Kambouri, Maria

Mellar, Harvey

English

Institute of Education EPrints

23Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004
ICT
In an earlier NRDC ‘Effective Practice’ project on
applying ICT in teaching literacy, numeracy and lan-
guage (1), we recommended that:
 tutors should explicitly consider why they are using
ICT and should match how they use the technolo-
gy to their teaching aims
 teaching should address the changing nature of lit-
eracies in the digital age
 a wider range of technologies should be explored
 there should be more experimentation with a range
of teaching styles, and in particular more use of
collaborative work around ICT
 more attention should be given to the range of
learning styles and how ICT might be used to
address these
 the issue of how and when to teach ICT skills should
be addressed more explicitly.
In the first year of our current project, we have been
working with a team of nine practitioner-researchers
to implement these recommendations. Over the next
six months we will evaluate these examples in a series
of trials. This article describes three examples of the
work we have been doing, based on written accounts
from the tutors whose work is described.
WebQuests
Cathy Clarkson, a lecturer in ESOL at Dewsbury
College, has been developing the use of WebQuests (2)
with ESOL learners. Bernie Dodge at San Diego State
University, who invented the concept, defines a
WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity in which
some or all of the information that learners interact
with comes from resources on the internet. Short term
WebQuests (say one to three class periods) are about
knowledge acquisition and integration, where a learn-
er has to grapple with a significant amount of new
information and then make sense of it. Longer term
WebQuests (say between a week and a month in dura-
tion) are more about extending and refining knowl-
edge; a learner has to analyse a body of knowledge,
transform it in some way, and demonstrate an under-
standing of the material by creating something that
others can respond to.
Cathy started by using an already existing single page
WebQuest about Oxford, providing tasks and links to
various sites related to Oxford. This basic WebQuest
also provided a model for the learners to follow in
order to build their own WebQuests later. This task
helped learners to develop good scanning skills.
Next, a more advanced WebQuest was used in which
the learners had to delve much more deeply into each
site and began to develop their navigation and reading
skills.
Finally, learners developed their own WebQuest
about learning English. Students had to think about
their own learning, providing links to sites and quizzes
that they liked. This encouraged learners to search the
“Teaching should address the changing nature of literacies in the digital age.
Harvey Mellar and Maria Kambouri describe some 
examples of their research into integrating ICT in teaching 
literacy, numeracy and language
WebQuests, m-learning
and CyberLabs 
Introducing WebQuests with
ESOL learners
Cathy Clarkson describes how she
has used WebQuest at Entry Level
1 and Level 2.
A WebQuest is "an inquiry-oriented activi-
ty in which some or all of the information
that learners interact with comes from
resources on the Internet" (1). It has revi-
talised how I use the internet in the class-
room.
My second year of teaching a Level 2 CALL
(Computer Assisted Language Learning)
class gave me a first opportunity to run an
intervention study using WebQuests.
Before this I had used the internet with
the students for obtaining information, but
had had to spend time teaching learners
how to use search engines efficiently.
Even Level 2 students found this difficult,
especially when the more obvious key
words wouldn’t reveal useful sites. A lot of
time was spent ‘surfing’ rather than
focusing on the task. Last year I used
WebQuests in two more successful inter-
vention studies, one with a Level 2 ESOL
group and one with an Entry 1 ESOL class, 
A WebQuest reduces unproductive ‘surf-
ing’ time in the classroom as the sites are
provided by the tutor. As a result it
becomes an excellent tool that utilises the
positive aspects of the internet (a wealth
of real-world material) whilst removing
one of the more negative aspects (a
seemingly endless amount of unstruc-
tured, uncatalogued material).
International Food
I was very impressed by the success of the
CALL intervention. It took the form of
three different kinds of internet-based
tasks, culminating in a WebQuest built
using the aclearn toolkit (2) titled
‘International Food’ (3). The task was to
research a topic on international food,
prepare a PowerPoint presentation and
present it to an invited audience. The 
