Progress 09/15/05 to 09/14/07
Outputs
Web-Based Agriculture-MO accomplished the established objectives. Objective one created a teacher panel to review the twenty-five existing agricultural webquests hosted at www.mofb.org/webquest. Educators representative of Kindergarten-Grade 12 met to review age appropriateness for each task, child safe web-links and learning standards for each topic. Recommendations were made to enhance some topics. The second objective was accomplished by creating new webquests and twelve virtual field trips. The field trip topics include harvesting, spraying and irrigation; animal agriculture; new technologies in agriculture; livestock auctions; and wildlife habitants posted on the WebQuest Index Page. Objective three aligned each webquest submission with the Missouri Show-Me Standards and the National Learning Standards allowing broader usage. Objective four was accomplished by creating additional webquest for grades 8-12. Objective five made the program viable for students in the
English as a Second Language program through clear illustrations and virtual field trips. Objective six included the oversite of the Project Director and Co-Project Directors to review each submission for agricultural accuracy and proper alignment with the learning standards. In order to accomplish objective seven, the program was showcased through an exhibit at the Missouri State Teachers Assocation (MSTA) Meeting, November 3-4, 2005 and November 16-17, 2006. Teachers were introduced to this program through an on-line demonstration. Librarians and School Resource Personnel experienced the program while attending the Missouri Association of School Librarians Conference (MASL), April 23-24, 2006 and April 15-16, 2007. By request from the 2007 organizers, an exhibitor seminar was added. The program was included as a workshop at the 2007 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference, June 7, New Orleans, LA, and the Missouri Vocational Educators Conference, July 29. Fourteen teacher
workshops held across the state have reached over 400 educators. Objective eight was accomplished through printing postcards, posters and other appropriate materials for workshop presentations and exhibiting to promote the website. Objective nine found this information being shared through county Farm Bureau leaders, with the Missouri Department of Agriculture, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and commodity organizations. This expanded base created a greater interest both from the agricultural and educational community. The installation of NetTracker brought objective ten to fruition creating quantifiable data regarding the frequency of usage and favorite pages. It further provides insight into topics to develop and those that are not being visited so that an assessment can be made regarding continuation of that specific title. The final objective to promote the important role of agriculture in our personal lives, society, economy, environment, National heritage and
National security remains a continuous challenge within agriculture. This program provides a venue to enhance this understanding in the educational community.
PRODUCTS: As a result of Web-Based Agriculture-MO 2005-45077-03314 twenty-two new agricultural webquests have been created for inclusion at www.mofb.org/webquest. These new titles include Investigating Insects; We Have the Best Food in the Nation; A Sprawling Issue; AgCiting Career Decisions; Pumpkins; The Wide Open Prairie; National Agriculture Day; I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream for Ice Cream!; Let's Go to the Fair; Fun with Forestry; Saving the Soil; Farming the Future; The Rice Paddies; Agriculture and Mythology; Too Many Pumpkins; The Three Little Pigs; Weather Disasters; Dust Bowl Memories; A Bird Flu Journey; Aquaculture; Christmas Trees; and Meat Goats. Additionally, vitual field trips were created on twelve topics and are available from the WebQuest Index Page. Topics for the field trips include crop harvesting, spraying and irrigation; animals (sheep, cattle, horses and turkeys); new technologies in agriculture; livestock auctions; wildlife habitants and sheep
shearing.
OUTCOMES: The installation of NetTracker allowed the usage of this website to be quantified. Since 2005, there have been a total of 51,699 visits with 101,587 pages viewed. This includes 68 average daily visits; 479 average weekly visits and 2,078 average monthly visits. The highest volume day of the week is Tuesday and the time of day with the most traffic is 1 p.m.-2:00 p.m. October 2006 was recorded as the highest volume month. The top ten pages viewed are the WebQuest Index; Egg to Chick: Grades 3-5; Peanuts; My Pyramid 2005; Corn; Black History Month; Egg to Chick: K-2; My Pyramid-Veggies; WebQuest Virtual Agricultural Field Trips; and Baa Baa Black Sheep. In addition to visits from Missouri, the reports show repeated visitors from Massachusetts; Washington; Texas; Ontario, Canada; and California. Requests for additonal information have been received from around the world.
DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: Efforts to share information about this new resource to enhance agricultural literacy include exhibiting at the Missouri State Teachers Assocation (MSTA) Meeting, November 3-4, 2005 and November 16-17, 2006. Each year, teachers were introduced to this program through an on-line demonstration allowing them to access topics to determine the value for classroom usage. Librarians and School Resource Personnel experienced the program while attending the Missouri Association of School Librarians Conference (MASL), April 23-24, 2006 and April 15-16, 2007. By request from the organizers, Agricultural WebQuest was a topic for one of the exhibitor seminars at the 2007 conference. This program was also presented at the 2007 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference, June 7, New Orleans, LA and at the Missouri Vocational Educators (MVE) Conference, July 29. Fourteen teacher workshops have been held across the state reaching over 400 educators with this resource.
The website continues to appear in Farm Bureau and commodity organization publications as well as teacher resource materials across the state.
FUTURE INITIATIVES: Based upon reports from NetTracker, this is a viable program that should remain active. Current webquests will be reviewed regularly to determine appropriateness of each topic and child-safe links with accurate agricultural messages. Should additional funding become available, a teacher panel will be established to review the materials for educational viability and creating new topics for inclusion. As educational mandates and focuses change, the agricultural webquests will be tweaked allowing them to remain a valuable resource for the classroom.
