to teaching important subject matter.  Even the most reluctant learner enjoys the challenge of learning online because they are an active participant in the learning process. 
     Unit 6 and all of the lessons included in the course, The Beatles: Across the Curriculum, is based on the contructivist theory of learning.  The author has made a concious effort to allow students to make a choice about their learning activities whenever possible.  The choices that are given to each student in a given activity will lead to attaining the knowledge described by a common objective.  Students are more apt to learn if they are allowed to select activities that are interesting to them. 


Introduction to Unit 6 for students
     The introduction of Unit 6 is a seperate linked page that serves to let the students know that this activity will be fun, interesting, and relevant.  It will set students up for the learning experience that lies ahead.  It will explain the role we want them to play in designing material that will later be used on their own Web site about The Beatles.  This Web site will allow them to share their research with others in their class as well as all those interested in The Beatles on the World Wide Web.

 
 
Process
     The process gives the students a sense of direction as it maps out suggestions of  various activities to follow in order to complete their assignments.  It helps students define their strategies to complete the assignment at hand.  It also allows students to gather resources that will be used to build their own Web site.

 
 
Resources
     The resources are clearly labeled by the words "Flashback" or "Resources".  The flashback resources are their to provide students with an opportunity to go to links that contain information about skills they might have already acquired but need a quick review of the skills.  The other resources are provided to give students a place to begin their research.  Both types of resources provide links to various Web pages taht will help structure the students research.  They will lead directly to relevant information that the students will need to complete their assignments.  There will be a variety of resources to promote individual choices.

 
About Homestead   http://www.homestead.com
     Homestead.com is a wonderful free resource for building interactive Web sites.  Learners can easily build personalized Web sites using Homestead's customizable drag and drop elements.  Homestead offers elements such as text boxes, buttons, graphics, and more than one hundred others.  Any student can build a Homestead site because there is no need to have HTML knowledge.  Homestead can also be used with any computer platform, even if they do not meet Homestead Site Builder's requirements.
     Users who have Web TV or use a Mac can use any Web browser to access Homestead Express.  Homestead Express uses a "fill in the forms" version to build Web pages.
     PC owners can operate Homestead using Windows 95/98/NT, a Pentium 90 or faster, 32 MB RAM or more, and Internet connection speed of 28.8 or faster, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher or Netscape Navigator 4 or higher.  Links to free downloads for the browsers are available on the Homestead Product Info site.
http://www.homestead.com/~site/productinfo/system_out.html
Homestead also allows users to download an offline version that students can use to work offline. 
     The best thing about Homestead is that it is very user friendly and successful results can be seen in a very short period of time.  And to top it off, it is entirely free!

 
Evaluation
     The evaluation allows both students and teachers alike the opportunity to measure the success of the activities.  Each assignment has a specific rubric that students can use to grade their own work before they submit it to the instructor.  All assignments are submitted via an E-mail link that is provided on the bottom of each page.  Instructors provide feedback to the students by selecting the "reply" option from their E-mail menu. 
     The pre and post tests are self scoring and have a submit button so that the information can be E-mailed directly to the instructor.  (An instructor who wishes to use this feature should contact me for permisssion and instructions detailing how to edit the HTML code.)
     An evaluation instrument is also available to students after they submit their final project to the instructor.  The students are asked to complete this survey about the effectiveness of Unit 6.  This evaluation instrument is a form that uses checkmarks and allows students to make text comments.  The form can be directly submitted to the instructor.

 
Lesson Instructions
  1. 1.   Provide students with the URL for the lesson.  Unit 6 The Beatle's Web Page     http://www.geocities.com/cghiaf/2beatlewebsite.html The main page is the central area for the lesson.  Each time the student exits the lesson entirely they should return to the main page to select the activity they want to work on.  For this reason, it is advisable that you ask the student to bookmark the URL for the lesson.

    2.  
  2. 2.   The students will be directed to the introduction to the lesson.  The students are to click on the link that will send them to the introduction to the lesson.

    3.  
  3. 3.   At the bottom of the information page the students will see "The Glove" graphic and they are asked to click on the graphic to proceed.

    4.  
  4. 4.   The students will be directly linked to the pre-test.  Scores can be sent directly to the instructor.  (If another instructor wishes to use this lesson and have the results mailed directly to them they would need to contact the author for permission and directions for changing the HTML code.)

    5.  
  5. 5.   After the students have completed the pre-test, the instructor can determine from the results if their is a need for the student to participate in the lesson.  If a student does not have a Beatle Web site on the Homestead site it is advisable that they participate in the lesson.

    6.  
  6. 6.   Students are to follow the activities in numerical sequence beginning with Assignment  #1 by clicking on the link that will take them directly to the assignment.

    7.  
  7. 7.   Each assignment page plays a different Beatle song through a Cresendo player.  If a student is unable to hear the music they can download the Cresendo player for free by clicking on Cresendo download now.  Students can turn off the music by clicking on the stop button on the Cresendo player.

    8.  
  8. 8.   The objective for each assignment is clearly listed on top of the assignment. 

    9.  
  9. 9. A link for the rubric for each assignment is also given.  The student is directed to view or print the rubric for each assignment so that they understand exactly what is expected as a result of their work.

    10.  
  10. 10. Students are given choices about the activity they are asked to complete.  The tudent must select one of the choices for the activity and complete the assignment   as outlined in the rubric.

    11.  
  11. 11.  Students are to submit all work to the E-mail link listed on the bottom of each page as an attachment.

    12.  
  12. 12.  Students will recieve feedback via E-mail.  The instructor should select the "reply" option to send feedback to the student.

    13.  
  13. 13.  The students will follow this proceedure for all of the activities.

    14.  
  14. 14.  The final URL for the student's new Beatle Web site will be submitted to the instructor in a form that is automatically mailed back to the instructor.

    15.  
  15. 15.  After the student has submitted the final URL, they are directed to take a post-test.

    16.  
  16. 16.  After they complete the post-test, that is also automatically scored and submitted, they are directed to the evaluation instrument for the lesson.

    17.  
  17. 17.  After they complete the evaluation instrument they are directed to a page that congratulates them for completing the lesson.

    18.  
  18. 18.  This "Congratulation" page informs students that they have finished the lesson.

    19.  
 

 
 
The Beatles: Across the Curriculum
Unit 6
is maintained by:
Mary Ann Fornataro
If you have any additional questions or comments, please feel free to contact me via my personal E-mail.

[email protected]

 
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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