students were introduced to the topic by
their class tutor, using the WebQuest 
displayed on a SmartBoard. When I
walked into the CALL classroom the next 
day I found all nine students in various
stages of logging on, viewing the
WebQuest and organising their group
tasks and roles. This was a far cry from
the usual start to class, which saw stu-
dent straggling in with tales of missed
buses, sick children and dogs eating their
homework. By break-time each group had
produced a short account of their topic,
initial research results and individual
roles. 
The presentations the students gave were
amazing. They gave three of the students
the confidence to volunteer to talk at the
Dewsbury College Staff Conference,
where they talked in front of 250 teachers
about how the use of ILT had improved
their English.
Online Shopping at Entry 1
I was so delighted with the success of the
Level 2 intervention that I decided to
investigate the potential with an Entry 1
group. As soon as I started researching
sites I became concerned. Suitable sites
for E1 learners are few and far between.
Trying to think of a suitable task for them,
24 Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004
ICT
internet for useful sites. The class discussed the
quizzes, their positive and negative points, which they
preferred and why different students had different
preferences. Cathy writes:
"In previous years with other students I had tried to
develop activities that allowed the learners to evaluate
sites developed for language learners but these were
often confusing and the students didn’t really under-
stand the tasks. This was the most successful and struc-
tured task that I have run."
The learners found the building of a WebQuest a
very motivating experience. Attendance improved,
students were getting to class early to get started, and
there was a great deal of interaction between learners.
m-learning
Jo Dixon-Trifonov, a lecturer in ESOL at Southampton
City College and a Learning Resource Developer at
CTAD, has been working with camera phones and
desktop computers in her teaching. The inspiration for
this work comes from her involvement with the m-
learning project (3). Mobile phones make it possible to
gather and record information outside the classroom,
whilst wireless internet and picture messaging allow
pictures, audio and text to be sent directly to a website,
so that the information can be edited and developed
later on a desktop computer.
In one project the class looked at a map of the col-
lege campus on CTAD’s mediaBoard website and iden-
tified the locations they knew. They then paired up,
chose a location they wanted to explore, and went off
to find out about it. They took photos at each location,
read notices and asked people questions, and sent the
information to the website. Later, in the classroom,
they viewed their photos on the computer, attached
them to the relevant places on the map, and discussed
what they had found out. All came back having learnt
new vocabulary and used it to write short texts to
accompany and explain their pictures.
In another project, learners investigated migration in
and out of Southampton. They roamed the town with
camera phones, looking for information. The tutor kept
the learners up to date with the group’s progress by send-
ing text messages to the whole class. They attached their
photos to a physical timeline when next back in class,and
repeated this with an activity on the mediaBoard web-
site. They wrote short texts to accompany the pictures
and turned the timeline into an informative poster about
migration in and out of Southampton.
Learners had difficulty knowing what to write to
accompany the photos and how to write in an appro-
priate style, so the tutor went on to focus on a study of
photo stories in magazines and on websites such as the
BBC’s Newsround site, looking at the language and
content of the captions that described the photos.
There were some teething problems with the tech-
nology, but learners found the use of state-of-the-art
gadgets engaging and motivating. The activities gave
“This was the most successful and structured task that I have run.
incorporating the four skills of reading,
writing, speaking and listening, also
proved difficult. I had to think carefully
about the ICT skills, English skills and the
different nature and structure of the ses-
sion. How would the students deal with
sessions that were not led by the teacher?
During the first three weeks of internet-
based classes the students navigated the
given sites and interacted with the infor-
mation. They presented information to the
class, firstly from written notes (here they
were nervous, spoke quietly into their
paper, and one student just refused to
