What is a webquest?

A Webquest is an inquiry based challenge which sets goals that can be met using primarily internet resources. As the name implies, a Webquest encourages internet exploration in which the student can meet goals that satisfy aspects of a multi-phase project. In a constructivist approach, the challenges of each phase of the project are built on students’ successful completion and understanding of earlier phases. A well planned curriculum that utilizes Webquest will introduce students to multiple resources of the web and will accommodate novice and experienced internet users. It will challenge students incrementally and push their creative potential with resources like blogs and podcasting.  

Timeline

This lesson will continue across the entire school year. As for this first lesson, we will work on this Webquest for 1 month, dedicating one complete day and any free time in between projects until it is complete, it may take five weeks the first time out.

Once this critique topic is finished, a new topic will be posted.  The process should go much quicker the second time around and the work schedule should be completed in the following order of progression:

The first week of every month you will be responsible for exploring the new critique topic. 

The second and third weeks of every month you will submit a script to your teams blog and record your scripts in Audacity.

Week four will be dedicated to publishing your recorded scripts on Shockpad and Blogger. Let's begin!

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Critiquing with Podcasts

Which of the three paintings of women do you like the best?  Why? Are the three comparable?  How? (Click on the painting to get a biography its creator).

                         

 

What makes us like or dislike something?

Is it a matter of Aesthetics?  What are Aesthetics?

Take a look at Artlex and get an idea of the different ways we can discuss art.

How much of what we like is based on what an expert on the subject thinks?  What is a critic?  Why is it important for us to critique each other and ourselves?  What do we gain for performing critiques? Do you have a favorite critic?  Is there a critic out there that always shares your opinions or one that always disagrees? How do we know who is right and who is wrong?  How does a critic gain creditability? How do the critics decide what to look for?  Read over David Alexander Smith’s Article “Critiquing in a Workshop Context”

What kind of things do we critique?  Check out some of these Web Pages.

Video Games - http://www.gamecriticsawards.com/

Movies - http://www.kids-in-mind.com/

Comic Books - http://books.monstersandcritics.com/news/

Music - http://www.music-critic.com/

Art - http://www.zeroland.co.nz/art_theory.html

Did you find similarities?  What were some of the differences?  Are these creditable sources? Why? What other ways can critics get their message across?

What about Podcasts?

What is a Podcast? How could a critic use a podcast to reach and inform the public?

What if I told you are the podcasters of the future, that you will produce your own podcast critiques? Are you up for the challenge?

What is a Podcatcher?  Take a look at the different Podcatchers, like iPodder, jPodder and

 

 

Check out all of the things that Juice offers.  Listen to some Podcasts.  Keep a record of what you liked and what you did not like.

How do you create a Podcast?

Take a look at Suzie Ridgeways article on “How to Create a Podcast”

Can you get the world to listen? Now that you know you can make a podcast, you must find out how to reach the masses. Who will host your valuable contribution?  Together we will find a suitable host, but I have one more challenge for you.

In order to reach the masses, we must take into consideration that not everyone will be able to listen to your casts, therefore, I would like you to investigate how you will reach the hearing impaired community.  This challenge is important why?  Well, we would not want to exclude any listeners, so remember to offer your podcast in a place that also has corresponding written site.  This may be as simple as posting your script on a blog.

What is a blog? 

Do you think this will be a good forum for your hearing impaired fans? If you think so, you can create your team blogs at Blogger.com. Wow, that was a lot to think about. So Let’s Review,

YOU WILL:

Research several topics by using Firefox, Find, Subscribe and Listen to other podcasts with Juice,

Create a script for a podcast critique, Record a podcast in Audacity, Formulate a marketing strategy, Create a blog for the Hearing Impaired Community, and Become a PODCASTER.

Your first group casts will be based on Virtual Museum Tours.  We are going to become Tour Critics. While we are touring the museums what are some of the things we are going to look for?

Here are some suggestions: 

What were some of the strong parts of this virtual tour? What were its weaknesses? Did you enjoy it or not? What could have been better? Would you recommend this tour to others?

How does it compare to other museum’s virtual tours? (For this question go to the process link to continue).

Let’s go to The Louvre.  Virtually.

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The Process: Your First Podcast

Each month your team will be responsible for recording and publishing one podcast critique.  The topics will be assigned to you, but student suggestions will be taken into consideration for future critique topics.

This Month's Topic: Virtual Museum Tours

Part One -Team Development

Chose your team.  Teams will consist of 4-5 students.

Name your team.  Be Creative. Chose a Virtual Museum Tour to critique from the links provided, each team will critique a different tour. 

Assign team members tasks.  It will be your responsibility to make sure everyone is doing an equal share of work.  Here are some suggested jobs:

Blog Manager, Script Writer, Proof Reader, Recorder, Audacity Manager, Publisher

ALL team members MUST take at one of the same tour and two different tours on the list in order to provide a comparison and discuss the following:

Why the tour was good or bad? What did the tour show? What were the strong parts and what were the weak parts? Did you enjoy the tour? Would you recommend the tour to others /

How does it compare to other tours?

