World Wide Web Group Project

Goal:

To locate sites on the World Wide Web (WWW) that help answer eight questions central to the first unit of the course.

Steps:

(1) Searching. Using Alta Vista or other search engines, find sites that help answer the eight questions.

(2) Listing. Create an annotated list of the sites that can be read by a word processor or web browser.

(3) Answering. Write brief answers to the questions, referring to the information in the web sites, and submit both an electronic copy by email and a hard copy in person.

Details:

(1) Searching for WWW sites. Students will be taught how to use WWW search engines in class. Each group will determine how to share the work involved in locating and annotating sites. Because each group has about eight members to answer eight questions, one obvious strategy would be to have each member research one question. Many other alternatives are possible, however. For example, your group could divide into subgroups of two, three, or four persons, all of whom research the same two, three, or four questions. Class time will be provided for groups to meet to decide how to share the workload.

However a group decides to divide the search task, all group members should keep each other posted regularly on how the search process is going. This can be done by email or, possibly, directly from the web browser. Eventually, when the First Class communication software is installed, groups will be able to post notes to their group's folder for a continuous record of discussion. I expect group members to help individuals who are having difficulties.

Your group will decide how often to meet in person in addition to electronic conferencing. I will provide some class time for in-person group meetings during the first three weeks of the course. After that you must arrange for additional in-person group meetings outside of class.

(2) Creating an annotated list of sites. Through electronic and/or in-person discussions, your group will settle upon a final list of sites relevant to the eight questions. You must have at least one site per question, but listing more than one site reflects industriousness and may help your grade for the project. Don't overdo though; listing too many sites will be too much work for your group and for those of us who will read your list.

To annotate means to provide a very brief description of what is found at the site. The descriptions should be just long enough to tell a reader what can be found at the site. Two to four sentences will often be sufficient. Again, the group will decide who writes these descriptions. You might decide to divide the writing evenly, or you might decide that those who spent less time searching for sites will do more writing, or whatever your group wants to do.

The end result of the writing will be a single document that is the product of the entire group's searching and writing. The document should be produced with a word processor such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or Clarisworks, all which exist in both Macintosh and IBM-compatible versions. KEEP THE DOCUMENT SIMPLE: do not use special characters, fonts, boldface, italics, underlining, centering, or tab stops. These features do not always translate well when documents are emailed or read by a word-processor different from the one used to create the document. Save the document as a plain text file (all word-processors have this capability).

Only one copy of your groups's annotated list needs to be emailed to the instructor. These lists will be collated and published on the WWW as our class's contribution to future introductory psychology classes.

Please understand that, although your group's list is a course requirement, your grade will not be based on the annotated list per se. Rather, each individual student's answers to the eight questions will determine his or her grade.

(3) Answering the questions. Your answers to the eight questions should be produced electronically so that you can email your answers to the instructor (see instructions about creating a plain text document above). You should also print out a hard copy to deliver in person. Please turn in all eight answers at the same time in one document.

Your answers should be only long enough to address each question. Remember, I must read nearly 200 of these papers. None of the questions has just one absolutely correct answer. Some answers to the questions can be found in our textbook and in my lectures, but your answers should refer to the information in the sites your group located. You will be graded on the thoughtfulness of your answers.