come to the front.) and then from a
PowerPoint presentation. They became
more confident in working in pairs and
groups and I was feeling more confident
about standing back and not supporting
immediately, giving them time to figure it
out for themselves. 
A WebQuest was built titled ‘Online
Shopping’ (4). Each group was given a set
of photos from which they were to make
up the characters in a family. This family
had inherited a house and an amount of
money. The task was to research the given
sites on the WebQuest and present to the
class how each family spent the money. 
The results were remarkable. For two
whole lessons I was able to make compre-
hensive observation notes and chat to the
bi-lingual support worker as the students
needed minimal support in their groups.
When it came to giving the presentations,
each student in each group spoke, clear,
audible, facing the front, and looking 
confident. 
Enjoyment
I would definitely recommend a
WebQuest. The time spent in preparing
your first WebQuest is rewarded by having
an excellent resource which can be used
again and again, providing an environment
for students to take control of their own
learning and work collaboratively and
communicatively, even at Entry 1. Think
carefully about the task and have three or
four preparation classes so that lack of
technical skills doesn’t hinder the learn-
ing, then enjoy a motivated, enthused
group of people learning from and with
each other.
(1) Dodge, B. (1997) Some Thoughts About 
WebQuests San Diego State University 
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596/abo
ut_WebQuests.html (accessed 16 Aug 2004)
(2) http://aclresources.net/webquests/ 
(3) www.aclresources.net/pitman/index.html 
(4) www.aclresources.net/inroads/index.html 
25Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004
ICT
them opportunities for meaningful goal-oriented
interaction in English, through which they encoun-
tered and learnt new vocabulary, gained confidence in
asking questions in English and worked together to
write for an audience on the website.
CyberLab
Steve Harris and his colleagues at the Centre for
Astronomy and Science Education at the University of
Glamorgan have been developing an approach to inte-
grating digital technologies into basic skills teaching. (4)
"CyberLab is an experimental ICT -based course in
which learners work to improve their basic skills in
reading, writing, numeracy and ICT while exploring a
series of topics in science, technology and mathemat-
ics. These topics are made relevant to learners’ lives
through practical, technology-mediated engagement."
Classes are based around a central concept such as
‘algorithm’ or ‘communication and control’. There is
usually some direct skills instruction eg for new pro-
gramming commands, a new software package, or spe-
cialised features of Word. This prepares the way for a
practical activity which might involve the planning,
research, and carrying out of an experiment or simu-
lation, where learners (in pairs or small groups)
observe, record and discuss results.
Learners use software tools such as Logo, Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Internet Explorer; Fractal Explorer and var-
ious online interactive applications. They also use pens,
“Learners found the use of state-of-the-art gadgets engaging and motivating.
paper, calculators and measuring equipment and pro-
duce models in paper and cardboard. In the latter part of
the session, learners present their findings, with ques-
tion-and-answer sessions and whole-group discussions.
We observed one class where the tutor discussed the
Fibonacci sequence. Learners wrote the number pattern
in a table in Word, explored the existence of the
Fibonnacci sequence in naturally occurring phenomena
(such as petals) through digital photography, drew spi-
rals based on the sequence with pen and paper, and pro-
grammed a Fibonnacci sequence generator in Logo.(5)
CyberLab maintained a high level of involvement
from its learners, with no-one dropping out. Learners
showed evidence of gains in literacy, numeracy, and ICT
as well as developing skills such as planning, stepwise
problem-solving, and self-evaluation.
(1) See Mellar, H., Kambouri, M., Sanderson, M., and 
Pavlou, V. (2004) ICT and adult literacy, numeracy and 
ESOL. London: NRDC. Available at: 
www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_258.pdf
(2) For more information on WebQuests see: 
www.aclearn.net/content/toolkits/webquests/, 
(3) For more on the m-learning project see 
www.m-learning.org/
(4) For more about this work see 
case.glam.ac.uk/CASE/StaffPages/SteveHarris/SRH.html
(5) For a straightforward account of the Fibonacci 
sequence, see www.schoolnet.ca/vp-pv/amof/e_fiboI.htm 


