As I mentioned in one of last week's posts, Filamentality allows you to create one of five different formats. Briefly, these are: Hotlists, Multimedia Scrapbooks, Treasure Hunts, Subject Samplers and WebQuests.
Today, I am going to give you a little explanation about what each of these different formats is and direct you to two examples of each.
1. Hotlists. A Hotlist is really just a web page that has a list of internet sites. After each link, there can be a brief description of what is on that page or why it is a good/appropriate resource. The Filamentality folks say that Hotlists are handy to save students from hours of rather fruitless searching. By starting with the Hotlist, the students will be using only approved and valuable resources. See a simple example of a Hotlist, or a more complicated Hotlist.
2. Multimedia Scrapbook. In this case, all the links are to multimedia resources (photographs, maps, sound clips, etc.). It is called a Scrapbook, because in this format, after viewing the resources, students are instructed to select those that appeal to them and they put these into their own "scrapbook" on the topic. Again, there is a simple Scrapbook example and a more complicated Scrapbook.
3. Treasure Hunt. A treasure hunt is similar to a Hotlist but instead of just having description of each site, there are also questions. These questions can be answered by looking at the content of the linked sites. Again, I have two examples for you, both a simple and a more sophisticated one.
4. Subject Sampler. Sort of a beefed-up Treasure Hunt. Rather than only covering fact-based questions like Treasure Hunts, Subject Samplers also have a section for students to write about how they feel or react to the topic. Subject Samplers are good for topics that are not just factual, but where emotion and personal opinion come into play. Here is the simple site and here is the more professional one.
5. WebQuests. As we know, WebQuests typically are fairly complex activities which are likely to involve multiple perspectives, group work and a culminating project. Because we all explored WebQuests recently, I am not linking any examples of them.
Now that you have been introduced to all five of the Filamentality Formats, what do you think of them? Which of these formats do you think you would be most likely to use or recommend to teachers? Do you see a use for each of the five formats, or would you lump some of them together if you were redesigning Filamentality?
Reference:
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/formats.html
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2 comments:
A blog post is far more engaging for students than any of filamentality! I am struck by how I don't even want to read the content (which may very well have value) because of the uninteresting interface. Sorry Natalie for dumping on your topic!!
Natalie,
Honestly, many of these resources look and sound very similar. As you said, a hotlist is just a list of internet sites, a treasure hunt is similar to a hotlist, and a subject sampler is a “beefed-up” treasure hunt. I like the role that aspects of Filamentality can play in the classroom but instead of these five sort-of different applications, wouldn’t it be best to develop one design that could do a little of all of these things? I think that would be the most useful for teachers and students. A resource that provided a list of content-based internet resources, photos, sound clips, and maps, as well as content-based questions and opportunities for students to respond to the materials they are viewing would be much more valuable than a resource that only provided one of these applications. I guess my answer would be that I’m in favor of lumping these together into one super resource rather than utilizing each of the five formats for different purposes.
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