Internet Inquiry

Internet Inquiry helps to develop independent research skills, important literacy strategies, and allows students to pursue a question that holds interest for them. Internet Inquiries may be developed by individual students or small groups.

Inquiry units usually begin by brainstorming questions they wish to explore related to a current curricular unit. The questions may be very specific or more open, but the most important aspect of Internet Inquiry is that the students conduct research on a question that they find important.

Internet Inquiry consists of 5 phases:

1. Develop a question.

2. Search for information.

3. Analyze & Evaluate the information.

4. Compose an answer to your question.

5. Share the answer with others.

A more in-depth look at each phase:

Question Phase:

Question is one of the most important skills that students will need, but it is probably the skill that is least taught in school. Students develop specific or general questions where teachers have guided this effort by using the following scaffolding techniques (this gradually allows students more freedom of choice once they have developed the skills of asking good questions):

Assign questions to students to research
Have students pick questions to research from a list.
Provide a topic area for students to develop questions.
Allow students to develop questions of personal importance or interest, keeping them intrinsically motivated.

Search Phase:

Here are some search strategies that students can use to help them answer their questions:

Begin with directories to find information
Use appropriate age search engines that prescreen material, such as: ask jeeves or Yahooligans
Share search strategies that can be built into a lesson, such as: an internet Workshop session

Analyze Phase:

Methods used to analyze and evaluate information:

As you are conducting the project, as questions about websites.
Be able to evaluate sites by looking at the ending of the URLs (.org, .net., .edu)
Review the link title "about this site" to see what the purpose of the site is.
Determine when the site was last updated and when it was originally created.
Check the references that are used or link from the site.

Compose Phase:

After synthesizing all of the information, give example of work that students can compose before sharing information they learned.

Create a Multimedia Presentation (PowerPoint, webpage, etc.)
Write a report
Act out a scene
Make puppets for show
Create a visual display (poster, flyer, brochure, etc.)
Produce a video
Any other creative ways you or your students can think of

Share Phase:

Here are some ways that students can share or present their work:

Post work on a class web page
Give an oral report
Present their multimedia presentations
Act out a scene they created
Put on a puppet show
Any other creative way you or your students can think of

A place to start searching for answers using student friendly search engines: Ivy's Search Engine Resources

If you have any suggestions for the site or questions, please feel free to contact me at suzzette.mcclean@kent.k12.wa.us

Last Updated: September 2008