Impacts
The NetTracker data, as noted above, documents the usage of the program. A representative sampling of teacher comments follow: 'wow! what a great one-stop resource to enhance studies across the curriculum to include agriculture'; 'I wish I had known about this resource when I did a unit earlier this school year'; 'thanks for taking the lead in creating such a wonderful selection of topics to assist educators'; and 'will this still be on-line when I do my embrology project next year (2008). I loved taking the students to this webquest and let them journal the growth of the egg into a chicken'. Many teachers expressed interest in the product while visiting the exhibits at both the Missouri State Teachers Association Meeting and Missouri Association of School Librarians but were taken aback upon finding that the webquests were available on-line at no cost.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
|
Progress 09/15/05 to 09/15/06
Outputs
Web-Based Agriculture Classes-MO 2005-45077-03314 is on track to accomplish the objectives established for this project. Eight classroom educators met July 19-20,2006, on the Missouri State University Campus to review the current WebQuest site and develop additional topics for inclusion. This panel represented a geographic and grade level cross-section to expand the program's focus. They were joined by Project Director Diane Olson and Co-Project Directors Dr. Lyndon and Barbara Irwin. The agricultural WebQuest units are available at www.mofb.org/webquest. Each participating educator evaluated the quest, links, evaluation rubrics, teacher page and learning standards for the available topics offering recommendations for refreshing and/or strengthening. Additionally, each participant created a minimum of one new topic for inclusion. The new WebQuest bring topics to advanced grade levels and expand the agricultural base. An exhibit at the Missouri State Teachers
Association Meeting, November 3-4, 2005 and the Missouri Association of School Librarians, April 23-24, 2006, provided educators with information about this program and how to utilize technology to enhance agricultural literacy. Eight teacher workshops have been conducted across the state to showcase this program. Every effort is being made to promote this project through educator meetings, county Farm Bureau volunteers and leading agricultural groups.
PRODUCTS: The following titles have been posted to the mofb.org/webquest site since September, 2005: Investigating Insects; We Have the Best Food in the Nation! A Sprawling Issue; 'Ag-Citing' Career Decisions; Pumpkins; The Wide Open Prairie; National Agriculture Day; I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream for Ice Cream! The following topics awaiting review for appropriate learning standards will be posted soon: Let's Go to the Fair! Fun with Forestry; Saving the Soil; Farm for the Future; The Rice Paddies; Agriculture and Mythology; Too Many Pumpkins! The Three Little Pigs;
OUTCOMES: Agricultural WebQuests have provided educators and students a unique, web-based learning opportunity. Utilizing technology, agricultural messages are infused into the classroom curriculum. Each WebQuest is well researched to include accurate agricultural information while aligning with the state and National learning standards. Educators learned about the project through exhibits at conferences including the Missouri State Teachers Association Meeting (MSTA), November 3-4, 2005 and the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL), April 23-24, 2006. The NetTracker installed on the website allows documentation of traffice to the program. Through August, 2006, 23,256 visits were reported to 46,866 pages. This includes an average of 1,441 visits per month, 332 per week and 47 per day. Anecdotal comments from educators support the usefullness of this program.
DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The agricultural WebQuest are available at www.mofb.org/webquest. Each completed topic contains necessary resources for educators to include agricultural concepts in the classroom. Educators are learning about this valuable program through a variety of methods. A network of County Farm Bureau volunteers were trained to deliver information about the program to local educators. An announcement of this project was included in five Farm Bureau publications including a four-paged color insert in the July issue of Show Me Magazine. This publicity has netted requests for teacher workshops or additional information about the program. Eight teacher workshops have been held across the state. Exhibits at statewide educator events promote this valuable resource for educators. These include an exhibit at the Missouri State Teachers Association Meeting (MSTA), November 3-4, 2005, St. Louis and the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL), April 23-24, 2006. These
well attended meetings provided an opportunity to interact with educators about the program and have the on-line capability to preview the topics.
FUTURE INITIATIVES: Summer 2007 will focus upon development of topics that better serve English as Second Language (ESL) students. Although current topics and video clips are appropriate and can interface with this program, additional units will enhance this learning opportunity for ESL students. This strategy will be an effective method for students to successfully acquire language while learning about agriculture. Additional topics for grades 8-12 will be added to further extend the program to upper grade levels. This will amplify the audience for these web-based, cross-curricular activities while utilizing technology to enhance agricultural literacy. Continuing to enhance educator and student awareness of the important role of agriculture and its influence on our personal lives, society, economy, environment, National heritage and National security is embedded in this project. An increasing number of districts are being awarded E-Mint grants bringing additional computers and
training to the school. A meeting is scheduled with the statewide E-Mints coordinator to determine ways to work together for mutual benefit.
Impacts
WebQuest was launced April 1, 2005. Results for the NetTracker on-line counter found that in the first year, 23,256 visits were made to 46,866 pages on the site. Of the visits, 19,533 stayed on the website for a period of time. An average of 1,441 visits were made per month, 332 per week and 46 per day. Since WebQuest is available 24/7, teachers can access it to make classroom preparations or preview for use within the classroom. The tracking system reports that the highest demand occured between 1:00-2:00 p.m. Tuesday was the most frequently used day to access the program. March 2005 and 2006 were the two highest trafficed months. The most popular webquests are Egg to Chick (Grade 3-5) and Egg to Chick (Grade K-2). Many classrooms conduct their embryology projects during this time, creating a coorelation between the month and the selected topic. Aligning the topics with both the Missouri Show Me Standards and the National Learning Standards created a program that is
equally accessible and valuable to other states. NetTracker documents regular visits from other states with Virginia and California being the most frequent visitors. WebQuest has proven an effective method of reaching students with agricultural messages. The thorough preparation of each agricultural topic provides teachers with background information, additional resources, appropriate literature connections, downloadable work sheets as well as the on-line quests. In total, this project enhances agricultural literacy while utilizing the technology available to the classroom.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
|