WebQuests, m-learning and CyberLabs

UCL Discovery

23Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004ICTIn an earlier NRDC ‘Effective Practice’ project onapplying ICT in teaching literacy, numeracy and lan-guage (1), we recommended that: tutors should explicitly consider why they are usingICT and should match how they use the technolo-gy to their teaching aims teaching should address the changing nature of lit-eracies in the digital age a wider range of technologies should be explored there should be more experimentation with a rangeof teaching styles, and in particular more use ofcollaborative work around ICT more attention should be given to the range oflearning styles and how ICT might be used toaddress these the issue of how and when to teach ICT skills shouldbe addressed more explicitly.In the first year of our current project, we have beenworking with a team of nine practitioner-researchersto implement these recommendations. Over the nextsix months we will evaluate these examples in a seriesof trials. This article describes three examples of thework we have been doing, based on written accountsfrom the tutors whose work is described.WebQuestsCathy Clarkson, a lecturer in ESOL at DewsburyCollege, has been developing the use of WebQuests (2)with ESOL learners. Bernie Dodge at San Diego StateUniversity, who invented the concept, defines aWebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity in whichsome or all of the information that learners interactwith comes from resources on the internet. Short termWebQuests (say one to three class periods) are aboutknowledge acquisition and integration, where a learn-er has to grapple with a significant amount of newinformation and then make sense of it. Longer termWebQuests (say between a week and a month in dura-tion) are more about extending and refining knowl-edge; a learner has to analyse a body of knowledge,transform it in some way, and demonstrate an under-standing of the material by creating something thatothers can respond to.Cathy started by using an already existing single pageWebQuest about Oxford, providing tasks and links tovarious sites related to Oxford. This basic WebQuestalso provided a model for the learners to follow inorder to build their own WebQuests later. This taskhelped learners to develop good scanning skills.Next, a more advanced WebQuest was used in whichthe learners had to delve much more deeply into eachsite and began to develop their navigation and readingskills.Finally, learners developed their own WebQuestabout learning English. Students had to think abouttheir own learning, providing links to sites and quizzesthat they liked. This encouraged learners to search the“Teaching should address the changing nature of literacies in the digital age.Harvey Mellar and Maria Kambouri describe some examples of their research into integrating ICT in teaching literacy, numeracy and languageWebQuests, m-learningand CyberLabs Introducing WebQuests withESOL learnersCathy Clarkson describes how shehas used WebQuest at Entry Level1 and Level 2.A WebQuest is "an inquiry-oriented activi-ty in which some or all of the informationthat learners interact with comes fromresources on the Internet" (1). It has revi-talised how I use the internet in the class-room.My second year of teaching a Level 2 CALL(Computer Assisted Language Learning)class gave me a first opportunity to run anintervention study using WebQuests.Before this I had used the internet withthe students for obtaining information, buthad had to spend time teaching learnershow to use search engines efficiently.Even Level 2 students found this difficult,especially when the more obvious keywords wouldn’t reveal useful sites. A lot oftime was spent ‘surfing’ rather thanfocusing on the task. Last year I usedWebQuests in two more successful inter-vention studies, one with a Level 2 ESOLgroup and one with an Entry 1 ESOL class, A WebQuest reduces unproductive ‘surf-ing’ time in the classroom as the sites areprovided by the tutor. As a result itbecomes an excellent tool that utilises thepositive aspects of the internet (a wealthof real-world material) whilst removingone of the more negative aspects (aseemingly endless amount of unstruc-tured, uncatalogued material).International FoodI was very impressed by the success of theCALL intervention. It took the form ofthree different kinds of internet-basedtasks, culminating in a WebQuest builtusing the aclearn toolkit (2) titled‘International Food’ (3). The task was toresearch a topic on international food,prepare a PowerPoint presentation andpresent it to an invited audience. The students were introduced to the topic bytheir class tutor, using the WebQuest displayed on a SmartBoard. When Iwalked into the CALL classroom the next day I found all nine students in variousstages of logging on, viewing theWebQuest and organising their grouptasks and roles. This was a far cry fromthe usual start to class, which saw stu-dent straggling in with tales of missedbuses, sick children and dogs eating theirhomework. By break-time each group hadproduced a short account of their topic,initial research results and individualroles. The presentations the students gave wereamazing. They gave three of the studentsthe confidence to volunteer to talk at theDewsbury College Staff Conference,where they talked in front of 250 teachersabout how the use of ILT had improvedtheir English.Online Shopping at Entry 1I was so delighted with the success of theLevel 2 intervention that I decided toinvestigate the potential with an Entry 1group. As soon as I started researchingsites I became concerned. Suitable sitesfor E1 learners are few and far between.Trying to think of a suitable task for them,24 Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004ICTinternet for useful sites. The class discussed thequizzes, their positive and negative points, which theypreferred and why different students had differentpreferences. Cathy writes:"In previous years with other students I had tried todevelop activities that allowed the learners to evaluatesites developed for language learners but these wereoften confusing and the students didn’t really under-stand the tasks. This was the most successful and struc-tured task that I have run."The learners found the building of a WebQuest avery motivating experience. Attendance improved,students were getting to class early to get started, andthere was a great deal of interaction between learners.m-learningJo Dixon-Trifonov, a lecturer in ESOL at SouthamptonCity College and a Learning Resource Developer atCTAD, has been working with camera phones anddesktop computers in her teaching. The inspiration forthis work comes from her involvement with the m-learning project (3). Mobile phones make it possible togather and record information outside the classroom,whilst wireless internet and picture messaging allowpictures, audio and text to be sent directly to a website,so that the information can be edited and developedlater on a desktop computer.In