Using the World-Wide Web to create a constructive learning environment

Abstract

The World-Wide Web has enormous unharnessed educational potential for providing content in the kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) classrooms. The World-Wide Web's content is massive, dynamic, unorganized, and usually the material is not tailored for the K-12 educational environment. The Walden's Paths Project implemented a guided path mechanism to provide a structured environment to help control these problems. The current passive linear guided paths of Walden's Paths provide an environment where students learn from the World-Wide Web's content. However, constructivist educational research advocates environments where students learn by constructing their own knowledge. One objective of this research was to extend the architecture of Walden's Paths so students can use it to construct their own knowledge. In order to achieve this goal, the thesis describes a prototype that extends the architecture so students individually or collaboratively are able to author a new path as they traverse another path. The prototype was measured by its effectiveness by two instruments. The first was Jonassen's cognitive tools/Mindtool criteria. The second was Lehrer's framework for hypertext authoring. The second objective of this research was to extend the guided path mechanism to include subpaths and interactive paths. These new mechanisms were investigated and evaluated with respect to their usefulness for developing curriculum in a K-1 2 classroom.