Filamentality: Treasure Hunt

The Filamentality web site will help you spin pieces of the Internet into your own online learning activities.  Instead of sending your students to look for information, (and hope they find it) you provide them with the sites they need to match your learning goals. They will spend their time learning rather than searching.

Treasure Hunts are online worksheets that go a step further to allow students to synthesize what they have learned and shape it into a broader understanding of the big picture. There are four main parts: Introduction, Questions, Internet Resources, and the Big Question.

Examples:
Visit Indiana
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dinosaur Treasure Hunt

Let's get started:
Filamentality 2.0
Start a New Topic

Introduction- You can use the general introduction that is given on the Filamentality web page and alter it to fit your treasure hunt, or you can make up your own. Remember to keep the introduction interesting and brief.

Internet Resources- The web page gives you a nice orderly format for adding links. It is very easy to delete links later that you decide not to use. This section can be time consuming, but selecting the right search engines can make this task much easier. When adding links you can just copy the URL right from the web page and paste it on to the Filamentality site to save time.

Search Engines:
The site offers many different search engines, the ones that I have found particularly helpful for lower elementary are:
KidsClick!
Ask Jeeves for Kids!
Yahooligans!

Graphics:
As I visit the various sites that I have selected I drag and drop any graphics that I think might be useful on to a page in composer for later use. Other places to look for graphics if you plan on enhancing your hunt later in Composer are:
AltaVista- use the image tab
School Related WEB Graphic Images
Beautifying Your Pages

Questions- Once you have your links you start to create your hunt. The Filamentality site makes it very easy for you to visit each site again and decide on a question for that site. When you finish your questions the site gives you the option of scrambling the order of the links so that the answer for the first question isn't always found in the first link, the answer to the second question on the second link, etc. by merely clicking in the appropriate box.

Big Question- Here is your chance to take learning beyond the worksheet stage and support your students' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Create an activity in which you students can apply what they have learned which fits into your curriculum.

The Filamentality site allows you to place your Treasure Hunt on their site by merely clicking on the options. You can also update the Treasure Hunt once it is posted, or remove it from the web site.