Webliography Group Project

As a group, your job is to create a webliography based on your case study analysis for the final project. Each person in your group may choose a different area of concentration, and that's okay! The idea is to compile a list of facilitator resources for overcoming potential pitfalls/missed opportunities or for highlighting areas of success in online courses. Your group webliography should include:

One Web site from each member of the group, with:
- A short description of the Web site
- The title and URL of the Web site, with the contributor's name
- Two reviews of each Web site (one from the contributor and one from another group member, with reviewers' names)
A short 1-2 paragraph introduction to the webliography.

Each Web site should relate to the strengths and/or weaknesses you identified in Part I of the final project. For instance, if you identified community formation as a weakness (or strength) in the case, you should find and review a Web site about building online communities. Review the final project for a reminder of the case and case study method.

Part I: Decide on Format (Session 4)

Your first decision is to figure out-as a group-how you'll present the webliography. The goal is to create a document that feels comfortable and doable to most people in your group.

Consider the following formats (but feel free to do something different):

Word document
PowerPoint presentation (50 MB maximum)
HTML page

Post one message to the "Webliography" discussion in the "Facilitator Training Lab" with your ideas about format as early in the session as possible. Check back to help generate ideas and make decisions.

Part II: Search the Web (Session 4)

Before you go off to Google (or use another search engine), review Tips to Evaluate Internet Resources.
Search the Web until you've found just one Web site about online course issues that you'd like to include in the webliography.
Review the Web site.
Post your Web site's title, URL, and review to the lab's "Webliography" discussion.
Review a Web site contributed by a teammate.

Tips for Success

In "Toward a Theory of Online Learning," which you read in Session 1, Anderson states, "Thus, online learning theory must acknowledge the change from an era of shortage and restrictions in content to one in which content resources are so large that filtering and reducing choice is as important as providing sufficient content" (p.41).

Note that the assignment calls for one Web site per person. While researching, you may find many Web sites and want to include more. Your job will be to filter and reduce to the one Web site that is most useful to you and your group.

As a group, you may wish to come up with guidelines for your Web site reviews early. Will you use a rating scale like stars, for instance, or address certain categories, such as reliability of the Web site information?

Team leaders will be chosen by your facilitator. The team leader should start the discussion, round up any absent or quiet team members (by private e-mail, if necessary), be on the lookout for missing Web sites or reviews, and gather all the Web sites, titles, URLs, and reviews in a summary post. Work in the "Webliography" discussion in your lab.

Review the webliography rubric to understand how you'll be assessed in this assignment.

Part III: Create Webliography (Session 5)

In Session 4, you researched and reviewed Web sites. In Session 5, your group will create the final presentation for your webliography, adding:

an introduction to the webliography
a short description of each Web site
graphics or other enhancements (optional)

The webliography should be checked for spelling and grammar, and be presented in a format that is easily readable. Refer to the webliography rubric for more information.

Everyone in the group should have a role in developing the final product. Each person should write the description for the Web site he/she chose. In addition, you may need someone to draft an introduction, a proofreader, someone to find graphics, another person to check the addresses for each Web site, etc. Your goal should be to draw on people's strengths, and not allow any one person to do a disproportionate amount of work. Continue to work in the lab group's "Webliography" discussion as you finalize your project.

A new team leader will be chosen by your facilitator. The team leader should start the discussion and guide the work, taking over from where the Session 4 team leader left off. The team leader should round up any absent or quiet team members, help the group come to any final decisions that need to be made, consider roles, and generally keep the project on track. The team leader should post the final webliography before the end of the session to both your lab group's "Webliography" discussion and to the Open Forum in the OFT, so that everyone in the course has access to the great Web resources.