Teacher
Guidelines |
BACKGROUND This site is aimed at Leaving Certificate Applied students. The Leaving Certificate Applied programme was piloted in 1995 and forms a distinct, self-contained programme for Leaving Certificate students. It has the advantage that it is sensitive to the special aptitudes, abilities, needs and interests of the students. The students are generally those students whose strengths lie more in the practical than in the academic sphere. The site is also designed to suit the needs of some Special Educational Needs (SEN) students. More and more SEN students are taking the Leaving Certificate Applied option in senior cycle. The site aims to use a multisensory approach and to simplify the language to facilitate these students. There are very few resources generally available for Leaving Certificate Applied courses and virtually none for the ICT module. Teachers have to generate their own resources. Information Technology is a mandatory course for all LCA students. Within this module is the unit ‘the Computer and the Environment’. In my experience, students find this part of the course quite difficult. There is a lot of new vocabulary, different technical terms and new concepts. If this information could be presented in a visual interactive way it should make for an easier and more pleasant learning experience for the students. Rationale of this WebQuest Over the years I have learned that students learn
most if they find out things by themselves. So all the
time, I ask them questions, and provide only so much information
that they have to analyse the question, look at the data,
look at the question, combine information from two different
sources, etc. So in essence, I pose the questions in the form of worksheets and provide some links and they seek the answers. What
you need: The
Structure of the Lessons. The website is divided into 10 Lessons. Each lesson deals with the specific aspects of the project. It might be a good idea to look at these lessons and organise the students into groups of 2 or 3 students. Each group
It is important that each teacher adapts this project to suit the needs and abilities of each student / group of students. The teacher decides how long the students have to research the project.The students can complete the worksheet in Word format. This will require the student to enter their name and class details. On completion, or at any stage, the student can save the Word document into their personal folder and print. The student can also open the PDF format of the worksheet and prints the page. The student proceeds to complete the hard copy as a revision/homework exercise. Project prerequisites This project requires students to have some
experience in: In
addition the teacher and the student followed ‘Guidelines for use
of the Internet’ as required by the Department of Education
and Science (NCTE, 1998), The National Centre for Technology
in Education, Students should also know How to download images from websites Additional Information The aims and objectives of the site are listed here. Information on Leaving Certificate Applied is here Click here to download the Leaving Certificate Applied ICT module - PDF (239KB) Click here to download the Chief Examiner's Report for LCA ICT Voc. Specialism 2002 Click here to learn more about the Special Needs Web links to useful resources for ICT and LCA are provided here. Please note that all sites listed are external . The author takes no responsibility for the content displayed on these sites. Worksheets and interactive quizzes relating to ICT resources for LCA students here . Finally, I hope you find this webquest, as an effective teaching method and fun to use with your students! Good Luck ! |