Hit->Comm/Adult Ed Internet class ideas and suggestions

[Melinda Miller-Widrick <miller-w@aldus.northnet.org>]

LM-Netters,
     As always, this group has provided me with quick, much-needed
information. I have gotten a lot of suggestions for getting my adult ed
course going and what direction to head with it, as well as several ideas
for other projects. This hit will be a compilation of the comments and
suggestions I received in no particular order.  Thank you to all those
people who offered ideas and sites.  I think I really have enough to set
up a plan. All the time and effort is greatly appreciated.  As you will
see, there are many great ideas which could be incorporated into several
different internet instruction settings.  I hope that many of you  find
these ideas as useful as I do.
Again, thanks!
Melinda

     Here they are:
----------
        I teach high schoolers but some of these topics may come in handy
for adults. I try to incorporate the internet as I cover each resource in
the library.
        I'd love to see what you receive; especially on search engines and
reference tools.
        I've found that spelling out how to get to a particular place in
great detail saves me a lot of time running to help students. It's been
worth the extra initial effort on my part. A problem I have run into is
people editting or moving their site as soon as I've written a question
and instructions on how to locate the answer. This is frustrating for
students who are doing things correctly and still can't find the answer.
Most adult ed. students aren't the type who will experiment too much on
their own (if classes at my location are the norm).
       Units I've used internet for:
        1. card catalog -  teach how to locate on-line catalogs from
public libraries in the area and how to explore information on the site.
Information is slightly different from traditional card catalog cards.
        2. Reference books- (I'm sure you'll get the idea from the short
list below.)
                a. atlas - have them locate their own address on a map.
                b. almanac - # of schools in your area, etc.
                c. quotation books - humorous quote to complete
                d. directories - locate students' names. Do a reverse
search on phone numbers. I use my relatives information, with their
permission, to insure that I don't pull up something unexpected--like a
"hated" teacher's telephone number.
        3. A good closing activity might be to have the student locate a
topic of their choosing from several different engines using different
types of resources. For example: my students have to compile a
bibliography on a topic they choose, but I specify dictionary,
encyclopedia, atlas, etc.
        4. My students are often more comfortable learning the internet if
small groups are allowed. They enjoy exploring a site as they make up
short questioneers (sp.?) for other groups. (The trick: if the other
students can't find the answer, the group must be able to find the
information again themselves.)
        5. Is e-mail an option? Could they send to each other on the
school's address using the school's address just to learn basic
techniques?
        6. How to check history, add or delete a favorite, print something
out.
        7. The PROPER way to open up and shut computer down.
        My units and my knowledge have been developed "on the run." Please
share other ideas.
----------
       I don't have a great lesson on search engines to share, but I
wanted to mention something you may already know about that you might want
to share. When you are sharing info about search engines, be sure to show
them the Dogpile site :
http://www.dogpile.com
If you are unaware of this site, what you can do there is first bookmark
it. Then whenever you want to do a thorough search of most of the major
search engines, just go to the Dogpile site. At this site, type in your
search term(s) and hit the "fetch" button. In a few seconds Dogpile will
pull up sites from all the major search engines on your search term(s).
You can just scroll down and click to go to a site that you wish (like you
normally do with a search engine), but as you scroll it will show you the
first 10 sites from each of the search engines (you can click to see more
than that if you wish). Isn't that cool? You may have already known about
Dogpile. I just learned about it at the Alabama Educational Technology
Conference this summer and I use it ALL THE TIME!
Hope this helps!
-----------
There is a one-page Library Center site
located at http://www.bigeye.com/library.htm

At the bottom of the page, there is a link
to a Search Center which handles anything
one may wish to find on the WWW.

Both of these sites have been designed for the
school/library communities, and I know that you
will find them valuable.

We always appreciate hearing how you like our
sites, and welcome suggestions.
----------
Do try to include e-mail.  That was the far and away favorite topic
with both my staff and our parents.
----------
This is a search engine that I just found out about.  Might have been
here. The review sounds like it might be pretty good.  Haven't used it but
a couple of times yet.  You might want to try it out.
http://google.stanford.edu/
----------
I think adults would like to know about news groups.  We touched on them
in the Internet course I took, but I still don't entirely know how to use
them comfortably.  Also -- in the same vein of forums for exchanging
information the relatively new Y? Forum is interesting and people who have
email can actually get into exchanging discussion with others who respond
to answers/questions they post.