Since this will be a class effort we will come together as a class to discuss the following:

How can we make all of the casts similar enough that our podcast stays consistent

What standards are we going to conform to as a whole?  Each group can have their own individual style, but we to develop a way to maintain a fan base

Chose your team’s tour and weeks for publishing.  Each team will be assigned a week out of the month they are responsible for publishing their critique. We will have a class blog, but each team will have to create one blog.  Then we will decide by voting which blog to use.

Part Two - Making Blogs:

Go to Blogger.com

Click on Create Blog

Follow the directions and design a blog page

Think of a creative name for the blog

Once all the team blogs are submitted we will critique them as a class and decide on a final design. We will then create a class blog for the written submission of you podcast.  You will keep your team blog for all future teamwork and to post your scripts for your podcasts for the class to review before publishing.  If you are not publishing that week you must check the publishing team’s blog to post comments and suggestions. 

Part Three – Making your Podacast 

Writing Scripts

Write a script, make sure it is grammatically correct and there are no spelling errors.

Make sure your script addresses the questions above.

You may add more comments.

Make sure you reference the museum tour site and any other sites you used as a comparison.

Post you script to your team’s blog one week before recording for teacher and peer review.

Post your script to the class blog on the same day you publish your podcast.

Recording with Audacity

Take the Audacity Tutorial.  Look through all of the tutorials on this page, but start with Audacity 1.2 Tutorial.  There are also good tutorials in the Audacity Book.

Create a test; make sure you use everyone’s voice.  Practice saving as a compressed file use Chapter Four of the Audacity book.  Try saving as an AIFF and MP3, see which one sounds better than compare it to file size.  We want to try to get the best quality with the smallest file size.

Practice recording your script.  Make sure to ask your peers to critique you recording.

Record and edit.  Create smooth transitions; play with fading in and out, and possibly adding background music.  Check out Chapter 5 of the Audacity Book, to learn how to split a project.  Look at Chapter 6 for fading advice and adding effects.

Save your file. Export your saved file to iTunes or Media Player.

Your podcast should be anywhere between 3-7 minutes.  It can be longer than 7 minutes, but not shorter than 3 minutes

**  Remember you can always use the Help function in the program.

Publishing Your Podcast

We will be using Shockpad.com.  An account will be set up and the login name will be given to when you are ready to publish. 

Browse Shockpad’s webpage, read the About Us and Home pages.  See what they have going on.

*** Keep in mind that Podcasts are not FCC regulated, so there is a chance that the content will not be appropriate.  If you hear inappropriate subject content please click off immediately.  If you are listening and you are not sure, ask the teacher.  If you are caught listening to inappropriate content, you and your team will lose computer privileges.  This will affect your grade significantly. One time may result in a failing grade.

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Links

Virtual Museum Tours

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle.jsp?bmLocale=en - The Louvre’s virtual Tours. 

http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/greatart/virtual_tours.shtml -Cincinnati Art Museum’s Virtual Tours.

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Visite.html - Vatican Museums’ Virtual Tours.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/virtualTour/index.asp - The Walker Art Gallery’s Virtual Tour of Contemporary Art.

http://www.virtualvisitor.com/vrpages/kimbell.html - The Kimbell Art Museum.

http://www.wbartmuseum.com/virtualtour/ - The West Bend Art Museum.

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/collections/VirtualTours/BonsaiVirtualTour.html - The United States National Arboretum Gardens and Horticulture.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/vr/index.asp - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing Period Rooms, explore American furniture and décor.

http://www.frick.org/virtual/index.htm - The Frick Collection & Frick Art Reference Library.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/QTVR96/QTVR96_Tours.html - The Oriental Institute Museum’s Virtual Tours (see Tour by Museum Floor Plan & Tour by Gallery Images).

http://talent.csufresno.edu/VR/art/index.html  - The Fresno Art Museum.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1157_art_deco/virtual/ - V&A Virtual Tour of Art Deco.

http://www.youngatartmuseum.org/vtours.php  -  Young At Art, Children’s Museum’s Virtual Tours.

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Assessment and Standards

Below are two rubrics. The first gives the student a chance to self evaluate the success of this project. The second is from the teachers perspective.

Rubric

This project is based on 50 points, 25 from the self evaluation and 25 from the teacher evaluation.  Each team member will receive the same grade.

Self Evaluation

2 –   Poor Effort

3 –   Fair  Effort

4 –   Good Effort

5 –   Excellent Effort                                                           

Teacher Evaluation 

2 –   Poor Effort

3 –   Fair  Effort

4 –   Good Effort

5 –   Excellent Effort

Professionalism  2          3          4          5