Using Web Quest as Teaching Resource

http://algernon08.tripod.com/index.html

The link above is a Literature Web Quest my course mate & I had done last semester for one of our Literature pedagogical module. The aim of this Web Quest is to get Secondary One Literature students to explore deep into the short story, "Flowers for Algernon", written by Daniel Keyes.

In this Web Quest, different groups of students get the chance to explore issues, like, the accuracy of the measure of people's I.Q. & personality using the I.Q. test & the Rorschach Test (a.k.a. the Inkblot test) respectively. Other students will get to explore more of the story's content as they are tasked to produce a trailer for this story. As a result, students are made to think about the ideologies embedded in tests meant to gauge different aspects of humans.

As students are engaging in their tasks, they are rendered to think analytically & critically with regard to the issue they have at hands. This is an engagement of informal knowledge, for students are working with contents of a short story. At the same time, systematic knowledge is also employed as links are given to them in relation to the task they have been assigned to. FOr instance, groups which specialise in the I.Q. test are given weblinks to know more about the making & functions of I.Q. tests. Through this, these students will get to know more about everything involving I.Q. tests, thereby, tapping deep into the systematic knowledge. Lastly, students will also tap into their transformative knowledge as they have to interact what they have learned & create a product (in this case, an I.Q. test).

Note how multimodality is utilised to a high extent in this webquest, as students not only work with new media (the Internet, video-recording, movie-making programs), they also need to work with the traditional materials, such as, writings, amongst others. Furthermore, there is an online discussion board for students to air their views & any contributions they might have regarding their assignments or the short story in general.

The development of Students' cognitive skills is palpable here.

The Employment of Music Videos as Teaching Material

This is what I suddenly thought of when I was thinking about signs, symbols, connotations, denotations, & what we've learnt about the DUSTY programme in our previous lessons of Multiliteracy.

As you watch this MTV, you'll see how some words are being emphasised by having them spelt out & shown in the MTV itself, like, "enjoy", "trust me", "race", & "stretch", amongst others. This actually creates salience for the point the persona is trying to make.

Besides that, we also see connotations in the MTV, such as the employment of flowers to connote "The power of beauty of your youth" as said by the persona, in this case, Baz Luhrmann. Also, the image of someone cutting up a picture of a heart shape is shown as Luhrmann says, "Don't be reckless with other people's heart."

In terms of dennotation, there is the depiction of someone standing on a weighing machine with the scale pointing at 20kg, as the persona says, "you're not as fat as you imagine". These are just some of the images utilised to symbolised some of the points the persona tries to make.

Additionally, note how colours are used at various stages of the song/rap, as there are times the images are black & white, while in others, the images are colourful.

In teaching, I think this resource can be considered when we want students to think about how certain concepts are represented through the various aspects of images & sound. Students can be asked why certain ideas are represented by certain images/sounds, & what would happened if the music is taken off. Teachers can also get students to think about the impact of the conveyance of message if the lines are not read, & sung instead.

Students can actually be divided into mini groups to work on different aspects, so that, we have them as "specialised groups" - one group will work on the usage of colours in the music video; the 2nd group can work on the images used; while the 3rd group can work on the audio aspect; and so on. Then there can be a "Gallery Walk" in which each mini-group will showcase their "specialisation".

Thereafter, teachers can get students to come together to discuss whether each of these elements work independently or interdependently. This will allow all groups to think critically & analytically on the functions of each element vis-a-vis the others. This can be done by getting students to remove one of the elements & see if the impact & conveyance of message is still apparent & effective to viewers of the music video.