Educational Leadership - February 2011

to an informational system for readers. In these environments, content is not only represented within multimodal and interactive features that students can respond to and control, but it is also embedded in an instructional interface designed to connect the activities in virtual simulations (for example, a virtual museum or virtual experiment). This environment often opens up in a separate Flash-animated interface that includes suggestions for how to use the website in an education setting and how to align student activities with specific state or national learning standards.

Google Lit Trips (www.googlelittrips .org) is a collection of virtual literary trips embedded in Google Earth, a geographic information program. When readers download a Lit Trip from the lesson database, they can follow the plot and characters of a given book through those areas of the globe that serve as the book’s setting. For example, younger students who are reading Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings can take a virtual trip through Boston; students in grades 6–8 who are reading Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793 can virtually explore Philadelphia; and stu-

x and y and instantly view how these changes influence the various parts of the equation. Reflecting with students about how these tools can enhance their understanding of challenging concepts in your curriculum may encourage them to seek out other web-based instructional systems.

Teachers can use online resources
in ways that engage students
and deepen understanding.

Working Meaningfully Online Although the task of integrating online information sources with curricular goals may seem daunting, teachers can refine their time-tested strategies for integrating offline resources to use online resources in ways that engage students and deepen their understanding. By concentrating on key learning goals and performance-based skills, teachers can design tasks and supports that make students’ online work meaningful and worthwhile. EL

For example, the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives ( http://nlvm.usu .edu/en/nav/ vlibrary.html) is a digital library that contains Java applets for more than 120 activities that are aligned to areas of K– 12 mathematics and are translated into four languages (English, Spanish, French, and Chinese). Each tool includes a set of instructions, links to national mathematics standards, suggested learning prompts that frame its use in a real-life application, and a parent-teacher component that explains how using the tool enhances learning and understanding.

To illustrate, let’s look at Algebra Tiles, a virtual manipulative for students in grades 6–8. The digital tool appears in the center of the window; learners select an item from the top menu (Activities, Parent/Teacher, Standards, or Instructions) to reveal the corresponding text in the right frame. For example, one activity asks users to “fill in the horizontal and vertical axes to show that 4x + 2y = 2(2x + y).” Students and teachers can virtually explore the properties and functions of different algebraic concepts, seek support when needed, and view learning purposes.

dents in grades 9–12 who are reading Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner can virtually travel the difficult terrain of Afghanistan. During their journey, students view photographs, read excerpts from the book, answer questions, make connections between the book and the real world, and explore links to supplemental information about particular locations and landmarks.

How to Use Them. When designing lessons to accompany websites in this category, it’s important to help students recognize the connection between these virtual experiences and the concepts you cover in class. For example, after a lesson in which students use the Algebra Tiles virtual manipulative to multiply specific binomials, reserve time to help students appreciate the value of such a tool on two levels. First, the interactive nature of this tool enables students to actively construct a more concrete representation of how to group multiple unknown variables and model their use in problem situations, as opposed to just performing the calculations on a given example in a math book. Second, the open-ended nature of the tool enables students to change the value of

References

Coiro, J., & Fogleman, J. (2009, April). A conceptual analysis of how multimodal content-area websites align with emerging theories of new literacies and technology use in schools classrooms. Paper presented in Bridging new literacies and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK): Theoretical and research perspectives symposium at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Common Core Standards Initiative. (2010).
Common core standards for English language
arts grades K– 12. Retrieved from www
. corestandards.org/the-standards/english-
language-arts-standards
Guthrie, J. T. (Ed.). (2008). Engaging ado-
lescents in reading. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press.

Sadik, A. (2004). The design elements of web-based learning environments. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 1( 8), 27–44.

Wijekumar, K. (2005). Creating effective web-based learning environments: Relevant research and practice. Innovate, 1( 5). Retrieved from www.innovateonline .info/ index.php?view=article&id= 26

Julie Coiro ( jcoiro@mail.uri.edu) and Jay Fogleman ( fogleman@mail.uri.edu) are assistant professors in the School of Education at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston.