QuestIT'n-learn
can the internet and in particular the webquest strategy be an effective method of delivering IT

Abstract

IT training at third level is an increasingly important issue for colleges and universities. Large numbers of students enter college each year and very little training on how to use IT facilities is provided for them. This is worse in countries with newly developed IT strategies, for their school system may not have adequately prepared all students evenly across the board. There may be a big difference between students that have attended schools with active IT support and students that have not. Also universities like Trinity College Dublin have a large number of international students. These students come from many different school systems and their IT skills can vary greatly. I have worked for many years as an IT trainer at Trinity College Dublin and it is my professional opinion that we need changes to the system the college offers new entrant students. I decided to research the problem and thus examine the situation in other universities and to look for a solution that might meet our needs at Trinity College Dublin.

I suggested an action to improve the local situation. Mainly, to use the Internet to extend the amount of training being done and to empower the students so they could take control of their own learning.

I implemented this action by developing a WebQuest. This is based on the educational theories of action learning, inquiry-based learning and constructivism. The students were given a task and given the resources to carry out the task. I then tested this program on a sample of students in senior cycle post-primary education.

I evaluated how the students performed using Methodological 'Between Method' triangulation (Wellington, 2000). I used different tools such as personal observations and note taking, questionnaires, video interviews and the tasks completed by students in my study.

As a result of this study I intend to implement changes and improvements to the program and to carry out further studies with larger samples.

Introduction

This study aims to test the use of the Internet and in particular the WebQuest strategy as a method of introducing new entrant students at Trinity College Dublin to IT facilities provided by the college. It seeks to provide a solution to a problem faced by large numbers of third level institutions, namely ensuring students have the skills necessary to succeed in meeting the requirements of their degrees.

The current intake of new students each October is over 4,000. These students are faced with many daunting challenges, maybe none so daunting as using the college computing services. Each student is offered a one-hour induction course which covers logging onto college computers, finding different software applications, using e-mail, the Internet and their personal "Filestorage." For whatever reason only half of all new entrant students attend these courses. Many students muddle through. Many more never get to grips with these tools. A constant trail of paper is produced every year to aid these new computer users. It is my professional opinion that this system does not work very well.

The present system raises a number of questions. How might we reach out to these students and more importantly how do we get help to them when they need it? Information Systems Services have provided help pages on the Internet for common problems and these do help. But how do we motivate students to avail of such help on the Internet? How can we make this help more relevant? How do we insure they have the help they need when they need it?

Learning is naturally an activity process. We learn from doing. But often when we are learning we just sit and listen—we are not working with this new knowledge, and higher levels of thinking are not taking place. How can we motivate students into higher levels of learning and how can we get them to use this new knowledge in a meaningful way?

Need for Change

A third-level student should be able to produce professional documents at a sophisticated level using desktop applications, communicate through e-mail, receive and send files, and be able to use their time and resources efficiently and effectively when doing research using the Internet. Have our students achieved this level of computer literacy on entering the college? Working with new entrant students, I find many need training in the basic use of computers. Are third level colleges implementing change to support this need? Whose job is it to provide this training? Would it be better if these skills were taught through the broader curriculum?

This case study examines these questions. I have studied the situation at Trinity College in relation to that of a number of other universities. The following summarizes some of my findings and my reflection. A more comprehensive report can be found in my online essay "Whose Job is it anyway?"

Policy on Student IT Skills

In my own university, Trinity College Dublin, there are official policies on the use of equipment and facilities published on the Internet for all to see—but it is difficult to find a policy on the use of ICT in education. A "Letter from the Provost, 1.1 The Curriculum" (Mitchell, 2000), states a Working Party, chaired by the Senior Lecturer, had been established in 1998 to examine the skills and knowledge undergraduates should acquire alongside their existing study programs. This Working Party reported to the academic Council of the college in Hilary term of last year and produced a paper entitled "Policy on the Broad Curriculum." The recommendations of this case study were adopted by Trinity College Council on 10th March 2000.

This document sets forth the objectives of the undergraduate curriculum, and the general skills and mental capacities that undergraduates should acquire in addition to specialist knowledge. IT skills are dealt with under the sections on literacy and numeracy.

Following this publication academic faculties were asked to consider how their current procedures met these objectives and what needed to be done. In a follow-up document "Interim Report on Faculty Consideration of Broad Curriculum" (Laver 2000), the faculties had interpreted the need for IT skills for our students as being a resources issue. It is suggested that College raises funds to achieve better levels of resources.

I am disappointed with this interpretation. While it is a good idea and necessary for the college to raise funds to achieve better resources for our students I feel we should be ready to implement change and make better use of the resources we have.

Other Irish Universities

A look at other universities in Ireland paints a similar picture to Trinity's.

In University College Dublin the IT department provides Computer Assistants. The primary role of a Computing Assistant is to get the student past first steps (logging in, file creation and management, and printing) and give help when something goes wrong. (UCD Computer services, 8th Dec 2000)

The following e-mail from Donal Hunt, User Support, Dublin City University, sums up the situation there:

At present there is no induction session for students in DCU. Much of the information needed to get started is available in a booklet that is handed out at registration. Further information can be got from the Computer Services website and the student portal pages, as it becomes available. ( Hunt D, Dublin City University, 6th Nov 2000)

In DCU as in Trinity, the IT department is trying to help but there is no clear policy and this help/training is being done in isolation from academic curricula in general.

In Ireland, in most cases the Information Services Departments provide online help, Helpdesk services and induction courses in order to cut down on the number of individuals who will have problems using their facilities. The emphasis here is on solving a few problems for a large number of students rather than on any educational benefits for the students. The present policies would not encourage a student new to computing to start using the services, nor would it give guidance to students on how best to use the facilities as part of their academic course.

This is not to say that some individuals are not doing good work with selected groups of students, but overall a change in policy seems to be needed. I believe that the development of IT skills needs to be addressed by the universities as a whole and brought in from the cold to become an inclusive part of the curriculum.

Good Working Examples of Integrated Models

I have searched for good working examples of what might be a better system. Two possibilities are outlined here followed by recommendations as to how we might implement change in our own situation.

At Acadia University in Canada they have a program called "The Acadia advantage," which is an academic initiative rather than something provided by a Computer Service department. Each student receives an IBM ThinkPad computer. Use of this computer is integrated into the curriculum. Students learn how to use the computers as part of their course. (The Acadia advantage, 8th April 1999)

Students enrolling in The Acadia Advantage program aren't expected to be computer whizzes; in fact, they aren't expected to have any specialized computer training at all. It is the job of Acadia's faculty and staff members to bring students up to speed. ( The Acadia advantage, 8th April 1999)

In this situation the students own their own computer. They have it with them all the time. They get to use it for personal, social and academic activities. They become familiar with how their computer works and what it can do for them. Their interest grows because they are not restricted in its use. Every class can be a computer class. They can use their ThinkPad computer to take notes, write essays, e-mail tutors and more. Because the academic faculty teach the student how to use their computers, the student will better see the relevance of learning this new skill. This might be an expensive solution but with the problems colleges have finding space for fixed computers it is one worth serious consideration.

At the College of Education at Valdosta, State University (Georgia, USA) a course had been developed that covers word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, Internet, electronic mail, and operating system software and basic computer concepts. This course is being run by an academic department.

The new course, Applied Educational Computing, allows students to be creative and complete practical, instructional-based projects in their own subject areas. (Thomerson, 1998)

Is this a model we could follow? It would require less monetary investment than the "Acadia advantage" from the college, but academics would have to invest time.

The course meets twice weekly for 10 weeks. Student projects require them to be creative and generate practical, instructional-based materials suitable for use in their own subject area. Results from the first three courses have shown that students are highly motivated, and they are very positive on course evaluations. (Thomerson, 1998)

By examining situations overseas we get insight into what works and what does not. We save ourselves from expensive mistakes both in time and money. We can make contact with the people behind these incentives and get advice and help. In hindsight they might have taken a different route, had they know the pitfalls. We can examine the results of their initiatives in this area.

Recommendations

Third level students must be computer literate (i.e. capable of using the Internet at a highly effective and efficient way and be able to produce sophisticated documents using desktop applications). This has to be seen as an important element of their education. While we need to consider the implications of overloading our students we cannot afford to do this at the expense of computer literacy.

IT education cannot be carried out in isolation. It must evolve from a need within the subject the student is interested in. If we ask students to learn a new skill it must have relevance and meaning for them.

Resources are a major issue when implementing change. But we must not use this as an excuse for doing nothing. We should look for ways to bring change to how we work with and use current resources.

The WebQuest Strategy

One way we might be able to bring about this change is the WebQuest strategy. In the early days of the Internet (1995), Professor Bernie Dodge began developing a strategy at San Diego State University to help teachers integrate the power of the Web into teaching and learning, thus the WebQuest strategy was born. (edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/, 17th Nov 2000)

WebQuest is based around a central question or problem that needs to be solved, which is the task. Setting a real task that students will respond to adds to the relevance of the WebQuest. Tom March, in his paper "Why WebQuests?, an introduction," (www.ozline.com/webquests/, Sep. 1998) says that the WebQuest needs to be linked to previous or subsequent activities and not isolated from the rest of the curriculum. This is an important factor when motivating the student.

In a WebQuest the student is given real resources to work with. Students should be pushed beyond the facts into analyses, synthesis, evaluation, problem-solving and critical-thinking. The results can be posted onto the Web or e-mailed to a real person for feedback. This is further motivation for the student.

Prior to my discovery of the WebQuest strategy I had developed Web pages that introduced the student to e-mail, Microsoft Word, how to use personal disk storage space and other IT services and programs. These were no more than Web pages. This seemed to miss out on the real educational power I believe the Internet holds. I wanted to shift the emphases from delivering facts to real learning, critical-thinking and problem-solving. WebQuest seemed to offer me a possible solution.

A WebQuest is a tool not a theory. But WebQuests are based on ideas of "Active Learning" (Aug 1999) and "Constructivism" (1999). Active learning places the responsibility for learning back on the student. The materials needed to solve a problem are provided. The student must engage with the material to solve the problem. The student will also draw from prior knowledge to create new knowledge. There should be opportunity to practice, and feedback should be provided. Constructivism is also based on the student playing an active part in problem-solving and critical-thinking. They are constructing their own knowledge by solving the problem. The WebQuest tool presents the student with a problem that needs to be solved. Resources are also provided. The focus is on the student using a set of resources on the Web to solve a problem rather than on finding the resources. WebQuest is a tool based on sound educational theory.

A WebQuest is divided into several different sections. Firstly there is the "Introduction." This should be interesting and draw the student into the WebQuest. Secondly there is the "Task." This should be meaningful and relevant for the student. The task may be broken into steps or sub-tasks. Using "scaffolding" in this way should help the student solve the task. The "Process" comes next. This offers help on how to approach the problem. Following this is the "Resources" section. This section provides most or all the information the student needs to solve the task. These resources should provide information and examples which the students can use along with any prior knowledge they have on the subject. They should be able to piece these resources together again later when faced with similar problems. Lastly the "Evaluation" section should give student information on how they will be evaluated. Are you going to e-mail them or post their work on the Web?

Designing My WebQuest

The first step in designing my WebQuest was to decide what I wanted the students to learn (Yoder, 1999).

I wanted them to know how to read an e-mail, to save files into Filestorage, Use MS Word and reply to an e-mail sending an attached file with the message. I needed to define a task that would involve doing all these things.

The Task

• Your Lecturer has e-mailed an assignment to everyone in the class.
• You have to learn how to read your e-mail in order to find out what the assignment is.
• As if that wasn't bad enough you are told that you must complete your assignment using Microsoft Word.
• Save the file into your personal filestorage space.
• Submit it for correction as an attachment to an e-mail message.
• Check out the Process and the Resources for help.