In an adult internet course, I would want them to leave so intrigued that
they might want to start aiming to purchase for their home -- so I would
also cover email and perhaps MOOs and MUDs to show those who like games
what they can do.
----------
I would do one session on "Child Safety on the Internet" and
blocking software.
-----------
How about:
        locating a better mortgage rate
        reviews of various health plans
        planning a vacation - what to see where you plan to go
        definitely genealogy
        political topics like just what is on the Republican Platform
        tracking legislation as it moves thru both the state govt and
             Congress
        writing congresscritters and local officials with your opinion
        using the Library of Congress' great online site
-----------
One search engine that I really like is Northern Light.
http://www.northernlight.com
Its unique feature is that it sorts your results into customized folders,
reflecting logical subheadings for your topic.

One thing you really need to stress is the fact that not everything on
the web is good!  (Just like with the kids!)  One great website to
demonstrate this is Dr. Willix's Alternative Health site.    The URL is
http://www.safari.net/~longevity/main.html

CAUTION:  This site often won't come up by typing in the URL.   I go into
Northern Light and type in "alternative medicine."  On the right side of
the screen, near the top, will be Dr. Willix's site listed.   Click on it
and that should take you in.    This site is an excellent "ugly" web site
- no authority, no affiliation, blatent selling, "yellow journalism"
headlines (in his articles), and the "friendly links" are a hoot!   Our
kids love to laugh at it, but at the same time, they get the point.

I would go into Medline (online URL http://www.gateway.com - I think -
then click on Medline).   People are very interested in health topics,
finding physician referrals, information about medications.    This one
can do it!
----------
Be careful when doing the geneology search.  My son did one at college
(his first year) and that is the only place we can figure that someone got
access to information (like my maiden name) and had a credit card issued
in his name.  $1000.00 later, his credit is in trouble and he has to pay
the bill.
----------
Don't forget e-mail! Even if you just show them how to set up a free
account like Hotmail.

For search engines, I've seen treasure hunts made up. If you need one,
let me know. I think I might have an example somewhere.
----------
  How long are these classes going to be?  An hour or two.  Why not
show a video on the internet for a beginning class?  Lot of good ones from
the Library Video Catalog.   Why not try some on-line tutorials about the
internet  or try to find a scavenger hunt  for beginning lessons?  I just
did a three day workshop with K-6 teachers and after they learned the
basics they really enjoyed having time to use the skills they just learned
to search whatever they wanted.  While people were searching I was able to
help others who were having problems.
How about a lesson on listserv's or newsletters that they can get by
e-mail?
Set up e-mail (free) through Yahoo or one of the other search engines.
Give them a booklet with addresses of search engines and some popular
sites they can take home with them.  Also maybe a lesson on some books or
magazines that would help them with the internet.
----------
Try the following Web site for information on search engines:
http://wwwscout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/searching/index.html

You might want to have your students try a scavenger hunt during the first
few classes, using different search engines and comparing results.  Topics
I used with my own colleagues during professional development courses for
a longer unit included cooking (searching for recipes and assembling a
cookbook of our favorites), and literature (find an author).
-----------
One more suggestion before I move on with my day - try the on-line courses
at the ICONNect site of the ALA - most of them are archived, and have some
great information on the Web and search engines.
http://www.ala.org/ICONN/advancedcoursesarchive.html
-------------
ALA and others are sponsoring Kids Online Week Sept 14-20.  There's lots
of good info. at the ALA site under America Links Up (I think).  This
might be  a good resource, especially if many of your adults are parents.
Please post a hit.
------------
How about sessions on searching the Internet for:
career &/or vocational information
planning a trip - maps, airline & hotel info., tourist attractions
buying or selling a car - prices, model info.
-----------
This isn't too original but one thing I have done to demonstrate the use
of search engines goes like this.
Start everyone at the same search engine or directory such as Yahoo.
Have some of the class put in a word such as dog and the others put in
dogs.
Compare the results.
Then use phrases like "dogs or cats"  "dogs and cats" dogs +cats  +dogs
+cats, etc.  See if there is a difference in hits for something like
cocker and spaniel and "cocker spaniel"
Divide into groups and have each group investigate the same agreed on
phrases on different search engines such as hotbot, altavista and Northern
lights and then report to the class.

In our adult education classes and even our classes for teachers, we have
generally not made anyone accountable for actually acomplishing anything
other than investigation..  I wonder how it would work if we did.

Do be sure to make a point of the  the unauthoritive nature of much of the
information.  This is obvious to us, but I've heard even a lot of teachers
and administrators talk as if "I found it on the internet, so it must be
true."
Spend some time at geocities and be sure to point out that anyone can have
a website here where they can post whatever they want and it can
subsequently show up as a hit in other people's searches.
-----------

Melinda Miller-Widrick, LMS K-12
Colton-Pierrepont Central School
Colton, NY 13625
miller-w@northnet.org

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