one project the class looked at a map of the col-lege campus on CTAD’s mediaBoard website and iden-tified the locations they knew. They then paired up,chose a location they wanted to explore, and went offto find out about it. They took photos at each location,read notices and asked people questions, and sent theinformation to the website. Later, in the classroom,they viewed their photos on the computer, attachedthem to the relevant places on the map, and discussedwhat they had found out. All came back having learntnew vocabulary and used it to write short texts toaccompany and explain their pictures.In another project, learners investigated migration inand out of Southampton. They roamed the town withcamera phones, looking for information. The tutor keptthe learners up to date with the group’s progress by send-ing text messages to the whole class. They attached theirphotos to a physical timeline when next back in class,andrepeated this with an activity on the mediaBoard web-site. They wrote short texts to accompany the picturesand turned the timeline into an informative poster aboutmigration in and out of Southampton.Learners had difficulty knowing what to write toaccompany the photos and how to write in an appro-priate style, so the tutor went on to focus on a study ofphoto stories in magazines and on websites such as theBBC’s Newsround site, looking at the language andcontent of the captions that described the photos.There were some teething problems with the tech-nology, but learners found the use of state-of-the-artgadgets engaging and motivating. The activities gave“This was the most successful and structured task that I have run.incorporating the four skills of reading,writing, speaking and listening, alsoproved difficult. I had to think carefullyabout the ICT skills, English skills and thedifferent nature and structure of the ses-sion. How would the students deal withsessions that were not led by the teacher?During the first three weeks of internet-based classes the students navigated thegiven sites and interacted with the infor-mation. They presented information to theclass, firstly from written notes (here theywere nervous, spoke quietly into theirpaper, and one student just refused tocome to the front.) and then from aPowerPoint presentation. They becamemore confident in working in pairs andgroups and I was feeling more confidentabout standing back and not supportingimmediately, giving them time to figure itout for themselves. A WebQuest was built titled ‘OnlineShopping’ (4). Each group was given a setof photos from which they were to makeup the characters in a family. This familyhad inherited a house and an amount ofmoney. The task was to research the givensites on the WebQuest and present to theclass how each family spent the money. The results were remarkable. For twowhole lessons I was able to make compre-hensive observation notes and chat to thebi-lingual support worker as the studentsneeded minimal support in their groups.When it came to giving the presentations,each student in each group spoke, clear,audible, facing the front, and looking confident. EnjoymentI would definitely recommend aWebQuest. The time spent in preparingyour first WebQuest is rewarded by havingan excellent resource which can be usedagain and again, providing an environmentfor students to take control of their ownlearning and work collaboratively andcommunicatively, even at Entry 1. Thinkcarefully about the task and have three orfour preparation classes so that lack oftechnical skills doesn’t hinder the learn-ing, then enjoy a motivated, enthusedgroup of people learning from and witheach other.(1) Dodge, B. (1997) Some Thoughts About WebQuests San Diego State University http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596/about_WebQuests.html (accessed 16 Aug 2004)(2) http://aclresources.net/webquests/ (3) www.aclresources.net/pitman/index.html (4) www.aclresources.net/inroads/index.html 25Reflect • Issue 1 • October 2004ICTthem opportunities for meaningful goal-orientedinteraction in English, through which they encoun-tered and learnt new vocabulary, gained confidence inasking questions in English and worked together towrite for an audience on the website.CyberLabSteve Harris and his colleagues at the Centre forAstronomy and Science Education at the University ofGlamorgan have been developing an approach to inte-grating digital technologies into basic skills teaching. (4)"CyberLab is an experimental ICT -based course inwhich learners work to improve their basic skills inreading, writing, numeracy and ICT while exploring aseries of topics in science, technology and mathemat-ics. These topics are made relevant to learners’ livesthrough practical, technology-mediated engagement."Classes are based around a central concept such as‘algorithm’ or ‘communication and control’. There isusually some direct skills instruction eg for new pro-gramming commands, a new software package, or spe-cialised features of Word. This prepares the way for apractical activity which might involve the planning,research, and carrying out of an experiment or simu-lation, where learners (in pairs or small groups)observe, record and discuss results.Learners use software tools such as Logo, Word, Excel,PowerPoint, Internet Explorer; Fractal Explorer and var-ious online interactive applications. They also use pens,“Learners found the use of state-of-the-art gadgets engaging and motivating.paper, calculators and measuring equipment and pro-duce models in paper and cardboard. In the latter part ofthe session, learners present their findings, with ques-tion-and-answer sessions and whole-group discussions.We observed one class where the tutor discussed theFibonacci sequence. Learners wrote the number patternin a table in Word, explored the existence of theFibonnacci sequence in naturally occurring phenomena(such as petals) through digital photography, drew spi-rals based on the sequence with pen and paper, and pro-grammed a Fibonnacci sequence generator in Logo.(5)CyberLab maintained a high level of involvementfrom its learners, with no-one dropping out. Learnersshowed evidence of gains in literacy, numeracy, and ICTas well as developing skills such as planning, stepwiseproblem-solving, and self-evaluation.(1) See Mellar, H., Kambouri, M., Sanderson, M., and Pavlou, V. (2004) ICT and adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL. London: NRDC. Available at: www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_258.pdf(2) For more information on WebQuests see: www.aclearn.net/content/toolkits/webquests/, (3) For more on the m-learning project see www.m-learning.org/(4) For more about this work see case.glam.ac.uk/CASE/StaffPages/SteveHarris/SRH.html(5) For a straightforward account of the Fibonacci sequence, see www.schoolnet.ca/vp-pv/amof/e_fiboI.htm 

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10000703/1/Mellar_Kambouri_2004.pdf

WebQuests, m-learning and CyberLabs

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