I broke the problem down into five steps or sub-tasks. These sub-tasks introduced the "Scaffolding" system (1999), which was carried through into the "Resources" section.

Once I had defined the "Task" I set about defining and developing the "Resources" the student would need to carry out this task. I decided to develop the project in Macromedia Flash 5. This enabled me to have animations and simulations which the student could follow. Once I started to develop the resources I found items overlapped and some tasks that I had first seen as individual belonged in a wider resource. The following is the final list of resources.

The Resources

• Where will I find my e-mail and how do I start it?
• How do I read my messages?
• Where will I find Microsoft Word and how do I start it?
• Help! I want to format my document.
• Where and how should I save my file?
• How do I send a reply message? And how do I send a file with an e-mail message?
• More detailed notes—you can print them if you want.

I then set about writing an "Introduction" to the program to explain the reasoning behind it and to engage the student.

I left the development of the "Process" section until all the above sections were complete. Because of the "Scaffolding" system I had built into the task and into the resources much of the process was already defined. I used the process section to show them how two programs could run at the same time and suggested they leave the WebQuest running while they worked on the task. This enabled them to get help when they required it.

The WebQuest is evaluated by later examining the completed task. This is explained in the "Evaluation" section. I am also interested in developing online evaluation in this section in the future.

Graphics

I took "print screens" of images from computers in our open access computer rooms and edited these images in Adobe Photoshop. The resolution of these images was fairly poor and they displayed better on some machines than others. This is a technical area I need to revisit.

Navigation buttons and banners were developed in Flash.

The Interface

I wanted to keep the interface clean and simple. I chose two colours. Grey for the text and orange for navigation and graphics bars. The design is consistent throughout the program. All navigation items are orange. Arrows are used to navigate within the WebQuest from window to window. Orange rectangle buttons are used to access animations, simulations and extra help. Lynch and Horton suggest that:

By providing your own consistent and predictable set of navigation buttons you also give the user a sense of your site's organisation and make the logic and order of your site visually explicit. ( Lynch & Horton, 1999)

I used two fonts. JOKERMAN for graphics and Kristen ITC for text. I picked these fonts because they looked young and modern.

Working with Flash

Initially I drew a storyboard for the overall project. This was made up of rough sketches in an A4 pad. These drawings showed layout, navigation and content boxes. Later as the need for different animations and simulations became obvious I developed separate storyboard drawings to guide me through their development.

Once I had decided on an overall design I developed a template document which helped maintain a consistent look and feel to the project.

Methodology

When undertaking a research study into an aspect of education or training it is often not possible to carry out large-scale quantitative research. (Wellington, 2000). This was the case in my study. I looked at a situation (e.g. our IT training policy for new entrant students entering Trinity College Dublin) with a view to changing and improving it.

I asked myself what I saw as the stages of my research.

• From my professional experience I saw a system that was less than perfect. Large numbers of students entering college each year and very little training on how to use our IT facilities.
• I suggested an action to improve the situation. Mainly, to use the Internet to extend the amount of training being done and to empower the students so they could take control of their own learning
• I implemented this action by developing a WebQuest. This is based on the educational theories of "Action learning," "Inquiry" and "Constructivism." The students are given a task and given the resources to carry out the task.

I then tested this program on a sample of students in senior cycle post-primary, pre-university education. I choose fourteen students from Trim Vocational School in Co Meath.

I evaluated how these students performed using Methodological "Between Method" triangulation (Wellington, 2000). I used different tools such as personal observations and note-taking, questionnaires, video interviews and the completed tasks by students in my study. As a result of this study I intend to implement changes and improvements to the program and to carry out further studies with larger samples.

This type of research falls into the well established concept of "Action Research."

Each stage gave me different insight into what was taking place as the students followed the program. From my observation I watched how the students interacted with each other, the mood in the room, the noise level and body language.

I used two questionnaires, one before my subjects had started in order to ascertain how much computer experience they already had and one afterwards to find out what they thought of the program and how they used it. Wellington (2000) suggests that questionnaires are essentially a fact-finding method but that it is often forgotten that they can be used to gather "qualitative" data.

