Program Links Internet, Learning

A program that helps teachers and students learn to use the Internet as an educational tool is gaining momentum under the sponsorship of the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

WebFair coordinators Alice Clausing (left) and Juliette Fox.

The university took over the Wisconsin WebFair program from UW-Extension last year and is working to reach teachers and students throughout the state with its annual Wisconsin WebFair competition and summer institute.

Alice Clausing, outreach program manager at UW-Stout, said it made sense for Stout to take over the program, since the Menomonie campus is technology-oriented. UW-Stout is known as the “laptop university” because it now requires new students to have a laptop computer.

“We feel this is the wave of the future. It’s about education via the Internet,” Clausing said of WebFair.

Students and schools have until February or March every year to enter the statewide competition of Web pages used for education, from kindergarten through college. Winners are announced in April.

The program also includes a Web Fair Summer Institute for students and teachers to demonstrate their projects, learn from each other, and explore new options for tying the Internet to the curriculum and developing creative Web page design. The three-day institute features presenters from Web design firms.

The Wisconsin WebFair is modeled after the traditional science fair. Each student’s academic work is displayed on the Internet. Any topic used for a class can become an entry.

There have been four annual WebFair contests. The goals are:

• To understand the Internet as an educational tool.
  
• To learn the Web production process.
  
• To foster unlimited creative thinking and problem-solving.
  
• To promote team work.
  

As you would expect, registration for WebFair is online, and the program’s Web site is filled with information about the competition and resources to help teachers and students develop innovative Web pages.

Last year, more than 60 Web pages were entered into the competition, and more than 500 students were involved in developing those pages, Clausing said.

Each Web entry is tied to classroom curriculum, said Juliette Fox, a UW-Stout lecturer and co-director of the WebFair Summer Institute.

One of this year’s winning entries is called “History Through Architec-ture” and was created by Ellyn Thibodeau's 4th-grade class at Sparta Meadowview Intermediate School. The class took digital photos of historical buildings in Sparta, conducted research, and posted the photos and information on a community Web site. It includes a PowerPoint presentation. The site is at: http://www.spartan.org/meadowview
/intermediate/architecture/index.html.

Another winner was put together by West Allis 4th-graders Frances Thomas, Callie Abing, and Heather Schaal, who are in Julie Stringer’s class at Walker School. They created a site focusing on the Fire Department’s Survive Alive House. The purpose of the site, they wrote, is “to show people what we learned at the Survive Alive House and in school.” The site is at: http://www.schoolinks.net/walker_web_weavers/Survive
Alive Page/walker_survive_alive.htm.

Fox said Web entries include everything from research projects, science experiments, travel journals, and informational pages.
“This is a way for teachers to re-evaluate how they are teaching,” Fox said. With Internet projects, she said, teachers can empower students to use technology to be more creative and flexible in how they learn.

Fox said she is working on a related new project called Wisconsin Web Weavers, or WWW Clubs, which would develop Web design clubs in schools throughout the state, but funding is an issue.

Currently, the program is funded largely through a grant from the UW-Stout Nakatani Center for Learning Technology Services, but the future of that money is uncertain.

Fox and Clausing said the WebFair, Summer Institute and WWW Club programs need a more secure base of funding. They are actively soliciting grant opportunities, business sponsorships, and teacher volunteers.

“We would be happy to hear from any teachers who would like to volunteer or give us input into what types of programs they would like to see us develop,” Clausing said.

Provided funding can be secured, she said, “The sky’s the limit.”