Interviewing the students was one of the most enjoyable activities of the study. Wellington (2000) says interviews allow us to "probe an interviewee's thoughts, values, prejudices, perceptions, views, feeling and perspectives" (p. 73). I used a video camera to record a short interview with each student.

Because of the particular task given to the students I had potentially a document from each student at the end of the study. This also helped me to evaluate how well the student had performed.

Looking back over my data I decided the best method of analyzing it was to treat each student as a separate case study and later to compare cases for trends and similarities. I documented how well they had completed this task over time and how they had reported their use of the program and their feelings about the program and the test. Wellington (2000) says a collection of cases can make up a single case.

Implementation

On Friday 18th May fourteen pre-university students currently finishing senior cycle post-primary education tested the program. These students came from Trim Vocational School in Co Meath. The school has good computing facilities. The students are taking the Leaving Certificate Vocational Program. One module on this programme covers computer studies. As part of their course work students have to put a portfolio together which includes a Curriculum Vitae, a letter and a report. Students get two forty-minute classes per week using the computers. However, computers are not used across the curriculum or as aids to teach any other subject.

I collected the students from the school and brought them to Trinity College for the test. Before we started I had an informal conversation with them about what I was doing and why I needed their help. I answered any questions they had about the test. This put them at ease and built up trust between us.

At this stage I was just interested in finding out how the program worked and not any other difficulties the students might have finding the program or logging in. Therefore each computer was logged in to and the program was running on the screen before the students arrived.

In a real situation these issues will have to be dealt with separately. Each student was provided with an e-mail username and password. I sent an e-mail to each student asking them to write up no more than half a page on any aspect of their visit to the college. They had to format the document, save it to file storage and e-mail it back to me as an attachment.

The students worked by themselves. I made nonparticipant observations and notes. At first they seemed to work alone but I noticed they watched what their neighbour was doing. They discussed the task quietly with the person next to them. One student seemed to play a leadership role in the class. Difficulties were sometimes addressed to him. This was all done in a very orderly way, quietly and without leaving their places.

My first observations seemed to suggest that eleven out of fourteen students completed the task and that the other three completed parts of the task.

Presentation of Data—Previous Experience

Prior to starting the test I asked the students to fill in the same questionnaire we give to new entrant students at college induction courses. I was only interested in questions six onwards.

I knew before I started that all these students had access to a PC at school. What was more interesting was the amount of access they had outside school and what they used computers for in their own time. Ten students owned their own computer. Twelve students had access to computers in the evenings and at weekends. Ten students had free or cheap Internet access outside of school. Four had no access to the Internet.

When asked what applications they had used only four people reported having used e-mail a lot. Nine students said they had never used it or only once or twice. One person had used e-mail three or more times.

When asked about the Internet the results were remarkably different. All of the students reported having used the Internet to varying degrees. Four students said they had only used the Internet once or twice. Eight students had used it a lot and two people said they had used it three or more times. Internet access is not available at school.

All students reported having used word processing. Eight students said they had used it a lot. Two students said they only used it once or twice and four said they used word processing three or more times.

Findings

Of the fourteen students tested eleven students e-mailed the required assignment to me. Seven of these eleven students completed the task (sent the e-mail and saved the file). The other three students completed parts of the test.

Many of the students have computers at home but very few were using them for e-mail. On the other hand the Internet was very popular with the students and all reported having used it at least once. Most students felt comfortable using the computers. No one needed help using the mouse or keyboard. In fact only one student reported having poor typing skills. In this area among college entrants I have observed a great improvement over the last number of years.

On the usability of the program six students reported difficulties finding the areas on the screen that they should click. These were areas in the simulations and the difficulties often related to image quality. No one had any difficulty with the main navigation buttons. Two students initially reported the small navigation button under "Process" as a problem initially. The students suggested that I build in some explanation to overcome this problem.

Students collaborated with each other during the test and repeated sections they did not understand. In most cases they reported being able to work things out for themselves.

Not all the students managed to save their file into "Filestorage." This is a common problem for new entrant students and documents are often lost because they are not saved correctly. It was suggested to me that open windows on the screen obscured the icon for "Filestorage" and that the program should contain a warning to this effect.

In a section under "Resources" called "Further help" I gave the students the option to print IS Services User notes. All the students looked at this section and opened these documents. But no one chose to print any of the notes. The students preferred to use the animations and simulations than to read text.

Many of the students said they understood everything better once they had done it for themselves.

Discussion of Findings

Can the Internet and in particular the WebQuest strategy be an effective method of delivering IT training to new entrant college students?

Overall the program was quite successful. Eleven out of fourteen students submitted their assignment. However there were some worrying aspects in my findings.

Several students did not manage to save their files into "Filestorage." Therefore the files were lost. Further research would be necessary to discover whether this may have been because the students did not put much importance on the documents (they were never going to need them again) or it may have been that they tried and failed.

An important aspect of any WebQuest is the relationship of the task with previous and subsequent activities (March, 1998). This factor was missing in my test. Students did report that working with real files and having to read and send e-mails made the whole exercise more meaningful but future tests will have to be carried out in conjunction with curricular activities. In my opinion, this is the best method for teaching IT skills to students. This idea is supported by the success of the program in the College of Education at Valdosta, where the instructional-based materials are suitable for use in the student's own subject area (Thomerson, 1998).

When students had difficulties with areas of the task they sought help from their friends, worked it out together or repeated the section. This showed critical analysis and problem-solving was taking place.

When interviewed all the students expressed satisfaction with the program even though many of them had difficulties. Students may have been concerned at losing face in front of their classmates. Private individual interviews would have been a better idea in hindsight. None of the three students who failed to e-mail their assignments back to me let me know this in their interviews. This type of information would have allowed me to dig deeper into why they failed and how the program might be changed to support their style of learning.

Students did not report difficulties with navigation but did report difficulties finding hotspots in simulations. Students were not prepared to explore and investigate the screens for these hotspots and expected them to be very obvious. This is worrying as in the simulations I tried to mirror the real environment as closely as possible. The aim of the program was not to spoon-feed the students but rather to motivate them into a more critical mode of thinking. Improving image quality may help.

On the positive side all students reported having learned something new from the test. Many of the more successful students had also expressed an interest in learning how to use computers and e-mail in particular as a motivation for attending the course. Six students had reported never having used e-mail before the test. Five of these students succeeded in sending me the assignment. One of these students still had difficulties.

Most of the students who had difficulties with a section of the WebQuest reported this to be the introduction or task sections. There seemed to be difficulties understanding what was required of them. Many students reported repeating these sections and either working it out for themselves or talking to the students next to them. Students did not seem to have difficulties with the resources section which is the most detailed. Once the task was understood they seemed to be able to continue. This is very positive. I need to revisit the introduction and task sections and perhaps rewrite them.

Conclusion

Can the Internet and in particular the WebQuest strategy be an effective method of delivering IT training to new entrant college students?

My initial findings suggest that this strategy will work but further tests are necessary.

Motivation is an important factor when testing this program. This was lacking in my initial test and may have been the reason why students failed to save the document. Had the task been curricular-based it would have been more meaningful for the students. I have shown the program to some academic staff and have people interested in using it next October.

I intend to tailor the program to meet their needs. I also intended tracking the student usage of the program. This will give me more step-by-step detail on how the program is used.

Many students reported having sought help. From my observation, in most cases this was collaboration and discussion. They talked about the problem and shared with each other.

The students highlighted some areas that might be improved.

• Image resolution
• Clarification of "Introduction" and "Task" sections

I intend to revisit these areas over the summer.

I will carry out private interviews after the next test. This will allow me to probe more deeply to find the real issues and feelings of the students.

Examining the data I collected from the students I can see areas where I might improve the questionnaires.

I need to expand my study to examine what the implications would be for third level institutions and in particular Trinity College Dublin were they to employ this program.

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